MS-102 Exam Alignment
MS-102

Objective 1.3 — Manage Microsoft 365 subscriptions and licences: assign and remove licences, manage service plans within a licence, configure group-based licensing, and use PowerShell to manage licence assignments at scale.

• Know that Usage Location must be set before a licence can be assigned
• Assign licences per-user via Licenses and apps tab, or in bulk via Billing → Licences
• Disable individual service plans within a licence (e.g. disable Intune but keep Exchange)
• Configure group-based licensing — requires Entra ID P1; nested groups are not supported
• Use Get-MgSubscribedSku to check available seats via PowerShell

Exam Tip: Two of the most tested licence facts: (1) Usage Location must be set before licence assignment — missing this is the most common licence assignment failure. (2) Group-based licensing requires Entra ID P1 and does not follow nested group membership.

📋 Understanding Your License Subscriptions

M365 Admin Center › Billing › Licenses

Microsoft 365 admin center
|
Billing › Licenses

🏠 Home

Users

Active users

Billing

Licenses

Subscriptions

Licenses

SubscriptionTotalAssignedAvailableStatus

Microsoft 365 E3 ①30024753Active

Microsoft 365 E5 ②25223Active

Exchange Online Plan 150482Active

👤 Method 1 — Assigning via User Properties

M365 Admin Center › Users › Active users › [Select user] › Licenses and apps

1. 1 Go to Users → Active users and click the name of the user you want to modify.
2. 2 In the user panel that slides in from the right, select the Licenses and apps tab.
3. 3 Under Select location, choose the user's country. This is mandatory — licenses are region-controlled and a user without a Usage Location set cannot be assigned a license.
4. 4 Check the box next to the license you want to assign. Expand the license to enable or disable individual service plans if needed.
5. 5 Click Save changes. The license is provisioned within a few minutes.

🏷️ Method 2 — Assigning via Billing > Licenses

1. 1 Go to Billing → Licenses and click the subscription name (e.g. Microsoft 365 E3).
2. 2 Click Assign licenses at the top of the page.
3. 3 In the search box, type the name or email of each user to assign. You can add multiple users at once.
4. 4 Review the service plans that will be enabled. Toggle off any services the user should not have access to.
5. 5 Click Assign to confirm.

🔧 Service Plans Within a License

Every Microsoft 365 license is actually a bundle of individual service plans. When you assign a license, all service plans are enabled by default — but you can disable specific ones on a per-user basis.

👥 Group-Based Licensing

Manually assigning licenses one by one does not scale. Group-based licensing lets you assign a license to a security group, and every member of that group automatically receives the license.

1. 1 Go to Billing → Licenses and click the subscription you want to assign.
2. 2 Click Groups tab at the top of the subscription page.
3. 3 Click + Assign and search for a Security Group or M365 Group.
4. 4 Select the group, review service plans, and click Assign. All current and future members will automatically receive the license.

• Automatic provisioning — Adding a user to the group provisions their license within minutes. No manual action required from the admin.
• Automatic de-provisioning — Removing a user from the group removes their license seat automatically, freeing it for reuse.
• Conflict detection — If a group license assignment fails (e.g. no seats available), the admin center flags the error on the group's licence assignment status page.
• Nested groups not supported — Group-based licensing does not follow nested group membership. Only direct members of the assigned group receive the license.

⚡ PowerShell: License Management

Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "Directory.Read.All"

# View all license subscriptions and available seats
Get-MgSubscribedSku | Select-Object SkuPartNumber, ConsumedUnits,
  @{N="Total";E={$_.PrepaidUnits.Enabled}},
  @{N="Available";E={$_.PrepaidUnits.Enabled - $_.ConsumedUnits}}

# View service plans within E3 (SkuPartNumber = SPE_E3)
$sku = Get-MgSubscribedSku | Where-Object {$_.SkuPartNumber -eq "SPE_E3"}
$sku.ServicePlans | Select-Object ServicePlanName, ProvisioningStatus

🎓 Interview Q&A

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