Licensing review
Every license and add-on set against what staff actually use, what Copilot needs, and what each option costs, with a dated renewal calendar.
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 consulting: the tenant, owned as a specialty.
Licensing, how the account and sign-ins are set up, Copilot readiness, migrations, and a monthly watch. This is a peer practice, not a help desk and not “the account underneath the AI.” We design, fix, and report. Your team or IT firm provides daily support.
The practice · sample sequence
Advisory first
Licensing reviewAdvisory
Account and sign-in reviewAdvisory
Copilot readiness and rolloutDelivery
Migration and account movesProject
Monthly watchMonthly
Advisory first. Nothing on this page starts with a license purchase.
Why the account
Copilot is only as good as what sits under it.
An assistant reads whatever the person signed in can already open. Years of drifted file permissions, stale sharing links, and apps no one remembers approving are the real risk, not the AI itself. That is why this work starts with a review of your account and your licenses rather than a head count.
That same account holds the sign-ins everything else trusts: the dashboard we set up, the AI tools your staff use, and the rules that govern them. Getting it right is the unglamorous half of technology management.
Five services and the storefront
The Microsoft 365 services.
Account and sign-in review
Who has admin rights, how sign-in is protected, what is shared outside the company, and which outside apps staff approved, as a ranked fix list with owners.
Copilot readiness
Settle the file permissions, label sensitive data, pilot one group, and measure use against the cost per active user.
Migration and account moves
Google Workspace, old mail servers, file shares, and moves between two Microsoft accounts. Planned first, with both systems running side by side until the switch.
Monthly watch
Licenses paid for against licenses used, the security score trend, renewals due, sharing changes, and apps waiting on approval.
Marketplace
Browse, buy, and manage Azure, security, and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Recommendations first; purchases whenever you want them.
Who does what
We design, fix, and report, and your provider handles daily support.
Read, fix, report
License advice, the design of your account and sign-in settings, fixing what is exposed, Copilot readiness, migration projects, and monthly reporting on what the account is doing.
Run the setup
Day-to-day administration, the help desk, computers, software updates, backups, and user support. We hand over a plan and a fix order rather than taking the keys. If you have no MSP or help desk, we appoint a help desk partner or onsite IT partner; they bill you, and we stay on the process.
Run the service
Keeping the service up, the service itself, and product support. We work inside it. The licenses we sell are Microsoft's, and the platform stays Microsoft's to run.
Licensing principles
Advice that does not depend on where you buy.
The licensing review recommends what to own, what to drop, and what Copilot actually needs. Buy it from us in the marketplace, through your existing partner, or directly from Microsoft. The recommendation does not change, and nothing is held back behind a purchase.
Pax8 is a wholesaler: it sells to partners like us, not to you directly. Everything bought in the marketplace is sold, set up, and billed by Third Shift, which makes us the seller of record. If a renewal is worth renegotiating rather than renewing, the review says so.
Questions
Questions about Microsoft 365
What does a Microsoft 365 licensing review cover?
A Microsoft 365 licensing review lists every license and add-on in your Microsoft cloud account, what each one costs, and who actually uses it. We set that cost against real use: unused licenses, add-ons that duplicate a higher plan, upgrades no one needed, and the base license Copilot requires. You get a written recommendation with the cost of each option and a renewal calendar.
How does this fit with our MSP?
Your IT firm keeps running your Microsoft cloud account. Third Shift reads the settings, ranks the gaps, and either fixes them alongside your IT firm or hands over a plan it can carry out. We do not take over day-to-day administration, and we do not become the help desk.
Why does Copilot need a readiness project?
Copilot needs a readiness project because it answers with whatever the person asking can already open. If file permissions have drifted for years, through inherited folder access, stale sharing links, or three copies of the same document, the assistant surfaces all of it within a week of rollout. Readiness means fixing that exposure before the assistant arrives.
What migrations do you take on?
Third Shift takes on four kinds of migration. Old mail servers and Google Workspace into Microsoft 365. File shares into SharePoint and Teams. Moves between two Microsoft cloud accounts for acquisitions and rebrands. And cleaning up mixed mail setups. Each one starts with a written plan: what moves, what stays behind, and in what order.
Start here
Start with the licensing review.
It is the smallest engagement that answers whether your Microsoft account and licenses are pulling their weight, and what to fix first either way.