Microsoft licenses allow users access to Office apps, such as Outlook, Word, and Excel. They also allow access to Microsoft services, such as SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and Planner. These Microsoft apps and services allow people to be productive and to collaborate in real-time in many different ways. Microsoft 365 licenses are available to our faculty, staff, and students in different tiers:

• A5 for students
• A1 for faculty and staff
• A5 for faculty and staff

The licenses will be assigned to users based on the user's affiliation with the University as recording in Banner/HR. 

For students, all will receive the A5 for student license. The A5 for Student license is similar in scope to that of the A5 for faculty license. For faculty and staff, Microsoft 365 licenses are assigned based on your employee type as it is recorded by HR. All staff with an employee type of "A", "B", or "P" are assigned an A5 license. Most staff with an employee type of "C" or "D" are assigned an A5 license. There will be some staff with an employee type of "C" or "D" that are assigned an A1 license. This is determined based on the Skill Code assigned to the user. A user with an employee type of "C" or "D" and a Skill Code of "6" or "7" will be assigned an A1 for Faculty license. All of the remaining employee types (such as H which is hourly) and all resource accounts will be assigned an A1 license. This will included people listed as "allied" or "retired". Additional information about the various employee types can be found on this HR website.

It is easy to find out which license you've been assigned. Use your browser and login to https://portal.office.com/account/. Click either "Subscriptions" in the left-side toolbar or the "View subscriptions" link in the main window. This page will show which Microsoft license has been assigned to your account.

There are some differences between the A1 and A5 licenses that are assigned to faculty and staff accounts. The A5 for Student licenses are similar to the A5 for Faculty.

Comparison of features

	A1 for Faculty	A5 for Faculty	A5 for Students
Office Apps*	Outlook Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote	Outlook Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote Publisher (PC only) Access (PC only)	Outlook Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote Publisher (PC only) Access (PC only)
Services	Exchange OneDrive SharePoint Teams Planner Sway Forms Stream Flow Power Apps Copilot with Data Protection	Exchange OneDrive SharePoint Teams Planner Sway Forms Stream Flow Power Apps Power BI Pro Bookings Intune Plan 1 for Education Copilot with Data Protection	Exchange OneDrive SharePoint Teams Planner Sway Forms Stream Flow Power Apps Bookings Intune Plan 1 for Education Copilot with Data Protection
Personal Cloud Storage	100 GB	5 TB	5 TB
Office App Installation	No personal installs	Install Office desktop apps on up to 5 PCs or Macs Install Office apps on up to 5 tablets and phones	Install Office desktop apps on up to 5 PCs or Macs Install Office apps on up to 5 tablets and phones
Additional Features	Host Teams meeting for up to 250 people	Host Teams meetings for up to 10,000 people Create calendars with Bookings for appointment scheduling Teams Phone System Teams Audio Conferencing Access to MyAnalytics	Host Teams meetings for up to 250 people Create calendars with Bookings for appointment scheduling

For an exhaustive list of what is included in each plan, see: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/office-365-platform-service-description/microsoft-365-education and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/fundamentals/licenses

Device-based licensing allows the Office 365 apps to be activated using a license that was assigned to the device instead of relying on the user having an A5 for Faculty license. This can be a solution for many users that are assigned an A1 for Faculty license but need to have access to the desktop version of the Office apps. It will not matter whether the Office apps are activated via device-based licensing or a user license as the same Office apps will be available to the user, including Publisher and Access on Windows computers. More information about device-based licensing can be found in this Office 365 KB article.

Add-on Licenses

There are two add-on licenses available in our UIUC Webstore that provide additional features to your Office 365 experience at additional cost.

Teams Premium - This license is for A1/A5 for Faculty license holders that provide a series of enhanced features for meetings, events, and Bookings.
Details about what this license covers can be found here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/enhanced-teams-experience

After these changes have been implemented you will find that some accounts that previously had an A5 for Faculty license have now been assigned the A1 for Faculty. If a department would prefer to provision an account with the A5 for Faculty license, then an upgrade can be purchased from the WebStore. This offer will incur a cost to the department and require a renewal each year. Purchases can be made for a single account or for multiple accounts. During the purchase there will be an opportunity to update a form with NETIDs to indicate which accounts should receive the upgrades. License upgrades will require a C-FOAPAL for payment, so it is suggested that departments make the purchase on behalf of their users.  

In the event your license is changed to an A1 for Faculty license any Office 365 desktop apps you've personally activated will become inactive. When using inactive Office 365 apps, you will only be able to open existing files. You will not be able to create new files or edit existing files with an inactive Office 365 app. The Office 365 desktop apps will verify your license level whenever your computer is online. When it is detected that your license can no longer activate Office 365 apps, such as Word and PowerPoint, there will be an indication that the product is unlicensed at the top of the app window.

There will also be a yellow banner underneath the app toolbars. This banner provides a warning and provides links to either activate the desktop app with an account that has an A5 license or use the web-based Office 365 apps at https://office.com.