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Reclaim Opportunities

Reclaim Opportunities surfaces paid Microsoft 365 licenses that are almost certainly wasted — assigned to accounts that are disabled, were never activated, or have gone dormant. Every candidate is sorted into one of five confidence tiers, from high-confidence pure waste you can reclaim immediately down to short-term dormancy you should monitor first, so you can act on the safest savings before reviewing the marginal ones.

Headline Metrics​

The summary band at the top of the page quantifies the total reclaim opportunity for the selected company:

  • Potential monthly savings — Combined monthly cost of every reclaimable license across all five tiers
  • Annualised — The monthly figure projected over twelve months
  • Reclaimable licensed users — The total count of users holding a license that is a reclaim candidate
  • Across 5 confidence tiers — A reminder that the figure blends high-, medium-, and low-confidence candidates; expand each tier to see its individual contribution

Confidence Tiers​

Candidates are grouped into five tiers. Each tier card shows its confidence level, the number of users it covers, and the monthly spend tied up in it.

Disabled with license​

  • Confidence — High
  • Definition — Users marked disabled in Azure AD (is_active=false) who still hold at least one paid license
  • Action — Pure waste — reclaim immediately. A disabled account cannot use its license under any circumstances

Licensed but never activated​

  • Confidence — High
  • Definition — Active users with at least one license and no recorded activity in any synced service, ever
  • Action — Typically ghost or provisioned-but-unused accounts; reclaim after confirming the account is not awaiting onboarding

Dormant 180+ days​

  • Confidence — High
  • Definition — Active users with a license whose last activity was more than 180 days ago
  • Action — Very unlikely to need the license; safe to reclaim after a brief check

Inactive 90–180 days​

  • Confidence — Medium
  • Definition — Users whose last activity was between 90 and 180 days ago
  • Action — Good candidates to review — may include long-leave or secondment cases, so confirm employment status before reclaiming

Inactive 30–90 days​

  • Confidence — Low
  • Definition — Short-term dormant users whose last activity was between 30 and 90 days ago
  • Action — Often seasonal or contracting gaps; monitor before reclaiming rather than acting immediately

Note: Confidence reflects how safely a license can be reclaimed, not how much it saves. A low-confidence tier can still represent meaningful spend — review it, don't ignore it.

Reclaim by SKU​

The first table breaks the opportunity down by license SKU, so you can see which products carry the most reclaimable spend:

  • SKU — The Microsoft 365 plan name (e.g., Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Exchange Online Plan 1)
  • Users — The number of reclaim candidates holding that SKU
  • Per-lic — The per-license monthly cost
  • Monthly — The combined monthly cost of the reclaimable seats for that SKU
  • Annual — The annualized cost of those seats

Reclaim by User​

The second table lists the individual users behind the opportunity, with the organizational context needed to decide whether to act:

  • User — The display name and email of the candidate
  • Location — The user's location attribute from Azure AD
  • Department — The user's department attribute from Azure AD
  • Inactive — How long the account has been inactive, which maps to its confidence tier
  • $ / mo — The monthly cost of the license held by that user

Reclaiming Licenses​

  1. Start with the high-confidence tiers — Disabled with license and Licensed but never activated carry the lowest risk and often the highest immediate savings
  2. Confirm before reclaiming — Use the by-user table's Location and Department context to rule out long-leave, secondment, or onboarding cases
  3. Cross-reference recommendations — Validate borderline candidates against the Recommendations engine before removing a license
  4. Return the seat — Once reclaimed, the freed license returns to the pool and becomes available in License Allocation

Best Practices​

  • Reclaim disabled accounts first — A disabled account holding a paid license is pure waste with no business risk; clear this tier on every review.
  • Treat low-confidence tiers as a watch list — Inactive 30–90 day users are frequently seasonal or contracting staff. Monitor them rather than reclaiming prematurely.
  • Use SKU breakdown to prioritize — Focus reclaim effort on the SKUs with the highest monthly cost per seat to maximize savings per action.
  • Re-run after every sync — Activity windows shift as new usage data arrives; reclaim figures are only as current as the last sync.
  • Coordinate with offboarding — Pair reclaim reviews with your HR offboarding process so departed-employee licenses never linger.