SharePoint sharing with external users: license violation?

[Deleted]

Hi,

My client has purchased 40 premium 365 business licenses for its employees.

He also uses SharePoint online to publish documents to 5000 external people.

These external people are not employees of the company and must only have read access to some documents, no other functionality. For technical reasons, these external people were created in Azure active directory of 365 instead of being invited by the sharing process on SharePoint Online.

Can you confirm that this will not cause a license violation?

Thanks

[#2]

It somewhat depends, but it do seem like a violation! Please read up here about the licensing for Guests in Azure AD!

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/b2b/licensing-guidance

[#3]

Agree with Adam. Being created in Azure AD rather than being shared this would likely violate the licensing ratio of 1:5 should Microsoft do an audit.

Best, Chris

[#4]

Make note of this one in case the guests have their own licenses in their tenant:

From link:

"There are some situations where a guest user isn't reported using the 1:5 External User Allowance. If a guest user already has a paid Azure AD license in the user’s own organization, the user doesn't consume one of your B2B guest user licenses"