Users are asked to request Cowork access even though they're licensed

The question

I am the administrator. I have assigned Copilot for Business licenses to two users. When they get into Cowork, they are prompted to request access. I can see those requests in the Portal > Copilot > Cowork section. When I click on View Requests, it takes me to the User page, and there’s an alert on the top of the page to View request. So far so good.

When I click that, it simply takes me to the licensing page, but my users already have Copliot for Business. There’s nothing to add. What else do they need?

The answer

Hi Denis — thanks for the detailed write-up, that really helps.

Short version: this isn’t a licensing gap. Your two users are licensed fine — what they’re actually hitting is Cowork’s usage-based billing. Cowork needs two things: a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence (✓ you’ve done that) and the users added to a Copilot Credits spending policy. The “request access” prompt is a credit request, not a licence one — which is exactly why the licensing page has nothing to add.

Where to approve it: Microsoft 365 admin center → Copilot → Cost Management → Overview → Top actions → View requests. That “Credit requests” page shows each user’s licence status and current policy, and lets you add them to a spending policy (create one first if you haven’t set up usage-based billing yet).

References:

• Our Cowork admin & governance guide
• Microsoft — manage credits & requests
• Microsoft — the discovery setting

Hope that unblocks them!