Fundamentals License Change

[llennon]

If you check your admin console, billing, subscriptions, you will probably see that the new license structure has been pushed out.  The notification was sent out in November of 2024 and last night seemed to be a pretty large rollout.

Remember that even if you purchase Education Plus or any other paid for level, users have to have a fundamentals license also. 

SKU's have changed, so be careful when using third party tools to assign,

If you need more licenses, you have to contact Google support, not your reseller.

This move is being done as many EDU domains suspend users but do not remove licenses and this is not sustainable for Google.  

[steve]

Yep, just showed up for us. Thanks for the heads-up!

[sampapa]

Seeing this as well.  Thanks for the heads up!

[Olger]

How does this affect Google Drive and Gmail data? If a suspended user doesn't have a fundamental license any more, is their data in Drive and Gmail still retained? If not, we'll have to move that data onto a shared drive if we want to keep it.

[llennon]

There is a new license called “archive”. If you have suspended users in the past to maintain any of their data and their shares. You can now archive them. The data remains in vault and files or folders that are shared are still shared. 

This will probably mean an adjustment to the OU structure. Archive license application frees up the fundamentals license. 

Hope that helps. 

[Olger]

Hmm. I can see the archive license, but I can't assign them. Not even to individual users. If this was done last night, I think I'll leave things for a few weeks to settle, and then have a look if I can assign those archive licenses.

We move suspended users into a separate OU already, so assigning an archive license shouldn't be too big a drama. We've got Edu plus, and because that costs money we have only roughly the number of licenses to cover our student count. Which means removing Plus licenses when students leave (and staff too). Currently we do that with GAT Flow, whenever a student or staff is suspended, their license gets automatically removed. Wish Google had an automatic license unassign, that would make things easier. Move an account into a suspended OU and licenses get automatically removed (and can now be assigned an archive license).

[Olger]

Noted on the SKU's btw.

[JantechNJ]

I second "...Wish Google had an automatic license unassign."  We also have always had an OU for archived accounts. I will be testing whether we can auto-assign that OU an archived license and whether that will auto-remove a Plus license.

[kaned]

I think until Google releases a method to unassign licenses by OU, we will need to rely on GAM.

I have to admit that I'm a little frustrated with all of the changes to licenses and that this is not a feature that has been released yet.  It almost feels like a grab from districts who don't have the expertise to set something up themselves to help automate this.

I love you Googs, but this is really lacking!

[Dean_Mantz]

@JantechNJ I sat through a webinar hosted by CDW/Amplified IT yesterday. They have a free option for their customers to help manage the licenses. The link with details is https://amplifiedlabs.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500011643122-CDW-Education-Tool-Licensing-Works...

[llennon]

Was there too.  One thing to consider with this tool is you have to turn off your autoassign rules in the admin console and then consider how you want to distribute licenses.  With this tool, I recommend looking at the contact form and then at your domain and determine how you want to set things up.

[Kim_Nilsson]

Well, if you move the users to an /archived OU, then you will only need to disable auto-assign on that OU. Then use the API tool of your choice to remove the licence.

[JantechNJ]

Thank you for sharing. Trafera has their Google Admin briefing today. I'm hoping they have something similar. 

[llennon]

Is their briefing open to the public?

[JantechNJ]

Yes - I find them to be very helpful. They also shared a link to their recorded webinar focusing on the new Google licensing structure and best practices for managing them in. It was recorded in February and I haven't watched it yet but I'm sure they'll have some recommendations for account management. 

[SGoodwin]

What I find lacking in the documentation to date is a spelled out process for modification where

GCDS now for a new user
must assign both a fundamentals license for staff and students
a specific plus license for staff or students

Then when the account is disabled and GCDS suspends the user

I require the following
removal of fundamentals license
removal of plus license
supply of archive license

Historically GCDS has been unable to modify suspended users I'm curious as to if this has changed.

I understand the new archive license model I don't understand how to deploy it using GCDS even after reviewing all your documentaiton

[Kim_Nilsson]

GCDS should be the one that suspends the user, and, of course, manage the licences before suspending. Anything else would be silly. If it doesn't, you need to give fedback to the GCDS team.