1. Opt in to RM Unify licensing (default)
   Opt-in and let RM Unify automatically assign the most appropriate user-level licence subscription when provisioning user accounts to M365, and remove user-level licences when deprovisioning accounts. Typically the most common licence subscription is the free 'Office 365 A1 for faculty' or 'Office 365 A1 for students'.
   
2. Opt out of RM Unify licensing
   Opt-out and leave the M365 global administrator to manually configure and manage the assignment of user-level and group-level licences to users, including use of Microsoft Azure AD group-based licence assignments.

The RM Unify superadmin makes this choice at step 3 of the federation wizard when first installing Microsoft 365 apps to RM Unify.

The default setting is to opt in to RM Unify licence assignments.

To opt out of RM Unify licensing, the RM Unify superadmin is required to tick the box "Tick if you manage Microsoft 365 user licences yourself e.g. via Azure AD group-based licensing":

When an RM Unify user is provisioned to Microsoft 365, RM Unify will:

1. Create a linked M365 user account
2. Get a list of all licences in the Microsoft 365 tenancy.
3. Filter the list to those where the AccountSkuId contains STANDARD.
4. Find the one containing the word STUDENT for student users and FACULTY for all the other users.
5. If there are still multiple options remaining, RM Unify chooses the licence with the highest number of total licences (including free and assigned licences).
6. Check if 'IsLicensed' = True on the M365 account i.e. check if the account already has the chosen licence applied: 
   • If True, then do nothing.
   • If False, apply the chosen licence.

When an RM Unify user is deleted, RM Unify will:

1. Find the linked M365 user account
2. Check if the the user has received a group-level licence from Azure AD group-based licensing i.e. has the user inherited a licence because it is a member of an Azure AD group?
   • If yes, retain the group-level inherited licence*, but remove all user-level licences from the user including any additional licences that may have been assigned directly to the user account via Microsoft 365 admin center or Azure AD.
   • If no, remove all licences from the user.
3. An unlicensed user account is deleted from M365 if their RM Unify user account remains deleted for nine months or longer. Please see TEC5900881 in the Other Useful Articles section below for more information.

*Important note: If an M365 user account has additional group-based licences applied via Azure AD, i.e. an inherited licence assignment, the account remains licensed with group-level licences when the RM Unify user is deleted. RM Unify is unable to remove group-level licences as these are managed by Azure AD. For this reason, we do not recommend opting in to RM Unify licensing and using Azure AD group-based licence assignments at the same time.

• Assigning user-level and group-level licences to M365 user accounts provisioned by RM Unify.
• Unassigning those licences when users leave the establishment.
  
  This is important, not only to ensure that the establishment is meeting the Microsoft terms of service, which entitles it to the free use of Microsoft 365, but also to ensure that access to the Microsoft 365 domain is removed for those users when no longer employed by, or matriculated at, the establishment.

• Students (DfE_code)
• Teaching Staff (DfE_code)
• Non-Teaching Staff (DfE_code)
• Governors (DfE_code)
• Others (DfE_code)
• Administrators (DfE_code)

To reiterate, when opting out of RM Unify licensing, the M365 global administrator is considered solely responsible for ongoing licence management. Further support and information on how to assign licences to users by group membership in Azure AD can be found here. 

It is possible for an RM Unify super admin to see if an establishment has chosen to opt out of RM Unify licensing:

1. Log on to RM Unify and open the App Library.
2. Search for any Microsoft 365 app, click the tile and view the Support Info.
3. View the yellow banner with a message "You have opted to manage Microsoft 365 user licences yourself, e.g. via Azure AD group-based licensing.".

If there is no banner/message (as shown in the image below), then the default RM Unify licensing is in place.

If your RM Unify establishment is already federated to Microsoft 365 using the default licence assignments, it is still possible to opt out and move to using Azure AD Group assignments. Please log a call with RM Support to request to opt out.