Merge pull request #242990 from barclayn/enterprise-users-83043

staging article about the admin center

Author: denrea

articles/active-directory/enterprise-users/TOC.yml

@@ -142,7 +142,9 @@
     items:
     - name: Assign licenses to users    
       href: ../fundamentals/license-users-groups.md?context=%2fazure%2factive-directory%2fenterprise-users%2fcontext%2fugr-context
-    - name: Assign licenses to a group    
+    - name: Use Admin center to assign licenses to groups
+      href: licensing-admin-center.md
+    - name: Assign licenses to a group
       href: licensing-groups-assign.md
     - name: Resolve group license problems   
       href: licensing-groups-resolve-problems.md

articles/active-directory/enterprise-users/licensing-admin-center.md

@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+---
+title: Assign licenses to a group using the Microsoft 365 admin center
+description: How to assign licenses to groups using the Microsoft 365 admin center
+services: active-directory
+keywords: Azure AD licensing
+documentationcenter: ''
+author: barclayn
+manager: amycolannino
+
+ms.service: active-directory
+ms.subservice: enterprise-users
+ms.topic: how-to
+ms.workload: identity
+ms.date: 07/17/2023
+ms.author: barclayn
+---
+
+# Assign licenses to users by group membership using the Microsoft 365 admin center
+
+This article shows you how to use the Microsoft 365 license center to assign licenses to a group.
+
+> [!NOTE]
+> Some Microsoft services are not available in all locations. Before a license can be assigned to a user, the administrator has to specify the Usage location property on the user.
+>
+> For group license assignment, any users without a usage location specified inherit the location of the directory. If you have users in multiple locations, we recommend that you always set usage location as part of your user creation flow in Azure AD. For example, configure Azure AD Connect configuration to set usage location. This recommendation makes sure the result of license assignment is always correct and users do not receive services in locations that are not allowed.
+
+## Assign a license
+
+1. Sign in to the [Microsoft 365 admin center](https://admin.microsoft.com/) with a license administrator account. To manage licenses, the account must be a License Administrator, User Administrator, or Global Administrator.
+   
+      ![Screenshot of the Microsoft admin Center landing page](./media/licensing-admin-center/admin-center.png)
+
+1. Browse to **Billing** > **Licenses** to open a page where you can see all licenses available in your organization.
+
+      ![screenshot of portal section allowing user to select products to assign licenses](./media/licensing-admin-center/choose-licenses.png)
+
+1. Under **Licenses**, select the license that you would like to assign. 
+1. In the License details section, choose **Groups** at the top of the page.
+1. Choose **+ Assign licenses**
+1. From the **+ Assign licenses** page search for the group that you would like to use for license assignment.
+
+   ![Screenshot of portal allowing users to choose the group to use for license assignment](./media/licensing-admin-center/assign-license-group.png)
+  
+   >[!NOTE]
+   >When assigning licenses to a group with service plans that have dependencies on other service plans, they must both be assigned together in the same group, otherwise the service plan with the dependency will be disabled.
+  
+1. To complete the assignment, on the **Assign license** page, click **Assign** at the bottom of the page.
+
+   ![Screenshot of the portal section that allows you to choose assign after selecting the group](./media/licensing-admin-center/choose-assign.png)
+
+When assign licenses to a group, Azure AD processes all existing members of that group. This process might take some time depending on the size of the group.
+
+   ![Screenshot of message telling the administrator that they have assigned a license to a group](./media/licensing-admin-center/licenses-assignment-message.png)
+
+## Verify that the initial assignment has finished
+
+1. From the Admin Center, go to **Billing** > **Licenses**. Select the license that you assigned.
+
+1. On the **License details** page, you can view the status of the license assignment operation. For example, in the image show below, you can see that **Contoso marketing** shows a status of **All licenses assigned** while **Contoso human resources** shows a status of **In progress**.
+
+   ![Screenshot showing you the license assignment progress](./media/licensing-admin-center/progress.png)
+
+   [Read this section](licensing-group-advanced.md#use-audit-logs-to-monitor-group-based-licensing-activity) to learn more about how audit logs can be used to analyze changes made by group-based licensing.
+
+
+## Next steps
+
+To learn more about the feature set for license assignment using groups, see the following articles:
+
+- [What is group-based licensing in Azure Active Directory?](../fundamentals/active-directory-licensing-whatis-azure-portal.md?context=azure%2factive-directory%2fusers-groups-roles%2fcontext%2fugr-context)
+- [Identifying and resolving license problems for a group in Azure Active Directory](licensing-groups-resolve-problems.md)

articles/active-directory/enterprise-users/media/licensing-admin-center/admin-center.png

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ ms.service: active-directory
 ms.subservice: fundamentals
 ms.topic: conceptual
 ms.workload: identity
-ms.date: 08/17/2022
+ms.date: 07/11/2023
 ms.author: barclayn
 ms.reviewer: krbain
 ms.custom: "it-pro, seodec18"
@@ -24,13 +24,15 @@ Microsoft paid cloud services, such as Microsoft 365, Enterprise Mobility + Secu
 Azure AD includes group-based licensing, which allows you to assign one or more product licenses to a group. Azure AD ensures that the licenses are assigned to all members of the group. Any new members who join the group are assigned the appropriate licenses. When they leave the group, those licenses are removed. This licensing management eliminates the need for automating license management via PowerShell to reflect changes in the organization and departmental structure on a per-user basis.
 
 ## Licensing requirements
+
 You must have one of the following licenses **for every user who benefits from** group-based licensing:
 
 - Paid or trial subscription for Azure AD Premium P1 and above
 
 - Paid or trial edition of Microsoft 365 Business Premium or Office 365 Enterprise E3 or Office 365 A3 or Office 365 GCC G3 or Office 365 E3 for GCCH or Office 365 E3 for DOD and above
 
 ### Required number of licenses
+
 For any groups assigned a license, you must also have a license for each unique member. While you don't have to assign each member of the group a license, you must have at least enough licenses to include all of the members. For example, if you have 1,000 unique members who are part of licensed groups in your tenant, you must have at least 1,000 licenses to meet the licensing agreement.
 
 ## Features
@@ -43,7 +45,7 @@ Here are the main features of group-based licensing:
 
 - All Microsoft cloud services that require user-level licensing are supported. This support includes all Microsoft 365 products, Enterprise Mobility + Security, and Dynamics 365.
 
-- Group-based licensing is currently available only through the [Azure portal](https://portal.azure.com). If you primarily use other management portals for user and group management, such as the [Microsoft 365 admin center](https://admin.microsoft.com), you can continue to do so. But you should use the Azure portal to manage licenses at group level.
+- Group-based licensing is currently available through the [Azure portal](https://portal.azure.com) and through the [Microsoft Admin center](https://admin.microsoft.com/). 
 
 - Azure AD automatically manages license modifications that result from group membership changes. Typically, license modifications are effective within minutes of a membership change.