Need help understanding licensing

[mlange]

First off, I'm sure you guys are tired of seeing me around here. You all are awesome and I appreciate all the help.

So I understand that when a user "leaves," 31 days after that the license is automatically reclaimed and able to be used again. But what event has to happen that kicks off the counter for the 31 days? I've seen it said that if you don't back up any user's data for 31 days, their license becomes available for reuse and can be assigned to another user, but I've got some users that have been disabled and un-licensed in Office 365 for more than a month and VBO shows them as still being licensed. Since they're un-licensed they don't have a OneDrive anymore and no data should be backed up so their license should be released, right?

[Mike Resseler]

First: We are not tired of seeing you here

Your idea is correct. The way it works is rather simple. Once a job kicks in, we don't detect the user anymore (basically, we can't connect to it anymore or don't find it anymore. If a user is not licensed anymore, then the API connection to that user is not available anymore so from that moment on, the 31 days counter starts.

If VBO shows them still as licensed, then there is an issue and we might need to open a support case to figure out what is wrong

[mlange]

Well then, I'll open a case. I've got several users who have been disabled for a while that are still showing as licensed. And now that I've started to dig into it a little deeper, some of those users have been unlicensed since before we implemented VBO.

[mlange]

Case #03560715.

[Mike Resseler]

Thanks for giving us the case. Let us know the outcome also. PS: Unlicensed does not mean disabled... So the API's to an unlicensed user is still open if I am not mistaken

[mlange]

The users in question are unlicensed in O365 and disabled in our local AD and show as blocked in O365.