Help understanding powerapps license changes October 2019

[seanbrogan]

Can anybody shed any light on the new PowerApps licensing plans? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around what is going on.

I specifically went out last year and purchased a number of Office 365 premium licenses as well as the F1 plan for employees in the field, so that we could use powerapps.

I am using a combination of an Azure SQL database(pay as you go license) and SharePoint (under the 365 licensing) to function as the back end for my apps.

Am I now no longer going to be able to develop and distribute Apps to my employees under these licenses? Am I now being asked by microsoft to go out and buy more licenses specific to PowerApps?

Hope this is the right place to ask the 365 messages aren't very clear.

[mogulman]

@Anonymous  As the subject of thread states the changes took effect on October 2019.  So everything you developed prior to October 2019 will be grandfathered until 2024.

[goobernoodles]

I've been working on a series of payroll timecard apps for over 9 months and just got into some user testing.  This was after Microsoft forced a redesign of data operations by changing the HTTP connector to a premium connector.  I was using HTTP connectors in flow to return SQL stored procedure results back to PowerApps at the time and had to redesign everything to utilize SQL directly.  Now this?!  I don't even know if there's a workaround here.  Logic apps, I suppose?

Microsoft, if you want to lose your customers' trust, this is how you do it.  This is utter garbage from a company that for the last few years I had total confidence in.  With this trend of deceitful licensing changes, I honestly have no idea how to plan or have any confidence in anything.  What's next on the bait and switch calendar?

"Effective November 1, 2019, printing capabilities in Microsoft Office Click-to-Run products are changing from Standard to Premium.  This will mean that in order to print from these applications, you will need E3 licensing and above."

[Matthew_C]

For low use powerapps where a per use billing model would be more cost effective you may be able to do the following:

1. Build powerapp in a seperate AD tenant (call it the Dev Tenant)

2. License 1-2 users in the Dev tenant for powerapps.

3.  Use powerapp portals to front the app (https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/portals/)

4.  Enable for external user authentication (from your actual prod AD tenant)

5.  Buy the per login add-on detailed at the bottom of the portals link.  This allows 100 logins per month for $200.

Why microsoft don't appear to allow internal users access to powerapp portals to take advantage of per login models as opposed to bulk user licensing (other than to make a lot more $$$) is beyond me.  It would be nice if admins could set thresholds to limit the number of times a specific user can run a powerapp on a portal per month (to prevent malicious logins everyday to use up funds), and then bill based on actual usage.  Many of our apps only need to run once every 6 months by users with specific needs, but we don't necessarily know which users will need it.  So if i have 20,000 users, and a random 150 users a month use my app - it would be $400 a month versus the $800,000 - which seems a lot more fair for low level useage.

[Dpalmer]

I understand that Microsoft has stated that apps created before October 1st, 2019 will be "grandfathered", but what exactly does that mean.  I really need details.  I created a new app on September 29th, 2019.  I have been developing it regularly since then, opening it for edits, saving it, publishing it.  Numerous times.  Is this app "grandfathered"?  Will it continue to be no matter how many times I edit it and re-publish it?

When I tried opening it last week, I got asked to start a trial plan.

The devil is in the details.

Does anybody know and is there a document outlining this from Microsoft?

[cmv]

I have an app that 50 employees have been using for a year that I updated yesterday at (11-1-2019), now users are being prompted to upgrade plans. All my Powerapps (6 apps) and Flows (30 flows) connected to SQL no longer work, it’s an absolute nightmare that my company cannot afford.
Flows was $165 a yr now will cost us $30,000 a yr
Users was $3,000 a yr, now will cost us $24,000 a yr
$3,165 to $54,000 and that does not count my Azure SQL Cloud Server.
Do not edit and publish an existing app (nothing was Grandfathered in for me)! 12 Months of work destroyed with a single update.

[Debug_Bug]

I absolutely understand your frustration. I'm sure, as time passes after October 1st. 2019, we have only seen the beginning of this. I'm sure people are getting by, having users hit the "trial license" for now. But just wait until everyone realises what it is Microsoft has done to their loyal followers and customers. It's unheard of and a catastrophe for their reputation as well as damaging to the whole cloud business concept.

Who dares to ever trust them (Microsoft) with their business again...?

[Craig218]

We were just starting to look at adopting PowerApps. I suppose I'm glad they made this change before we sunk any work into the platform. Even if they reverse this idiotic decision I will never trust a system like PowerApps from Microsoft again. This has been a good reminder not to invest to heavily in a partner like Microsoft. Dogged a massive bullet here. 

[goobernoodles]

I'm not clear on one thing.  Assuming I was to sign up for the "Flow per business process" licensing, described as:

Flow per business process. Implement critical business processes with capacity that serves teams, departments or the entire organization, for an unlimited number of users. Pricing will be $500 business process/month for up to 5 active workflows.

Would this mean that if I build an app that connects to the "business process" flows, I will be able to share it with employees that have standard PowerApps licensing?  When I say standard, I mean the O365 licenses such as E1 and E3 licenses that come with PowerApps.

[goobernoodles]

@v-xida-msft could you answer my question above?  I'm looking for clarity on the licensing requirements needed by end users that apps are shared with.

Also, are there any technical limitations to the types of flows that can be used with the "Flow per business process" license?  Can this include automated, instant, scheduled or "business process" flows?  

[gilmara]

Based on the earlier license changes for Power Apps in February 2019, if we are using SQL Server on-prem through the Data Gateway, this will no longer be allowed, but will be grandfathered until January 31, 2020.

But now with the new licensing changes, we can't use the SQL connector at all, but we are grandfathered for 5 years. However, our existing app that was grandfathered will break February 1, 2020 because we can't create a new Azure SQL connector, and also cannot continue using the on-prem data gateway. We are trapped.