Dynamics 365 Online Licensing Changes, Oct. 2020

• Dynamics 365 Online 2020 Wave 2 arrived in Oct. 2020, introducing packaging changes that may reduce or increase cost, depending on usage.
• Project Service Automation is replaced with Project Operations, bringing new features and licensing changes.
• Other packaging changes could help reduce cost, but otherwise have little immediate impact.

Dynamics 365 packaging changes frequently, sometimes monthly, and often alters cost and use rights by combining, moving, or separating features to create new SKUs and retire older SKUs. These changes can impact current and future purchasing decisions. Consequently, procurement teams need to track these changes, understand how they impact entitlements and compliance, and plan for how the changes will affect agreements at renewal in order to control costs of using the services.

Packaging Overview

Dynamics 365 online services include numerous applications, separated into the following two major groups:

Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement is a collection of sales and customer relationship management (CRM) online service applications that run together in a customer’s tenancy, sharing a common storage infrastructure that contains databases, files, and log entries. It consists of several applications that can be used independently or as an integrated solution, primarily based on Sales, Customer Service, and Field Service applications. The service also includes numerous add-on solutions and a group of stand-alone applications that work independently or with other Dynamics 365 applications. (The new packaging details are discussed in the illustration “Customer Engagement Packaging, Oct. 2020”.)