Why Software Assurance? You make significant investments in IT, and Software Assurance from Microsoft helps you take fullest advantage of the value your investments can bring. Save time and money with the right tools, training, and support to help empower your people, optimize your technology, and unlock the full potential of your investments in Microsoft technologies. Software Assurance helps you with the following: • Reduce software and services costs with rights to new software releases and cost-efficient upgrades. • Use consulting services to plan new, on-premises and cloud-based deployments. • Improve operational efficiency through access to unique technologies and licensing rights. • Increase overall user productivity with instructor-led technical training and online end-user training. • Maintain an available and responsive IT infrastructure with around-the-clock support. To learn more about the advantages of Software Assurance, download the (PDF, 326 KB). Discover the unique benefits and value that Software Assurance can provide for your business. By product Software Assurance spans a broad range of Microsoft software and services products, including the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office, Exchange, System Center, SQL Server, Microsoft Azure, and many others.. By benefit Software Assurance benefits include new product version rights, deployment planning, technical and end-user training, support, and a unique set of technologies and services.. Getting Software Assurance Microsoft Volume Licensing is the most cost-effective, flexible, and manageable way to acquire Microsoft software and cloud services. Review the eligibility requirements for License Mobility through Software Assurance, a licensing program offering flexibility for enterprise customers. May 2015 VLSC Software Assurance E-Learning Benefit Activation Guide Software Assurance for Volume Licensing offers a range of tools and resources to help your. Software Assurance is only available through and is purchased when you buy or renew a Volume Licensing agreement. It is included with some agreements and is an optional purchase with others. The (PDF, 768) provides a summary of the benefits available by Volume Licensing agreement. Volume Licensing programs are tailored to the needs of different types and sizes of business. Licensing Solution Provider (LSP) *Select Plus commercial agreements will no longer be sold starting July 1, 2015. Software Assurance is also available through Volume Licensing for. Find a Microsoft Partner or visit Microsoft Volume Licensing to learn more about through Volume Licensing. Managing Software Assurance Get to know which benefits your organization is entitled to through your Volume Licensing agreement, and develop an action plan for activating and using them. Here are some basic guidelines to get you started. Your Software Assurance benefits are determined by your Volume Licensing agreement, such as the Enterprise Agreement, Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA), or Open Value agreement, and the qualifying license purchases you have with Software Assurance. Depending on which agreement your organization has, you use one of two tools to manage your available Software Assurance benefits. Use the to view and activate your Software Assurance benefits. You must be registered to use the VLSC. To learn more about registration, view how-to videos or download the VLSC Software Assurance Guide. You can also contact your Microsoft Partner for more information. If you are an MPSA customer, the Business Center is your destination for easy management of your Software Assurance benefits. To view and start using your available Software Assurance benefits. A consideration when choosing whether to have one or more individuals manage your organization’s Software Assurance benefits is the size of your organization and the scope of benefits that are available to you. A large enterprise that will access multiple benefits across multiple organizations may find decentralized benefits management most effective. A small or midsize organization may find it more efficient to centralize benefits management with one individual or department. Here are some typical manager recommendations for Software Assurance benefit management. Your Software Assurance benefits are activated in the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC). Before you can activate your Software Assurance benefits in the VLSC, your organization needs to provide you with Software Assurance Manager permissions. After you are signed in, you’ll find a complete list of your available Software Assurance benefits. Getting started and using each individual benefit may differ slightly, but the processes are similar for most. Review the for steps to activate, download, and use your benefits.. Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA) If your organization has a Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA), go to Microsoft Business Center to access and start using your benefits. Your Software Assurance benefits are ready to view and use once you sign in to the Business Center. When you are signed in, you’ll find instructions to get started with each benefit, links to more detailed information about each benefit, and sample communications to send to your users.. Using Software Assurance Software Assurance benefits help organizations and industries like yours get the most from their Microsoft technology investments. The following scenarios are just a few examples of how your organization might take advantage of your Software Assurance benefits to maximize the value of your investments in Microsoft technology. To learn more about how Software Assurance can help, download the (PDF, 6.12 MB). IT investments are at the core of your organization; they help keep it efficient, agile, and responsive to customer demands. To maximize their contribution to your success, those investments must be smartly deployed, managed, and operated. Software Assurance can help with that. Expert consultants help you plan a custom deployment tailored to your organization and to the requirements of your customers. Then to complement your plan, IT staff can use at no additional cost for in-depth classroom training to help enhance current skills and master new technologies. Once your deployment is up and running, help your end users increase their knowledge and their productivity with courses that allow them to learn at their own pace. Finally, for added peace of mind, provides around-the-clock web and phone support to help keep your updated IT environment efficient and available. Your company is growing quickly, and you have a diverse mix of existing employees, new employees, temporary staff, and mobile workers. Employees need to use a variety of company-owned and personal devices in order to work effectively in the office and on the road. Your Software Assurance help your employees work where they choose and on a broad range of licensed devices, using your preconfigured Windows image that can be loaded on the fly from a USB storage device. In addition, allow remote access to Microsoft Office via a virtual environment from a variety of public and private devices — with no additional licenses to buy, and without installing any additional software. The benefit helps further support your team through remote and secure access to virtual desktops that run in your data center, working with your IT security policy to help you maintain a secure IT environment even when employees access it from unmanaged devices. For each of your employees in their various roles, you can personalize their experience, simplify application deployment, and improve application compatibility with the. MDOP is a suite of technologies that help manage, secure, and monitor your devices, while simplifying and accelerating the deployment of key Windows features. You get greater control of the software your employees are using, less downtime, and support that is more streamlined. You’ve given your employees the technology they need; now you’re looking to help them take full advantage of those tools to be as effective as they can. Productive employees are a key ingredient in an agile business. When they use the same software at home and at work, they can gain skills more quickly and make a greater contribution. The benefit offers your employees a way to buy the latest version of Microsoft Office for their home devices via a low-cost download. Also, with self-paced, online training at no additional cost, Software Assurance courses can help your employees gain skills and become more productive with Microsoft software. To support growing multilingual business requirements, you can deploy a single Office image with support for 40 user interface languages by using the.* In addition, your benefit helps ensure that your employees are always using the latest versions of the software they need. *For Office 2016, the Office Multi-Language Pack is now included as part of the product. Customers with prior versions covered with Software Assurance will continue to receive this benefit as part of their Software Assurance coverage. Organizations around the world are excited about the potential they see in cloud computing. You may already be considering the benefits of using outsourced or cloud-based services for one or more of your server-based applications. Whether off-premises or in your own environment, Software Assurance helps you prepare for cloud migrations with a powerful combination of consultancy and innovative server licensing opportunities. Lower-cost off-premises deployments can prove easier to scale and take less effort to manage. Helps you retain the value of your existing server license investments by extending their use to the cloud when you assign eligible server licenses to an authorized hosting partner—no need to buy additional licenses. If you decide to take advantage of opportunities offered by the cloud, partners can help you build a deployment, upgrade, or migration plan tailored for your organization. With flexible offerings, Planning Services help extend your internal expertise by incorporating best practices for deploying an array of Microsoft solutions on-premises, in the cloud, or in hybrid environments. Additionally, to help keep track of your organization’s on-premises and off-premises applications and services, provides a cloud service that simplifies monitoring the availability of external web-based applications from multiple locations around the world. Microsoft Volume Licensing is the most cost-effective, flexible, and manageable way to acquire Microsoft software and cloud services. As a Volume Licensing customer, you can enhance your IT investments further with Software Assurance benefits, which apply across a broad range of licensing agreements. Software Assurance provides you with the tools and training you need to do more with your Microsoft IT investments. Among the many ways that Software Assurance helps you spend less and do more with your IT investments, provide on-site consultants to collaborate with your IT staff and help you evaluate how you can efficiently deploy a range of Microsoft solutions. Flexible licensing rights and use options help you empower your office and mobile workers on a broad range of devices and reduce support costs. In addition, your employees can access technical and end-user training without affecting your training budget. Along with technical cost-savers, you also get help with budgeting. The Software Assurance benefit works with your budget and helps lower your initial licensing costs. Instead of one up-front payment, you spread the costs of your Volume Licensing and Software Assurance purchase across three equal, annual sums, helping you forecast your technology budget up to three years in advance. Related resources • (PDF, 326 KB) Learn more about the advantages of Software Assurance. • (PDF, 6.5 MB) Get details about Software Assurance and the broad set of benefits. • (PDF, 785 KB) Get help managing your Software Assurance benefits. • (PDF, 2.2 MB) Compare Software Assurance benefits across Microsoft Volume Licensing programs. • View product availability, discontinuations, promotions, migration paths, and Software Assurance benefits. • Get step-by-step instructions for how to register, obtain product keys and software, and manage assets. Last week I posted a two-part post on how to activate and administer your Software Assurance benefits through the Open Value Program. As promised in those posts, here is the post on how to activate your Software Assurance benefits through the Open Business Program. If you have, you have access to a great deal of benefits available to you through the Software Assurance Program, all you have to do is activate them. For instance, you receive the benefit of Microsoft Office Home Use Rights for every Microsoft Office license you have Software Assurance on at work. So if you have 10 Microsoft Office licenses with Software Assurance, you have 10 Microsoft Office Home Use Rights. Are you using them yet? NOTE: The steps below are for Software Assurance purchased through the Open Business Licensing Program. (Remember, since the launch of the Open Value Program (2001), the Open Business Licensing Program is designed for clients who want Licenses only. The Open Value Licensing Program is designed for clients who want Software Assurance benefits as well. You can learn more about the differences in the two licensing programs by of my “Introduction to Open License for Partners” webcast.) Ok, here’s how you activate your Open Business Software Assurance benefits (and Partners, make sure your clients know this and are activating their benefits when you do the install so they can start benefiting from them right away): Step 1: Have your license information ready. Before you can activate your Software Assurance benefits, you’ll need: Your license agreement number as provided by your license provider Your Open Authorization number found on your agreement summary Step 2: Access eOpen at to begin activating your Software Assurance benefits. From the eOpen Web site, log into Passport using your registration information. Your Open Authorization number and license number will be required for access to the Software Assurance benefits and the eOpen Web site. On the Agreement Summary window, click on the appropriate license number hyperlink. Scroll down the page and click on the Software Assurance Benefits Administration Tool hyperlink and enter the required information. If applicable, accept the terms and conditions for the Home Use Program. From the Benefit Summary page, click on the appropriate benefit to begin using/administering it. VIRTUAL PC EXPRESS • Activate the Windows Vista™ Enterprise Virtual PC Express benefit by visiting • Install Windows Vista Enterprise Virtual PC Express on each desktop that is covered by Software Assurance for Microsoft® Windows.® • Load the legacy application(s). MICROSOFT eLEARNING • Click on the IW, Client, or Server eLearning hyperlinks from the agreement benefits summary page. • Designate the benefit contact who is eligible to receive the media and manage the benefit (only one contact is allowed). • Activate the benefit for the designated contact. • For IW, Client, or Server, the eLearning modules will be distributed via the training module CD kit, or they can be downloaded from the MVLS site. • Upon activation, a notification e-mail with program details will be sent to the designated contact. HOME USE PROGRAM • Click on the Home Use Program hyperlink from the agreement benefits summary page. • Designate at least one contact to distribute access to the benefit to employees. • Activate the benefit to enable the HUP Program Code (this is needed to access the HUP Web site). Upon activation, a notification e-mail with the HUP Program Code will be sent to each contact explaining how to administer the benefit and distribute access to employees. NOTE: Additional resources are also available at to assist you in activating your Software Assurance benefits such as: • Access to on-demand Software Assurance webcasts • An online training course to help guide you through the activation of your Software Assurance benefits Software Assurance Help To download a detailed users guide for instructions on how to register and activate your Software Assurance benefits through eOpen, go to. To send a question to a service representative, please e-mail: [email protected]. For telephone support call 1-866-230-0560. Upon activation, we will send an e-mail with all of your program details to the appropriate contact. You can also download a 1-Page (double-sided) in PDF format which contains this information for your use offline. Thank you and have a wonderful day, Eric Ligman Microsoft US Senior Manager Small Business Community Engagement This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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