Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance suite updates: What’s included, and how do you purchase?

Effective April 1, 2020, Microsoft repackaged the Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance suite – its cloud compliance offer – and introduced new mini suite offerings. Since then, there have been new updates and enhancements.

As a Microsoft user, you may be wondering: what’s included now, are there any purchase requirements, and is licensing guidance available?

Let’s take a closer look at the Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance suite and its features and benefits, including mini suites for organizations that only require a subset of the services offered in the E5 Compliance suite. We will also review purchase prerequisites and tenant-wide licensing impacts you need to be aware of.

What is the Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance suite?

The M365 E5 Compliance suite is considered an add-on service to the Microsoft 365 E3 suite. Retailing for $12/user/month, the offering provides a robust set of tools to help your organization meet compliance obligations, manage and reduce risks, and protect data.

The bundle includes several cloud-hosted services:

Don’t need the entire M365 E5 Compliance suite?

Try looking at the three mini suites offered:

• M365 E5 Information Protection and Governance
• M365 E5 Insider Risk Management
• M365 E5 eDiscovery and Audit

Each suite includes subset components of Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance to solve specific customer needs, at varying price points.

What are the prerequisites to purchase Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance or the mini suites?

Since these offerings are classified as an add-on service, each of these suites will require an underlying qualifying license.

The below chart provides a summary of the qualifying license(s) for each add-on offer.

Important licensing impacts and expert guidance

Like most of Microsoft’s security and compliance services, the enhanced Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance suites are tenant-level services. This means, once activated, the services are made available for all users within the tenant – whether the users are licensed for the service or not. Because of this, it can be more challenging to avoid compliance concerns in this model.

Therefore, it’s important to understand the implications of tenant-level licensing requirements. To limit the availability of the service to only licensed users, make sure you take a look at the administration tools and instructions by service.

If you want to learn more about Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance or the mini suites, SHI’s robust team of Microsoft licensing specialists can address any questions, assess your current estate, and craft scalable solutions tailored to your goals. We can also offer a helping hand with SHI’s 365 Insights – maximizing your Office and Microsoft 365 investment with almost instant findings for cost savings. Our offering helps you understand your entitlements, current usage, and user behavior, along with premium services to manage your subscriptions.

From licensing support to training and managed services, speak to your SHI account executive or one of our experts to get started today.