The University upgraded its Microsoft licencing for staff and students in May 2020, investing in the most comprehensive plan available known as the Microsoft 365 A5 licence. 

The vast majority of staff and students are automatically allocated a Microsoft 365 A5 licence with the additional benefits as listed below.

Some user accounts will be allocated a Microsoft 365 A1 licence.  These accounts are assigned to 'visitors', 'temporary staff', 'casual staff', 'generic' and 'conference' accounts and those staff undertaking roles that do not generally need regular access to a University PC, Office desktop applications and the Southampton Virtual Environment. 

Microsoft 365 A1

There is no charge for this licence. This will be automatically allocated to accounts marked as 'visitors', 'casual' and 'temporary' staff.

Features Included:

+ Office 365 email and calendar

+ OneDrive for Business

+ Teams and associated services

+ Web versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and Outlook

+ Use of Office Desktop apps on shared University devices (e.g. lecterns, CLS)

- Not licensed to use Southampton Virtual Environment (SVE)

- Not licensed to use standard University non-shared devices, for example, an allocated staff laptop

- Not able to use the Office Desktop apps (inc Outlook, Powerpoint, Word, Excel, Project and Visio) on personal devices or University staff laptops or desktops.

- Not licensed to use advanced Microsoft 365 features (Power BI, MS Bookings, Teams Phone System and Voice Conferencing)

Microsoft 365 A5

The vast majority of staff and students will be automatically allocated this licence.

For those accounts that were allocated an A1 licence, there will be an extra charge per user to upgrade to the A5 licence. This can be purchased for 3, 6 or 12 months.  Please fill out this form to request an A5 licence.

Features Included:

+ Office 365 email and calendar

+ OneDrive for Business

+ Web versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and Outlook Not able to use Office client

+ Fully licensed to log on to any University device (eg. allocated staff laptops and desktops, CLS, Lecterns)

+ Use Office Desktop apps (inc Outlook, Powerpoint, Word, Excel, Project and Visio) on any University device and personal devices (up to 5 activations)

+ Full Identity and account protection

+ Licensed to use Southampton Virtual Environment (SVE)

+ Access to all advanced Microsoft 365 features such as Power BI Pro; MS Bookings; Teams Phone System and Voice Conferencing

+ Full suite of cybersecurity controls including identity protection, advanced threat protection; compliance features, data loss protection etc.