Microsoft Office & Microsoft 365 Licensing

The article is intended for customers that are interested in building labs utilizing Microsoft Office or the Microsoft 365 (M365) cloud platform, within their Skillable Organization. Building and delivering Skillable's Microsoft 365 labs is supported by custom cloud capabilities. For a conceptual overview on how custom cloud labs work, read Introduction to Custom Cloud Labs.

Microsoft Office vs Microsoft 365 (M365)

While many think of Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 as one and the same, they are in fact 2 different product offerings from Microsoft. For Microsoft Office, Skillable can optionally provide license activation under Microsoft's SPLA program. For Microsoft 365, the licensing considerations are more nuanced as outlined in this document.

Microsoft Office is traditionally a one-time purchase that consists of what many think of as the "classic" Office applications: Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. If these types of applications are all you need, we recommend this option to keep complexity and costs low.

Microsoft 365 is a subscription that comes with premium apps like Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, and more. In an enterprise business, Microsoft 365 is traditionally what is used by employees.

Below are Skillable's current offerings for Microsoft & Microsoft 365 labs:

^* See Microsoft 365 Administration for more details

Microsoft Office

For Microsoft Office, Skillable has several offerings. The offering (or mix of offerings) selected will impact the final costs. Skillable currently offers the following Microsoft Office products:

• Microsoft Office Standard or Professional

  • 2016 / 2019 / 2021

• Office Visio Standard or Professional

• Office Project Standard or Professional

Microsoft 365 (M365)

When considering Microsoft 365 labs, often the content of the lab splits into two core subject or learning objectives:

1. Microsoft 365 Administration & Configuration

2. Microsoft 365 End User & Applications

Skillable supports both learning objectives. However, due to the need for a secure environment and the differing levels of access - the implementation and lab design for each is unique.

Microsoft 365 (M365) Administration Scenarios

Labs for Microsoft 365 Administration scenarios are about managing a Microsoft 365 tenant and generally require the M365 user to be a Global Administrator. Today, Skillable supports these lab scenarios in two ways:

1. For Microsoft Learning Partners consuming Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC), Skillable will provide students with a Microsoft-provided tenant to use.

2. For custom labs and Challenge Labs, Skillable labs require users to sign up for a Microsoft 365 Trial account.

Because users in these scenarios are provided a Global Administrator role (the highest level of access in Microsoft 365) and complete "ownership" of their tenant, there is no mechanism to restrict access and possibly malicious use by individuals. Due to this, the lab user may be required by Microsoft to provide some form of identity verification such as credit card details, multi-factor authentication (MFA), or any other mechanism.

Microsoft 365 (M365) End User Scenarios

Labs for Microsoft 365 End User scenarios are about utilizing the applications that are native to Microsoft 365 (such as Word, Excel, etc.). Skillable supports these scenarios in an automated way that removes the requirement for identity verification mechanisms (such as credit cards or MFA). Labs can be configured to use either the Web version or the Windows version of the Office Applications (we generally do not recommend the use of the Windows Applications due the applications constant updates).

The Skillable solution allows for the selection of the following M365 options today:

Access to Microsoft 365 (M365) End User Lab Profile Templates

To get access to the M365 Lab Profile templates and be able to enable this capability within your Organization please reach out to your sales representative.  To provide accurate costs for M365 access, your sales representative will work with you to better understand your exact needs and requirements.  If you are unsure who your sales representative is, please contact Skillable customer support

Configuring Microsoft 365 (M365) End User Lab Profiles

When an Organization has been enabled for M365 labs access, Skillable will provide a Lab Profile template that is configured to provide the M365 environment requested and a Windows 11 VM.  As a Lab Developer the VM can be modified and the instructions can be updated, as normal in Studio, to reflect the objectives of the hands-on-lab.  If you would like assistance of have the lab content created for you please contact us and our Professional Services team can provide all the environment and content creation support required.

Limits & Cost Considerations

Skillable provided Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 licensing are both offered in a Concurrent User model. Concurrency can be defined as the count of "something" active the same time.

Concurrent users are currently offered in increments of 15 or 50 (ex: 15, 30, 50, 100, etc.).

When looking to begin using Skillable Microsoft Office or Microsoft 365 licensing, you will need to calculate the number of concurrent lab users (learners, instructors, and lab developers) in total you will require to support across all of the labs. This will be used to limit the number of simultaneous lab instances and determine the pricing. The number of licenses can be increased at any time, but are an annual commitment.

Example Concurrency Limit:

The below table assumes a Concurrent User limit of 50.

Other Software Licensing

Skillable can also supply Microsoft Windows licensing on request. For any additonal software utilized in your labs, it is the responsibility of the lab builder to ensure any licensing requirements are met. Learn more about software licensing.