Synchronization & Vetting Process for New Educational Qualification Accounts
Microsoft has introduced two new parameters when someone chooses the Education qualification as their entity. These new parameters, called EducationSegment, and Website, can be found in the form of fields, under the BSS Account Sync Options, and under the Storefront Details Step(3) (during the checkout process). In essence, these fields are utilized during the vetting process of the Education qualification in order to facilitate faster yet more controlled vetting and consequently simplify the transactions of Academic-priced offers and products for you, your resellers, and their end-customers.
Affected Microsoft Product Types
Since Microsoft offers both license-based and subscription-based products to customers with Education qualifications, certain Microsoft Product Types that offer such products are affected. These Products Types are:
The Microsoft Perpetual Licenses - (license based).
The Microsoft Cloud Services (Legacy) - (subscription based).
The Microsoft Dynamics (Legacy) - (subscription based).
💡 Currently, there are no available Educational NCE products. However, legacy products are expected to be updated to NCE in the future.
Setting the Education Qualification in Storefront & BSS
In the following two tabs called, Setting the Education Qualification in the Storefront Service Details Step, and Setting the Education Qualification in the BSS Account Sync Options, you can find the analysis of how the two Education fields (EducationSegment, and Website) must be setup during the ordering/checkout process of products with Education qualification in order for the customers' Accounts to be able to undergo the latest vetting process that Microsoft requires.
Flow of Ordering Education Products via Storefront
When a Storefront user places an order for an "Education" product, our system, depending on the circumstances analyzed below, checks the customer's qualification. Then, depending on the customer's eligibility and the Product type of the selected Education product for purchasing, the process either completely stops, in the case of a customer with no Education qualification, or stops but the vetting process is initiated, or it proceeds towards a successful checkout while the Education product is provisioned, in the case of an existing customer having the Education qualification.
The five main points of the flow of a Storefront order containing an Educational product are analyzed via the following theoretical (execution) example.
The systems check the products in the basket.
A review of the qualifications of those products initiates.
A review of the qualifications of the customer’s Account (for which the order is for) initiates.
Qualifications between the products and the customer’s Account are compared.
After the above comparison ends, one of the three following scenarios will be true:
If the qualifications match, then the purchase proceeds and gets completed successfully and instantly by provisioning the Educational product to the customer.
If the qualifications are different (excluding the special Microsoft qualification of State Owned Entity[SOE] which can have two qualifications) and none of the products is of Educational qualification, then the purchase does not go through, and no vetting or other process is initiated.
If the qualifications are different and one of the products is of Perpetual Educational qualification, then the purchase does not go through, even if the two Educational fields are filled in for this customer. Also, an error message appears requesting from the Storefront user to remove the Education product from the basket in order to proceed with the checkout process of the other products inside the basket (whenever applicable), and at the same time, the same error message instructs the user to contact his CSP.
If the qualifications are different and one of the products is of Legacy (Cloud, Dynamics) Educational qualification, then the purchase does not go through, but the two Educational fields need to be filled in for this customer, since the automatic vetting process with Microsoft starts. This means that the customer will have to wait for as long as three days in order to check if the vetting process was successful or not, before attempting to complete the order again.
Also, an informative message appears requesting from the Storefront user to wait because the order is under review since the vetting process has begun with Microsoft.
Ordering an Education Product via Storefront
In this Order example of a Perpetual(Product Type) Education product in Storefront, you can witness that the Storefront user has placed an order for a Microsoft subscription product called ‘BizTalk Server 2020 Branch (Education)’, and the checkout process stops because the customer is not an existing vetted Education qualification tenant in Microsoft.
Once the checkout process is stopped, the following informative message informs the Storefront user of the available actions. More specifically:
Another Order example of a Legacy(Product Type) Education product in Storefront, you can witness that the Storefront user has placed an order for a Microsoft subscription product called ‘Dynamics 365 Operations - Order Lines for Education (Education)’, and the checkout process stops because the customer is not an existing vetted Education qualification tenant in Microsoft. However, the vetting process with Microsoft is initiated.
However, we would like to briefly cover other qualification scenarios that might arise in Storefront. Please continue to the following section of this page for more information.
Different Qualification Ordering Scenarios in Storefront
Customer synced with Existing Vetted Educational Microsoft Tenant:
Customer synced with Microsoft Commercial or SOE Tenant with filled-in Education Segment in sync options:
Customer synced with Microsoft Non-Profit or Governmental Tenant:
Flow of Ordering Education Products via BSS
When a BSS user places an order for an "Education" product, our system, depending on the circumstances analyzed below, initiates the vetting process for the customer's qualification. Then, Microsoft performs a validation to examine the customer's eligibility for purchasing an Education plan. As long as the vetting process from Microsoft lasts (for about three days or less), there is an intermediate stage called "in review" where the BSS user cannot continue the order because it is in a "review state". After this "review state", if the customer is eligible, his status gets updated in the Microsoft Partner Center (MPC) account, and the order can then be fully re-executed and provisioned. However, if the customer is not eligible for purchasing an "Education" plan, based on Microsoft's checks, the order cannot be executed at all from either platform.
The five main points of the flow of a BSS order containing an Educational product are analyzed via the following theoretical (execution) example.
The systems check the products in the basket.
A review of the qualifications of those products initiates.
A review of the qualifications of the customer’s Account (for which the order is for) initiates.
Qualifications between the products and the customer’s Account are compared.
After the above comparison ends, one of the three following scenarios will be true:
If the qualifications match, then the purchase proceeds and gets completed successfully and instantly by provisioning the Educational product to the customer.
If the qualifications are different (excluding the special Microsoft qualification of State Owned Entity[SOE] which can have two qualifications) and none of the products is of Educational qualification, then the purchase does not go through, and no vetting or other process is initiated.
If the qualifications are different and one of the products is of Educational qualification, then the purchase does not go through, but if the two Educational fields are filled in for this customer, then the automatic vetting process with Microsoft starts. This means that the customer will have to wait for as long as three days in order to check if the vetting process was successful or not, before attempting to complete the order again.
Ordering an Education Product via BSS
In this Order example of an Education product in BSS, you can witness that the BSS user has placed an order for a Microsoft legacy subscription product called ‘Microsoft PowerApps Plan 1 for Faculty (Education)’, and the ordering process stops due to the vetting process of Microsoft.
Once the vetting process gets completed and the customer is eligible to purchase Education products, the order needs to be re-executed in order to be completed successfully and provision the Education product.
However, we would like to briefly cover other qualification scenarios that might arise in BSS. Please continue to the following section of this page for more information.
Different Qualification Ordering Scenarios in BSS
Customer synced with Existing Vetted Educational Microsoft Tenant:
Customer synced with Microsoft Commercial or SOE Tenant with filled-in Education Segment in sync options:
Customer synced with Microsoft Commercial or SOE Tenant without filled-in Education Segment in sync options:
Customer synced with Microsoft Non-Profit or Governmental Tenant:
Tenant Organizations
Tenant Organizations inherit the new Education fields from their root/parent Account.
Handling Error Messages
The following list contains various error messages and their meaning as they are displayed during the ordering/checkout processes via BSS and Storefront.
Basket items step(1) error message when a mismatch of qualifications exists (while the customer is already synchronized):
Basket items step(1) error message when a mismatch of qualifications exists (when the customer is not already synchronized - service details step is displayed):
The error message appears after synchronizing the customer/filling-in the MCA fields.