Question
Does Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central require Premium licensing for maintenance management that uses production orders, routings, and BOMs?
Maintenance Manager Licensing Requirements
Maintenance Manager requires a Business Central Premium license because it uses production orders, routings, and BOMs to manage maintenance work. This licensing is needed for the application administrator who sets up and manages maintenance equipment, parts, and tasks. Technicians who execute maintenance work do not require a separate Maintenance Manager license.
Explanation of Licensing and Functional Integration
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central’s Premium license includes production order functionality, routings, and BOMs, which are leveraged by Maintenance Manager for maintenance workflows. The Premium license enables the use of production orders as maintenance work orders, allowing integration with inventory management, capacity planning, and costing.
This licensing requirement exists because the maintenance processes are built on core Business Central manufacturing features unavailable in the Essentials license. Using production orders provides full compatibility with Business Central’s scheduling, purchasing, and inventory modules.
Maintenance Manager extends Business Central by structuring maintenance tasks, preventive schedules, and parts consumption on top of these production order capabilities. The solution requires Premium licensing for setup and configuration roles, but maintenance technicians performing work or recording labor do not need it.
This approach ensures maintenance integrates seamlessly with existing Business Central processes without creating separate modules or data silos, leveraging the production order infrastructure for cost tracking and scheduling.
If production order capabilities are not licensed or available, Maintenance Manager cannot function as designed. In environments using only Essentials licensing, the production order–based maintenance workflow is not supported. Maintenance activities recorded without Premium licensing revert to standard service order functionality, which has limitations compared to Maintenance Manager. No alternate licensing is provided for users solely executing maintenance tasks as technicians.
Related Business Central Tools For Maintenance Management
Maintenance Manager uses production orders and routings intrinsic to Business Central Premium licensing to manage maintenance work orders. It integrates spare parts planning and capacity scheduling within these native modules.
Graphical Scheduler provides visual scheduling for maintenance activities alongside production orders, supporting manual drag-and-drop adjustments without changing licensing requirements.
Shop Floor Insight enables technicians to record labor and parts usage on maintenance orders via mobile devices, functioning on the core Business Central platform without requiring additional Maintenance Manager licenses for these users.