Licensing O365 via CSP and EA in the same tenant

[caf67]

Can a Customer license Office 365 via EA and CSP at the same time an maintain only 1 tenant? I have a customer that has O365 via EA but is interested in buying services for contingent workers that don not need the licenses for more than a couple of months, I have talked to them about CSP but we are not sure if they can provision the licenses bought via CSP in the same tenant they have for Office 365 in the EA. 

Can you help?

Thanks. 

[JanoschUlmer]

They can, just send the CSP reseller relationship invite to them and let the global admin accept it. Then you can provision licenses via CSP in this tenant.

[JanoschUlmer]

Adding one aspect here because I received feedback on this - within an EA contract there is the option for "organization-wide" licensing (aka "company wide") - which has the benefit of getting a better pricelevel, but also has contractual obligation to license e.g. all internal staff with the same set of licenses via the EA ("standardize" ). While this does not change the technical ability to also add CSP licenses, please be aware that in some agreements it might be required to license additional internal users during a true-up.

I'm not an expert on EA agreements, so I cannot say how exactly those terms look like - this is just a general reminder to check the contracts on this. My first answer above was only refrring to the technical ability to do this.

More on the ability to combine different licensing channels in one customer tenant: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/multichannel

How to invite the existing (EA) customer is not different as inviting other customers with existing tenants: 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/request-a-relationship-with-a-customer 

[SAT]

Just would like to know, can we have CSP license for companie's joint venture. Actually, our compnay has joint venture along with two company and we want to use our tenant and infrastructure for all the services. Please suggest if anyone can guide on compliance point of view.

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@JanoschUlmer wrote:

Adding one aspect here because I received feedback on this - within an EA contract there is the option for "organization-wide" licensing (aka "company wide") - which has the benefit of getting a better pricelevel, but also has contractual obligation to license e.g. all internal staff with the same set of licenses via the EA ("standardize" ). While this does not change the technical ability to also add CSP licenses, please be aware that in some agreements it might be required to license additional internal users during a true-up.

I'm not an expert on EA agreements, so I cannot say how exactly those terms look like - this is just a general reminder to check the contracts on this. My first answer above was only refrring to the technical ability to do this.

More on the ability to combine different licensing channels in one customer tenant: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/multichannel

How to invite the existing (EA) customer is not different as inviting other customers with existing tenants: 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/request-a-relationship-with-a-customer 

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[JanoschUlmer]

@SAT :

If you get licenses via a CSP contract, the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) is the legal document you need to check on what kind of use is possible for you as  customer and what the terms are  - in this community via can not do legal advise. 

For legal advise, discuss the paperwork (MCA) with you own legal advisor, you can also contact your MIcrosoft account team or check with the CSP reseller you are buying the licenses from.

When I understand your scenario the right way, the two companies which you are doing a joint venture with are separate, independant companies, so from my understanding they would not qualify as "affiliate" as defined in the MCA. If they are no affiliate, in my understanding you could only let them allow access to services in your tenant if they are working for the sole business purpose of you as a customer that obtains the licenses. As mentioned, this is just  high level advice on what to take care of - a specific, binding answer requires legal advice and a closer look on your specific scenario by the respective experts.