Frequently Asked Questions

We gathered some questions asked by partners in the CSP program that will help you discover some valuable details regarding this new CSP component. All answers are based on information coming from Microsoft feed and may be dynamically altered according to the incoming information stream.

Microsoft CSP Related Questions

Q: What are the Timelines for the new commerce experience to be launched?

A: Microsoft has shared via an announcement that January 10, 2022 is the General Availability (GA) of commercial seat-based offers for new commerce in the CSP program, following the technical release of these offers on October 14, 2021. This date also marks the beginning of the two time-bound promotions for commercial seat-based new commerce offers.

Q: When will I be required to move existing subscriptions to new commerce?

Microsoft recognizes that CSP partners will need time to operationalize the provisioning, billing, and policy changes in new commerce and to migrate existing (legacy) subscriptions to the new commerce platform.
March 10, 2022: Partners can no longer place new commercial subscription orders on the legacy platform.

Q: Will I need to sign or accept any new or different agreements?

A: The Microsoft Partner Agreement that partners accept to activate their CSP tenants will continue to be the standard agreement for partners. Customers will continue to accept the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) that governs their purchases from CSP partners.

Q: Will all of the offers in the existing CSP catalog be available to sell in the new commerce experience catalog?

A: With the October launch, only commercial offers are available for provisioning in new commerce. Government, education/academic, and charity/non-profit offers will be added to the new commerce catalog in the future (date TBD).

Q: Will Microsoft automatically move all my subscriptions to the new commerce experience?

A: No, if partners wish to move to the new commerce experience, they will have to migrate existing subscriptions.

Q: Can a client have subscriptions in both legacy and the NCE at the same time?

A: Yes, a partner can have legacy and new commerce subscriptions in effect at the same time, and the partner will be billed for the legacy subscriptions on the usual legacy billing date and for the new commerce subscriptions on the standard new commerce billing date of the 6th-8th of each month. Eventually, however, all legacy subscriptions will have to renew on new commerce. New orders for legacy commercial subscriptions can be placed until March 10, 2022, and renewals of legacy commercial subscriptions can made until July 1, 2022.

Q: Why do monthly term subscriptions cost more than annual-term ones in new commerce?

A: The new monthly term subscriptions in new commerce are billed by Microsoft at a 20% higher price than annual term offers of the same type because they give you the ability to cancel on behalf of the customer without incurring additional payments for the remainder of an annual term. The premium pricing is in line with standard practice in the Microsoft Web Direct program and in other industries. Microsoft recently announced that special promos will be in place to offer a better pricing for monthly/annual plans.

Q: Does the 7 days window for cancellation and seat reduction in new commerce only apply to business days? For example, if I order a subscription on Friday, do I have until the following Wednesday to cancel? And does the cancellation window also exclude holidays?

A: The 7 days period start at the beginning of each seat-based subscription term in new commerce, during which a partner can cancel the subscription or reduce seats on that subscription, includes all days of the week and does not exclude weekend days or holidays. So if a subscription is purchased on a Friday, the partner has until the following Monday to cancel or reduce seat counts. Note that the 7-days cancellation and seat-reduction period begins at the time on the clock at which the subscription order or renewal is made.

Q: How will the new commerce experience affect my profitability?

A: The new commerce experience in CSP will help increase profitability for you by providing a durable and scalable business model and improving operational efficiency in the CSP program. With the new cancellation policy and premium pricing for the new monthly term offers, the new commerce experience encourages customers to commit to long-term subscription ownership and leverage the CSP program benefits, including the bundling option of Microsoft offers with your own solutions, IP, and value-added services. You will also be able to monetize the flexibility of the monthly subscription term, and to increase customer lifetime value with the ability to upgrade to Enterprise SKUs in the middle of the term (not enabled for Windows 365 offers). Finally, the new commerce experience will improve subscription-management capabilities, optimize offer ingestion, and increase accounting efficiency.

Q: Can an Annual Term subscription be converted to Monthly term and Monthly to Annual?

A: Annual subscriptions cannot be converted to monthly. Also 3 years cannot be converted to monthly nor annual. It is allowed to convert monthly subscriptions to annual, also monthly and annual to 3 years. When a customer’s subscription is changed from monthly term to annual term, the following month’s reconciliation file will include a credit for the prorated difference that is paid in advance (reflecting the 20% less expensive price for annual), and the annual term charge will be effective from the date the subscription term is changed.

Q: What products can be purchased under NCE for 3yr terms?

A: Currently only specific Dynamics 365 offers are available with three-year terms in new commerce (as is the case in legacy). In March 2022, the current plan is to offer three-year terms for M365 offers and possibly for other seat-based offer types.

Q: Will customers be able to transfer their subscriptions from one partner to another?

A: A customer subscription can’t be transferred between CSP partner tenants midterm. If the customer purchases the same SKU from a different partner before the original subscription on the SKU has reached the end of its term, the original partner will continue being billed for the entire term of the original subscription. This policy is intended to enforce the subscription term and cancellation policy because transfer of a subscription in its current term status to the new partner’s tenant midterm would stop the billing to the original partner for that original subscription

Q: Are there any exception requests for cancellation accepted by Microsoft?

A:Microsoft won’t consider requests from partners or customers for exceptions to the 168-hour cancellation and seat-reduction policy (unless the request involves a cancellation or seat reduction that could not be completed within the first 168 hours of the subscription term due to a Microsoft error). Examples of partner or customer scenarios in CSP new commerce that aren’t eligible for exceptions: Customer requesting a change of partners midterm due to insufficient service, support, or other reasons Partner or customer mistake in ordering that’s identified more than 168 hours after the order and isn’t the result of price list errors or inconsistencies Local, country, or regional regulations allowing more than 168 hours for a consumer to cancel or “return” a product (for example, the EU Consumer Rights Directive).

Q: What is the benefit of being able to purchase addons on their own?

A: The ability to purchase add-ons separately from base offers can be a benefit when the customer already has a prerequisite base offer (which can have been purchased from another partner or directly from Microsoft) and just needs the add-on from the specific partner. Note that in new commerce, it will be required that the customer has a prerequisite subscription in place in order for the partner to sell the add-on separately.

Q: Can licenses be increased and decreased on demand?

A: Seat counts can be increased at any time during a subscription term in the new commerce. Reductions in seat counts can only be made during the first 168 hours after the initial order or renewal, or within the first 168 hours after an order of additional seats midterm has been placed (and only from that number of additional seats).

Q: When I migrate a Legacy Subscription which is up for renewal, will the Subscription keep the same NCE pricing?

When the legacy subscription is up for renewal and is migrated into new commerce, it will do so at the price in effect in NCE at the time of migration, instead of retaining the legacy subscription pricing.

Q: Are all Legacy Subscriptions eligible to be migrated to the NCE?

Legacy subscriptions can be migrated to the new commerce experience when there is an equivalent offer available in the new commerce experience. This means that the following legacy subscriptions CANNOT be migrated:

• Subscriptions with a promotion that is not available in the new commerce experience

• Government, Education, or nonprofit subscriptions

• Subscriptions for retired or obsolete offers

In addition, trial and inactive subscriptions cannot be migrated, nor can subscriptions that were purchased (started) less than a month ago.

interworks.cloud Automation Platform Related Questions

Q: Is interworks.cloud going to implement a new integration component for the NCE?

A: interworks.cloud has compiled an NCE project team long before the official launch of Microsoft. Our platform is NCE ready since November 2021 and the implementation is based on the existing integration service manager, that you use to automate your Microsoft CSP business. We moved really carefully, so as to keep the current business untouched and proceed with many new additions and implementations to match all business and technical requirements set my Microsoft. Our integration is based on a set of APIs that Microsoft is publishing specially for integration providers.

Our main goal is to provide a set of high-value business benefits that go beyond features and ensure your CSP assurance and growth.

Q: Will we still be able to use interworks.cloud for the CSP Legacy business?

A: Sure! The interworks.cloud platform will support the CSP Legacy as usual.

Q: What is the interworks.cloud platform time-plan for the NCE?

A: We are totally focused on providing you with the automation needed to start selling NCE products as quickly and as easily as possible. We are bringing into the interworks.cloud platform new features and functional changes under a phased approach, to ensure the smooth transition and complete alignment with Microsoft’s finalized requirements and technical automations published.

So, our plan is to move carefully and start releasing NCE functionalities, starting from mid-November 2021. Our platform releases will be phased and will continue within 2022, to align with the milestone set by Microsoft for switching to NCE. Core functionalities that are considered as business must have’s are highly prioritized.

Our roadmap is depicted in the Platform NCE Roadmap page.

More questions about NCE and interworks.cloud platform? Send us your queries at product@interworks.cloud