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The ordering experience for the NCE products is similar to the process you have accustomed for the legacy Office 365 products. In this page we will explain the process but we will mainly focus on the differences and how our platform manage them. The main differences are the following:
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Publishing NCE Products to Storefront
The NCE commercial products are created automatically in your system. What you need to do for those products to be available to your customers and your resellers, is to publish them in your Storefront by following the instructions described on Publish a Product in Storefront page.
The NCE products can be published in your Storefront either as part of a product group or separately, each one with its own marketing material.
Ordering NCE Products
The ordering method for purchasing NCE commercial products is the same as the one used for purchasing legacy Office 365 products and it is described in detail on the KB section Ordering an Office 365 Service . All the business rules that apply now for the legacy products (acceptance of MCA, INN validation, etc,) are in place for the NCE products too.
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Currently, only the commercial license type is available for the Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Windows 365 plans. The rest qualification are not supported yet from Microsoft. |
Ordering via Storefront
Once the NCE commercial products are published to Storefront and their prices are added via the dedicated tool, they are ready for ordering. The NCE products are easily distinguishable from their prefix and suffix and that is what differentiates them visually from the rest of the Microsoft SKUs.
The Add to Basket step looks like this for NCE products:
You will notice that there isn’t any add-ons list available on this page since add-ons are not defined as add-ons anymore on our platform. We will explain in the XX paragraph the ordering experience for the add-ons.
After an NCE subscription is purchased, a message appears where the Storefront user sees that the Billing Cycle of the subscription is either monthly or annually, and the activation date is <today>.
Also, the Manage Your Service button exists, and once clicked, it redirects the Storefront user to the Workspaces page.
All NCE products are available in monthly or annual billing cycles. Moving on with our next versions, we will support both triannual billing cycles and billing frequency options or the annual and triannual cycles. For more information regarding the
billing cycles of NCE subscriptions, please continue to the https://interworkscloud.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ICPD/pages/540901434#Billing-Cycles-of-NCE-Subscriptions section of this page.
Ordering NCE Add-ons (Products)
The major difference in the ordering of add-ons between the existing (legacy) license-based ones and those of the New Commerce Experience is in how they’re purchased. NCE add-ons are now displayed as distinct products, meaning that are also displayed on the BSS and Storefront as standalone products that have base-subscription dependencies in order to be purchased. Therefore, those add-ons are not depicted anymore as available add-ons under an overview of an NCE product in Storefront, and additionally, those add-ons (now in the form of a product) have actual NCE products as prerequisites for being purchased.
In an existing license-based add-on, the partner applies the add-on to a base-offer subscription after that base subscription has been purchased. In the New Commerce Experience, partners purchase the add-ons from the catalog itself,no longer having a complex purchase experience for base offers and add-ons, since both base NCE product offers and NCE add-ons(products) are displayed in the New Commerce Experience product catalog. However, since the NCE add-ons (product) have NCE product prerequisites, partners need to make sure that the prerequisite products are met, otherwise, they will witness errors when attempting to purchase a an NCE add-on (product) when the customer doesn’t have any of the prerequisites. Also, a single NCE add-on (product) can complement more than one base product SKU that the add-on is designed to work with.
Many of the concepts about how add-ons work, from a services perspective, remain true across the board for the existing (legacy) ones and those of the New Commerce Experience. There is nothing different about how the provisioning takes place.
they are now displayed as distinct products, meaning that are also displayed on the BSS and Storefront as standalone products that have base-subscription dependencies in order to be purchased. Therefore, those add-ons are not depicted anymore as available add-ons under an overview of a NCE product in Storefront, and additionally, those add-ons (now in the form of a product) have actual NCE products as prerequisites for being purchased.
If for example, a Storefront user tries to checkout with an NCE product (add-on) without having the prerequisite base-subscription, an error message appears on the Basket Item step in Storefront stating:
Our system will not allow a user to order an NCE add-on without having first purchased at least one of the prerequisite products. During checkout, we check whether the customer has at least one active subscription for one of the prerequisites products, and only then we allow the user to complete the checkout process. Otherwise, we display the error message “The addon is not purchasable without a compatible base
subscription.“subscription”
Ordering via BSS
When it comes to ordering an NCE commercial product via BSS, the ordering methods available are:
The Subscription creation:
And the Order creation and execution:
As previously mentioned, although the NCE commercial products do not have major changes in terms of how our systems handle them, the NCE add-ons are entirely changed, and therefore, if the BSS user tries to execute an order containing an NCE product (add-on) or tries to create a subscription for the same product without having a prerequisite base-subscription, an error message appears, stating:
“Item ‘<NCE Product Name>’ : The addon is not purchasable without a compatible base subscription.“
NCE Subscription Provisioning
Concerning the provisioning of a NCE subscription, if the synchronization is successful, the subscription is created in the Microsoft Partner Center under the Subscriptions page. Also, the subscription is displayed on both platforms, the BSS and the Storefront.
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Provisoning Time of NCE Subscriptions Provisioning actions take longer for NCE subscriptions than for the legacy Microsoft subscriptions, of about 2 - 2.5 minutes on average for each SKU. |
If an error occurs, the subscription will be created but with a failed sync status. The provisioning can be retriedby using the Retry button next to the provisioning sync status of the subscription.
NCE Managing (workspace)
Also, the Manage Your Service button exists, and once clicked, it redirects the Storefront user to the Workspaces page.
SCREENSHOT!!!!
Billing NCE Subscriptions
Since Microsoft NCE subscriptions are charged either on a monthly or an annual basis, depending on their unit, we are aligned with Microsoft Billing Cycles. The pricing information that is imported to the Import New Commerce Experience Product Prices from the official Microsoft Partner Center API call is both the cost prices (i.e what Microsoft charges you as a CSP) and the retail prices that match the country of the end customer. By end customer, we mean all the final consumers of the NCE products. This means that you have the flexibility to bill your resellers and your customers either by setting a margin above your cost or by defining a discount for Microsoft's retail price, exactly as you do for the legacy Office 365 plans.
Billing Cycles of NCE Subscriptions
The two available Billing Cycles for NCE subscriptions are either monthly or annual. Since all the NCE products are excluded from prorata, the billing cycles of those products will start upon their creation date. Consequently, the billing cycle is a full billing cycle based on the product unit and the subscription end date which is calculated based on the start date of the subscription for a full period.
Examples:
- For months that have 31 days, the subscription end date will be on the 30th.
- For months that have 30 days, the subscription end date will be on the 29th.
- For the month of February which has 28 days, the subscription end date will be on the 27th in non-leap years. For a leap year, the subscription would end on the 28th. For purchases made on the second to the last day of a month that has 30 days, the subscription will end one day prior to the end of the following month.
Invoicing NCE Subscriptions
Concerning the invoicing of the NCE subscriptions, we are invoicing the NCE subscriptions normally.
No “Price-Protection” for NCE Subscriptions
Price protection is not introduced for the NCE lineup of Microsoft products as of today and consequently, no NCE subscriptions offer this feature.
No “Maintain-One-Active” Option for NCE Subscription
The Maintain One Active option is not available for NCE subscriptions. As it is evident from the following screenshot, the Maintain One Active checkbox inside the NCE Product Type page in BSS Setup, is locked and cannot be enabled. This means that from now on, each new order will create a new distinct subscription and not an addition to an existing NCE subscription.
However, if you wish to increase the licenses of an existing active NCE subscription, then this can be accomplished by accessing the page of that subscription.
Managing NCE Subscriptions
In this section, you can find an analysis of the means of managing NCE subscriptions in terms of increasing the licenses, canceling, and suspending them.
Changing NCE Licenses Quantity
With the current release, you are only able to increase the NCE licenses of a subscription.
For a step-by-step guide, please proceed to the Buying Extra Licenses from Subscriptions Details Page page.
Increase Licenses
On BSS, the licenses on a NCE subscription can only be increased. Also, from the three main execution options (namely, the immediate, at a specific date, and at the end of the billing period), only the immediate execution is currently available. Consequently, when a BSS user is requesting an increase of the NCE subscription licenses, the following pop-up window will appear, having its execution type locked to the Immediate option.
Decrease Quantity
With the current release, the decrease in the quantity of NCE subscription licenses is currently not yet possible. In case, a BSS user tries to decrease the number of licenses from a NCE subscription, a check mechanism will cut off negative changes, be displaying the following pop-up window, with an error message stating:
”Seat decrease is temporarily unavailable for this version.”
Restrictions on Minimum & Maximum Quantity
If the BSS user tries to execute an order containing an NCE product with restrictions on minimum and/or maximum quantity or tries to create a subscription for the same product for a quantity that is outside of the restrictions, an error message appears stating:
“Item ‘<NCE Product Name>’ supports quantity range between <min quantity> and <max quantity>.”
Canceling NCE Subscriptions
For New Commerce Experience offers, partners can immediately cancel their subscription(s), only through BSS, with a prorated refund within the first 72 hours for any term (proration calculated daily) and on renewal of the subscription.
Therefore, purchased NCE subscriptions, may be returned within 24 hours of purchase time for a full refund, while partial returns are applicable for cancellations of up to 72 hours since purchase time. Please note that Microsoft does not charge an early termination fee.
After the period of 72 hours that Microsoft established, cancellation is no longer available, and the partner will be billed for the full term, even if the customer stops paying for or using the subscription (applicable to any billing plan).
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Calculation of Cancellation Timeframe The cancellation timeframe of 72 hours, is set by Microsoft to be calculated on the basis of hour rate. However, our systems are currently calculating the 72 hours time frame based on a daily rate. In a future release, we will be in alignment with Microsoft’s hour rate calculation of the cancellation timeframe. |
When a cancellation is complete, the customer will immediately lose access to the service, and the service can’t be restored and the state for the subscription will be nonrecoverable.
Upon renewal of the subscription, partners will get another 72-hour cancellation window in which they can cancel their subscription for a prorated refund.
Cancellation of NCE Subscriptions via BSS
As of this second release, cancellations can only be executed from the BSS platform and not yet from Storefront. If a BSS user tries to cancel an NCE subscription or a number of NCE licenses from a subscription outside of the 72 hours window, a check mechanism will stop the cancellation action and display an error message stating:
“Cancellation was valid until <cancellation end date in BSS org’s timezome>“.
The subscription remains as-is, while its synchronization status and subscription status remain the same.
Suspending NCE Subscriptions
Partners can pause and resume a subscription at any time without a cancellation. However, partner billing continues during the suspension.
Suspend a Subscription via BSS
The BSS user can suspend a NCE subscription and the action results in the subscription’s suspension on Partner Center as well. The service will continue to be billed while the subscription is suspended.
Activate a Suspended Subscription
In order for our systems to be aligned with Microsoft, when a suspended NCE subscription gets activated again, the “Auto-Renew” option of the subscription turns off by default, since Microsoft has the same implementation.
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