Managing Users and Licenses

Device License

The Device License allows multiple users to simultaneously use a device that is covered by the license. For example, this might be a point of sales, shop floor, or warehouse device.

To provide licensing for the various functionalities offered by LS Central, the following device license types are available:

LS Central Device (Including LS Pay)

Covers licensing for online and offline POS, including both stationary and mobile POS terminals, for store back office and Mobile Inventory.

The LS Central Device license provides flexibility by allowing users to switch between different functionalities—POS, store back office, and Mobile Inventory—as needed. This enables customers to reuse licenses typically dedicated to POS terminals during business hours for Mobile Inventory tasks, such as stock counting during off-hours.

This license includes LS Pay functionality.

Examples of License Requirement Scenarios

Scenario 1:
- 10 POS terminals (online) and 10 Mobile Inventory devices
  - 10 LS Central Device licenses required.
  - In this scenario if the requirement is that the POS terminals are not used at the same time as the Mobile Inventory devices 10 LS Central Device licences are enough to cover the functionality.
Scenario 2:
- 10 POS terminals (8 online, 2 offline) and 10 Mobile Inventory devices
  - 12 LS Central Device licenses required.
  - In this scenario the customer requires more licenses to cover the functionality of the POS terminals and the Mobile Inventory than in scenario 1.
  - On the offline POS, in the License Manager Setup page, device license unit are assigned to the instance.
  - While the POS can communicate with the Head Office (HO), the license unit remains allocated and is not automatically released.
  - To make the license unit available for another device, it must be manually removed from the unit assignment on the offline POS.
  - Note: If nothing is done, the customer would only have 8 devices available for the Mobile Inventory functionality. If they need 10, they need to purchase 12 LS Central Devices.

License Release Behaviour

Online POS: License is released within 15 minutes after the device stops using it.

Offline POS: License release depends on call-home frequency:

If the POS has not called Head Office within 24 hours, and another POS/Mobile Inventory/back-office user requests a license, the license can be reassigned.

Offline POS Connectivity

If the offline POS cannot connect to Head Office (for example, no internet), a grace period of seven days is activated.

The offline POS continues to call Head Office at least once per day.
Note: If communication is still down after the grace period, licensed processes on the offline POS stops working.

LS Central Mobile Inventory Device

Dedicated license for the Mobile Inventory device (Android), comes at a lower price than the LS Central Device.

LS Central Device for Kitchen Display Server

Dedicated license for the Kitchen Display Server.

Self-Checkout Connector Device

Dedicated license for the Self-Checkout Connector.

If you are logged into the Microsoft Partner Center the following screenshot from the Microsoft Partner Center demonstrates how you access Microsoft Entra ID:

If you are creating the device users and security group from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center you can either access the Azure Portal from there or create users and security groups in the Admin Center. P

Note: The user managing users and groups in Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft 365 Admin Center require the following roles in Entra ID:

For user management: User Administrator or Global Administrator.

For security group management: User Administrator, User Management Administrator, or Groups Administrator.

Device licenses should be created but not assigned to users.

The steps outlined below are demonstrated using the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

If you prefer to perform these actions in Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), the process is essentially the same.
The interface may look slightly different, but the options and sequence of actions remain consistent across both platforms.
You will still need to navigate to the Users or Groups section, select the appropriate action (such as creating a user or security group), and configure the required settings like name, roles, and licenses.

Step 1

Create a POS user without assigning a product license.

Step 2

Create a group named Dynamics 365 Business Central Device Users, and add the POS user to the group.

Note: Only use the English character set for the group name, do not use other language specific characters, and make sure that the name does not contain extra spaces.

Step 3

In LS Central, the Users page, click the Update users from Microsoft 365 action, and add POS users to Retail Users in LS Central.
The POS device should log in using the Business Central user, POS1 in the case above.

Assign permissions to users and groups

The Business Centrall security system lets you control which objects a user can access within each database or environment. You can specify for each user whether they can read, modify, or enter data in the selected database objects.

For more information from Microsoft, see How to Assign Permissions to Users and Groups.

Manage Profiles and Roles

All Business Central users are assigned a profile that reflects their business role, the department they work in, or another categorization. Profiles allow administrators to define and manage centrally what different user types can see and do in the user interface to perform their business tasks efficiently.

For more information from Microsoft, see How to Manage Profiles/Roles.

Manage user settings and preferences

As an administrator, you can create user settings in Business Central, similar to how individual users can manage their preferences in the My Settings page.

User settings are not the same as user setup, which is about the user as an entity and the user's access to the system. Furthermore, user settings have nothing to do with a user's personalization, such as lightweight changes to the user interface. User settings determine the user's preferences in various aspects of how the application presents itself to the user.

For more information from Microsoft, see How to Manage Settings and Preferences.