Since January 1. of this year, Microsoft has published a new set of licences regarding Defender and Entra (former Azure AD) for Frontline Workers. Frontline Workers is the definition Microsoft gives to employees in an organisation who do not sit or stand at a desk all day. These employees use IT, but typically need a limited set of Microsoft 365 functionalities. Think nurses and employees in construction or a factory. For Microsoft 365 functionality, Microsoft recommends F1 or F3 suites with limited functions that can only be used online in the browser and are therefore cheaper than a full subscription.

However, if there are additional security or compliance requirements for these users in terms of Defender or Entra, additional products can now be chosen. These include Defender for Endpoints, Defender for Office365, Defender for Cloud Apps, Defender for Identity and Entra ID. These are available as separate F subscriptions at a lower cost compared to the Plan 1 and Plan 2 subscriptions.

Please note that Frontline Worker subscriptions may not be made available to just anyone. Microsoft places a number of important conditions on this. These include the size of the screen or shared use of the device. The exact conditions are a bit more complex. If you have any questions about this, your Account Executive can answer them for you.