Power Apps, Power Automate (Flow) and Dynamics 365 license changes for October 2019

Licenses for Power Apps, Power Automate (Microsoft Flow) and Dynamics 365 are changing starting October 2019. If you’re still on a Dynamics 365 Plan or Power Apps license, you can renew this before October 2019 with your current license agreement and retain the same capabilities you have today.

Please note: Prices in this post are the commercial prices communicated by Microsoft in US Dollars, actual price will may depend on your region and distributor.

In this post:

1. Changes for Dynamics 365 apps and Dynamics 365 Plans
2. Changes in Power Apps/Flow allowance and rights within Dynamics 365 licenses
3. Changes for Dynamics 365 Portals (rebranded to Power Apps Portals)
4. Changes for Dynamics 356 Team Members
5. Rate limits for all users and licenses for all APIs (including Connectors)
6. Changes for Power Apps
7. Changes for Power Automate (Microsoft Flow)

Changes for Dynamics 365 apps and Dynamics 365 Plans

The Dynamics 365 Plans are retiring. Both the  Customer Engagement Plan, the  Unified Operations Plan and the Dynamics 365 Plan no longer be available after October 2019. Any new customers signing up for Dynamics 365 starting October 2019, or any existing customer renewing their subscription after October 2019 will have to select an app specific license to start with (the base license), there is no longer an option for 1 license that includes all apps/workloads.

Each individual app/workload was already available as a separate license, in the new model new versions of the separate licenses are being released.

1 Base license + attach license(s)

1. Every user that requires access to any app/workload needs to be assigned a base license. This will determine their default app/workload. Base licenses are available for each of the apps/workloads like Sales, Customer Service, Project Service Automation, Field Service, Retail, Supply Chain Management, etc.
   • For Customer Engagement, the base licenses are priced around $95/month/user (~€80.10)
   • For Unified Operations, the base licenses are priced around $180/month/user each

   (Please note: Prices in this post are the commercial prices communicated by Microsoft in US Dollars, actual price may vary depend on your region and distributor)

2. If a user requires access to a second app/workload, they need to be assigned an attach license for each additional app/workload. The attach licenses are available for the same apps/workloads as the base licenses but, at a greatly reduced price.
   • For Customer Engagement, the attach licenses are priced around $20/month/user each (~€16.90)
   • For Unified Operations, the attach licenses are priced around $30/month/user each

   You can add multiple attach licenses to a user, as needed. A user needs only 1 base license. The base license and the attach license provide access to the same functionality.

Example scenario of base + attach licenses

1. If a user only requires access to Dynamics 365 for Sales, the only license they would need is the base license for Dynamics 365 for Sales.
2. If a user requires access to Dynamics 365 for Sales and Dynamics 365 for Customer Service, they’ll need 1 base license + 1 attach license. Which app/workload is the base license has no impact on functionality or cost. It makes most sense to license the app they’ll use most often as their base app and attach the other. In the example below, the user that needs two apps has a base license for Customer Service and an attach license for Sales.
3. If a user requires access to Dynamics 365 for Sales, Customer Service and Field Service, they’ll need 1 base license + 2 attach licenses. Like our previous example, which app/workload is licensed with the base license has no impact on functionality or cost. In this example we’ll license the user with Field Service as the base license and add on an attach license for Sales and another attach license for Customer Service.

Impact on cost starting October 2019

When comparing the pricing with the previously available Plans, only customers with individual users that use more than 2 will notice a negative impact on their cost. Using the retired Customer Engagement Plan as an example, which was priced around $115 per user for all apps/workloads.

Exceptions on availability of base and attach combinations

1. These workloads are not available as attach license and can only be purchased as base licenses: Project Service Automation (PSA), Talent and Marketing.
   Example: If a user needs Project Service Automation and Sales, you’re required to purchase PSA as the base license and Sales as an attach license.
2. You can combine apps/workloads from Customer Engagement and Unified Operations but, in order to do so, you’ll need to buy the more expensive one (typically Unified Operations) as your base license.
3. Add-ons for Dynamics 365 are also not available as attach licenses, they are only available at the standard price.
   These include: Customer Insights, Microsoft Relationship Sales solution, Sales Insights, Marketing Additional Application, Customer Service Chat, Resource Scheduling Optimization, Comprehensive hiring, Forms Pro and all capacity add-ons.

Changes in Power Apps/Flow allowance and rights within Dynamics 365 licenses

Previously any Dynamics 365 Enterprise license (not Professional) included a Power Apps Plan 2 allowance, with the rights to create unlimited Power Apps and Flows. Starting in October 2019, that is no longer the case. Use of Power Apps and Power Automate (Microsoft Flow) will be limited to only Dynamics 365 related usage.

Power Apps can still be used to create customize the Dynamics 365 model-driven experience and create Canvas Apps that work together with a Dynamics 365 data source, provided that they are all inside of the same environment. You cannot  create Power Apps (model-driven, canvas or portal) in a non-Dynamics 365 environment, like the default environment.

If you want to create a Canvas or Model-Driven App in a second (non-Dynamics 365) environment or one that uses a Premium non-Dynamics 355 connector, you’ll need a stand-alone Power Apps license.

Similar limitations will be in place for Power Automate (Microsoft Flow), you will only be able to create Flows in the same environment as your Dynamics 365 applications and you can only create Flows that use Dynamics 365 or standard connectors. Flows in Power Automate should trigger from or connect to data sources within use rights of the licensed Dynamics 365 application, which primarily covers the standard connectors and the Dynamics 365 connectors.

Microsoft explains this as: "Dynamics 365 subscribers may continue using Power Apps and Flow to extend and customize their Dynamics 365 applications. However, Dynamics 365 Enterprise licenses will no longer include general purpose Power Apps and Flow use rights. Dynamics 365 Enterprise application users can continue to run Power Apps applications within their Dynamics 365 environments, but running Power Apps applications in non-Dynamics 365 environments will require a Power Apps license. An additional Flow license will also be required to run flows that do not map to a Dynamics 365 application."
Source: Updates to Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Apps and Flow Licensing

Further reading: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/powerapps-flow-licensing-faq

Changes for Dynamics 365 Portals (rebranded to Power Apps Portals)

The Dynamics 365 Portal, that was previously included at no cost for any organization with at least 10 fully licensed Dynamics 365 users, is no longer included at no cost. Starting in October 2019 for any organization using the new license model.

Dynamics 365 Portals will be rebranded to Power Apps Portals and makers and administrators will be able to create a Power Apps Portal through the Power Apps Maker Portal. The underlying technology remains unchanged but, a simplified authoring and building experience is available for new portals.

Power Apps Portals will be licensed based on a combination of Page Views and Logins.

1. For unauthenticated visitors to the portal, a capacity of 100K Page Views/month is available, priced at $100/month (~€84.30)
2. For authenticated external users on the portal, a capacity of 100 logins/month is available, priced at $200/month (~€168.70)
3. Any internal authenticated user (users of the same organization that already has a Dynamics 365 or Power Apps user license) will continue to be licensed through their Dynamics 365 or Power Apps user license and no additional costs are involved

The most controversial change is the capacity per login for authenticated external users. A lot of implementations of the Dynamics 365 Portals are designed around processes that include externals like suppliers, customers and other people that need to log in to an account to access their own data in the portal. All of these logins will now count against this login capacity.

Microsoft defines a billable login as providing 1 authenticated external user access to 1 portal, for a period of 24 hours. Multiple logins by the same user, to the same portal within a 24-hour period will all be counted as a single login. After 24 hours however, if the same user signs in again, that would be a 2nd billable login. Think of these logins as a day-pass to the portal, priced at $2.

There are some additional capacity add-ons for portals with a lot of logins but, overall, there will be a negative impact on cost for most organizations. It is unclear if there will be any baseline capacity that is included with a Power Apps Portal or, if you have to purchase these capacity add-ons from day 1.

Tip: If you have a portal with heavy usage (a lot of page views and/or a lot of logins) you could also use the Power Apps Per App license. Any licensed Power Apps user has unlimited access Power Apps portals. Going at $10/app/user/month you could use this cheaper license to have a calculated and alternative for your portal usage with predictable cost.

(Please note: Prices mentioned in post are the commercial prices communicated by Microsoft in US Dollars, actual price will may depend on your region and distributor)

Changes for Dynamics 365 Team Members

The Dynamics 365 Team Member license continues to be misused for business scenarios where a full license should’ve been used. Microsoft will further restrict the capabilities of the Team Member license to move towards a more clear understanding of the (limited) use case scenarios for Team Members and their place in Dynamics 365.

Functionality that will be changed and/or limited for the Team Member license:

1. No rights to create, update, and delete Accounts
2. Create, read, update and delete records will be restricted to a maximum of 15 custom entities per Team Members experience
3. ‘Power Apps for Dynamics 365 Team Members’ removed (including API access, and ability to use premium, on-premises, or custom connectors)
4. For Sales no access to Opportunities via Portal or API-only (non-interactive)
5. For Customer Service, No access to Interactive Service Hub or Knowledge Base Management
6. For Field Service, no write privilege Work Orders via Portal or API-only (non-interactive)
7. No access to Canvas Apps
8. Access will be restricted to Team Members Experience, which is a stripped-down version of the first party app, e.g. a “Team Members for Sales” app

Rate limits for all users and licenses for all APIs (including Connectors)

Starting in October 2019 new rate limits will be introduced for all APIs, which includes the ones used by the Connectors we have available in Power Apps and Power Automate (Microsoft Flow).

All APIs are limited on an amount of calls per licensed user, per day (24-hour period) The rate limits will be applied on a per licensed user basis, so one user could run out before another does. The size of the limit depends on the type of license the user has.

If any single user has multiple licenses assigned from different product families, their API request allowance would be summed based on the allowance per license. Example: user has Dynamics 365 for Customer Service Enterprise + Power Apps per User Plan, that user will have a total of 20000 + 5000 = 25000 requests.

The exception here are the Dynamics 365 Attach licenses, they do not increase the API rate limit, only the Base license counts. This also goes for any other combination within Dynamics 365 licenses, only the first Base license will count.

Further reading: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/api-request-limits-allocations

What about unlicensed users like Non-Interactive and Application Users?

For these users, every tenant will get base request capacity per tenant which can only be used by these users and not by users with standard licenses.
This base request capacity would be based on the type of subscription and would be as follows:

If a tenant has multiple type of subscriptions, their base request capacity would be max of two subscriptions. For example, if a customer has both Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Power Apps per user subscription, their base request capacity would be 100K requests per 24 hours.

Any unlicensed user can have a Power Apps or Power Automate (Microsoft Flow) capacity add-on can be assigned to give them extra API allowance; required to enable app usage for these users.

Capacity add-ons for Power Apps and Power Automate

Power Apps and Power Automate capacity add-on allows customers to purchase additional requests which can be assigned to any user who has a Power Apps/Power Automate license as well as Dynamics 365 license. These can be assigned to an application, and administrative and non-interactive users.

Each capacity add-on provides an additional 10000 requests/24 hours which can be assigned to any user. Multiple capacity add-ons can also be assigned to the same user.

Changes for Power Apps

PowerApps continues to be included for Dynamics 365 customers but, some functionality and capacity will be reduced. Power Apps Plan 1 and Plan 2 will be retired and replaced with two new plans: Per App and Per User.

Power Apps per User plan

The per User plan is essentially the same as the retired Plan 2 and is priced at $40/user/month (~€33.73) for unlimited access to all apps made in Power Apps. Restricted entities from Dynamics 365 remain restricted, just like in retired Plan 2.

Additional limitations will be: API calls to the Common Data Service for Apps will be capped at 5000 per day (24 hours) and Flows can only use standard connectors or connectors that relate to the app they are working with.

Power Apps per App plan

Instead of the restrictions of Plan 1, where you could only use Canvas Apps, for limited app usages there is now a license you can assign per user, per app. This will give a specific user unlimited access to 1 app at a reduced price of $10/user/app/month (~€8.44).

Restrictions that applied to retired Plan 1 longer apply, users can access both Canvas and Model-Driven apps and even use real-time workflows.

So, what is 1 app?
Quite surprisingly, the restriction of “1 app” is not as limited as it sounds, Microsoft elaborated their definition of an app in this context: Each app can include 1 Power Apps Portal and up to 2 custom apps (model-driven and/or canvas) No limits on other components (e.g., forms, dashboards, etc.)

For the per app plan the limitations are: You need to purchase a minimum of 30 licenses (a total of $300/month), API calls to the Common Data Service for Apps will be capped at 1000 per day (24 hours) and Flows can only use standard connectors or connectors that relate to the app they are working with.

Power Apps included with Dynamics 365

The Power Apps capabilities included with Dynamics 365 will be reduced to scenarios that are related only to the licensed Dynamics 365 app/workload.

More on this earlier in this post: Changes in Power Apps/Flow allowance and rights within Dynamics 365 licenses

Changes for Power Automate (Microsoft Flow)

Power Automate (previously: Microsoft Flow) continues to be included for Dynamics 365 customers but, some functionality and capacity will be reduced. Microsoft Flow Plan 1 and Plan 2 will be retired and replaced with two new plans: per User and per Business Process.

Power Automate per User plan

The per User plan is the closest to retired Plan 2, it is licensed to specific users and includes an unlimited number of Flows and all Standard and Premium Connectors as well as access to Custom Connectors.

Microsoft mentions no limit on the number of Runs included however, they mention a daily API limit of 2000 calls, which will would translate to a limit on the number of Runs as each Trigger and each Action inside your Flow would have to make at least 1 API call when it is executed.

The Flow per User plan is priced at $15/user/month but, you are required to purchase a minimum of 20 licenses.
Additional API calls can be purchased as a capacity add-on.

Power Automate per Business Process

The per Business Process plan is very similar to the ‘per App’ offering for Power Apps. It’s not licensed to any specific user but, instead to a Business Process

What counts as a Business Process?
Microsoft describes a Business Process as: "A business process is a collection of one or more Flows that work together to accomplish a business outcome"
Each Business Process is a group of Flows that work together (although they do not have to be connected), the group can contain up to 5 Flows.

Essentially this is a ‘per Flow’ license, which contains a bundle of 5 Flows for you to create.
This plan includes a daily API limit of 75000 calls, across the 5 Flows in the combined Business Process.

The per Business Process plan is priced at $100/month per Flow but, you are required to purchase a minimum of 5, to give you that initial bundle of 5 Flows, making it a $500/month license.
After your initial purchase however, you can add additional Flows at $100/month for each additional Flow. These additional flows will also add additional 15000 extra daily API calls.

Flows included with Dynamics 365

The Microsoft Flow capabilities included with Dynamics 365 will be reduced to scenarios that are related only to the licensed Dynamics 365 app/workload.

More on this earlier in this post: Changes in Power Apps/Flow allowance and rights within Dynamics 365 licenses

Updates and corrections to this post

1. Feb 25, 2020: Updated request limits for non-licensed users
2. Nov 15, 2019: Corrected the API limits for Power Apps per user/per app, which where flipped
3. Nov 4, 2019: Updated branding for Microsoft Flow to use Power Automate