EMS licenses for unlicensed users

[Roy Hendum]

Hello,
I'm about to roll out EMS for our small business, and have a simple question about licensing.
We have some users that are only used for email forwarding to groups of users. (support@domain.com)
They are unlicensed and login is disabled.
My thinking is that I should not need EMS license for these "users".
Am I wrong to think like this?

Cheers

[#2]

Hi Roy,

This sounds like a external contact, or 365 group user case (this assumes I understand you correctly). Neither of these attract a license.

If this is not the case and you do literally do have a user account that auto forwards onto another email address, and never logs on as you've described. This is called a functional account and does not attract any license cost. There are clear definition in licensing speak around shared \ functional accounts, and I know this because I've run afoul of them previously :). 

Cheers

John

[#3]

Thank you John, it is indeed a functional account as you describe it.
I just want to make sure it's not a security risk to keep these unlicensed. : )

Cheers

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Hi Roy,

I would suggest using a distribution list or a shared mailbox for this instead of disabled accounts.

The main difference between the two options is that the shared mailbox would retain emails in its own mailbox and the DL would not (messages would be retained by the recipients the message was forwarded to)

The only license you would need for the shared mailbox or disabled user scenario is an Office 365 ATP add-on license if you have the mailbox covered by ATP policies (Safe Attachments, Safe Links, anti-phish, etc.).

Hope this helps!

David

[#5]

Hi David,

Thanks for the reply!

I did have it set up with distribution lists, but for some reason I also had disabled users with the corresponding names.
At the time of first post I thought that the distribution lists created these users and required them to function, but after John's post I found more information on the topic, deleted the disabled users, and the distribution lists still functioned as they should.

I assume it is something I did wrong or by mistake when we moved to O365.
Anyway, it now looks more tidy. 

Regards
Roy