The Azure Plan Importer tool will allow you to migrate all customers' Azure Plans subscriptions that have already been created inside the Microsoft Partner Center(MPC) in your BSS. Using this tool you will be able to import both Azure plan subscriptions that were created during the transition from the legacy Azure subscriptions but also subscriptions that were created for customers never used Azure in the past. |
The tool is located on each "Microsoft Cloud Services" instance on our BSS platform, as a button called "Azure Plan Importer".
To access the "Azure Plan Importer" tool, navigate to BSS Setup > Administration > System Options > Applications Setup > Microsoft Cloud Services > Settings (button) and select the instance tab you wish to run the tool. Then, click the "Go to Azure Plan Importer" button, as depicted below.
You are being redirected on a different web-browser tab where the "Go to Azure Plan Importer" opens.
If after clicking on the "Go to Azure Plan Importer" button, no redirection occurs to a different web-browser tab, where the "Azure Plan Migration Tool" will be accessible, please make sure that your web browser is free from any pop-up or ad blockers. We also recommend clearing the cookies and cache from your web browser. Else, you can utilize the anonymous browsing function of your web browser. |
Tool's View Availability The "Go to Azure Plan Importer" button is visible for root organizations for the country tenants as well as for the tenant resellers. A country tenant will be able to view all his BSS accounts synchronized with Microsoft that do not own an Azure Plan. If you are a Distributor and you have a tenant reseller, the tool will display to you only your subscriptions and not the ones managed by your tenant reseller. |
Inside the Azure Plan Importer tool, you are provided with the tools necessary to start immediately the migration/import of the instance's Azure Plan subscriptions. You are provided with:
Furthermore, you will find two main navigation tabs on the left-middle part of the screen (inside the collapsible menu), namely the "Current State" tab and the "Results" tab.
Tab | Explanation |
---|---|
The first tab is where the import matching and initiation takes place for your MS Tenants' Azure Plan subscriptions towards our BSS. | |
The second tab is where you can examine the import results. |
In the following analysis, we shall examine first the Current State tab along with all its functionalities, and then the Results tab examination will follow.
Inside the "Current State" tab you can find a table list with which you can manage your customers' new Azure Plan subscription imports.
Each time you wish to insert those Plan subscriptions to BSS, the tool acquires all your existing MS Tenants and their corresponding Plan subscriptions via the Get Customers button, which essentially begins a "communication" (API call) with Microsoft to collect everything relative to the instance that you are currently in. However, if you wish to insert certain Plan subscriptions to BSS, the tool can also acquire only your specified existing MS Tenants and their corresponding Plan subscriptions via the Get Specific Customers button which, in the same way as previously mentioned, collects the specified MS Tenants relative to the instance that you are currently in. Then the results from either of these two distinct "communications" (for specific or all customers) are depicted on the tool's list to be imported. Apart from Microsoft's customer name, related BSS account, tenant id, and related reseller, we also depict their pre-import status as well as the status of their imported Plan subscriptions.
Νext to the Get Specific Customers button, is an indicator named "Last Update" for displaying the last time you ran this action. For BSS users who have never run the Get Customers process before, there will be no information for the "Last Update", as depicted in the image above.
In case you want to run the importer tool without refreshing via the "Get Customers", then the information displayed are those from the "Last Update". That means that new MS Tenants or Azure Plan subscriptions could have been created but without re-running the "Get Customers" process, the importer tool will not be aligned with both BSS and MPC systems' data. |
As a best practice, after you have finished all the imports, it is recommended to re-run the Get Customers process one last time to make sure that all MS Tenants' Azure Plan subscriptions are imported/migrated and their imports are error-free. |
After opening the importers' tool from the corresponding instance and subsequently clicking the Get Customers button, the tool retrieves all the customers and populates the table list for the following two scenarios:
Therefore, each line in the table list corresponds to an Azure plan subscription that needs to be imported.
Note: the import tool will also import new Azure plans that haven't been created from transitioning from the legacy Azure.
Status States: | Status States' Explanation: |
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Microsoft Tenant's Azure Plan is ready for import. The customer is not yet synced with our BSS. It is the initial status before import. | |
The import has been added in the queue. | |
Microsoft Tenant's Azure Plan import has failed and cannot be merged in our BSS. You are able to click on the "Get Customers" button and try again. | |
Microsoft Tenant's Azure Plan cannot be synced on BSS. Usually, this status is displayed when our tool is not able to identify the Plan that needs to be imported, because of MPN ID issues or the existence of more than one BSS accounts for the same Azure Plan, In these cases, we will display that status with the corresponding details that will help you to resolve the issue. Here we will also display any other error that occurred and the importing is not possible. | |
The import is in progress and status will be changed when import gets completed. | |
In case of any Microsoft API call error, this status will be displayed. In such cases, you are able to click on the "Get Customers" button and try again. Detailed information should be visible on the "Information/Errors" column. | |
This status appears in case the importing procedure has been successfully completed on a previous run of our tool and the Azure Plan has been imported on the BSS account. |
Successful Migration & Completion of Import Each time the "Get Customers" process is run, it will display the accounts that have no Azure Plan on our BSS. When an Azure Plan is migrated/imported successfully, it will not be displayed again after clicking on the "Get Customers" button or changing tabs or refreshing the web-browser page. This is normal! You are able to preview the corresponding procedure on the Results page. |
Views | Messages | |
Ready To Import | "The Azure Plan with ID '...' and Name '...' and MPN ID '...'. Interpretation: This message indicates that everything is in order for that Azure Plan to be imported/migrated to our BSS platform. | |
Unable To Import | Message from Microsoft usually due to API Error: There is no reseller relationship set between the partner and the customer, since a customer with Tenant id "..." was not found. Common Solution: In such cases, please re-run the "Get Customers" process. | |
Not Ready To Import | Display of errors related with MPN ID issues or the existence of more than one BSS accounts for the same Azure Plan. Common Solution: In such cases, please check whether the BSS account MPN ID is linked with the corresponding MS account MPN ID. |
Error Corrections via "Get Customers" Process Repetition In case there is an error while the tool communicates with Microsoft and it does not know if there is an Azure Plan on the Partner Center, the BSS account with that issue will display under its Status column the message "Unable to Import" and on the Information/Error column("View" button) it will display any error message that Microsoft has provided to the tool. You are able to retry the Get Customers process at any time and our tool will repeat all the actions for all the synchronized users, in an attempt to also overcome the error. |
After opening the importers' tool from the corresponding instance and subsequently clicking the Get Specific Customers button, a pop-up window opens up and requests the Customers' IDs (BSS Account IDs) that you wish to import.
As a result, after submitting the specific Customers' IDs that you wish to import, the tool can retrieve those customers and populate the table list for the following two scenarios:
Therefore, each line in the table list (depending on the specific customer IDs that you have added) corresponds to an Azure plan subscription that needs to be imported.
For the rest of the details concerning the analysis of the table list, please go to the previous section of this page named "Retrieve Azure Plan Subscriptions - 'Get Customers' Action".
Once you have selected the customers that you wish to import from the list, you can proceed with the actual import by clicking on the Import Selected button. The import process begins its execution. The customers' rows, that were chosen for import, will have their status changed from "Ready To Import" to "Import In Progress" or "Pending Import"(depending on the amount of chosen customers currently in the queue).
Please note that the import process is asynchronous and as a result, you can leave it as is and continue with your other tasks. It doesn't need any monitoring by you since it is built with various mechanisms that enforce the overall completion of the import. The flow of import statuses that you will witness, after the import initiation, begins with the status Pending Import then continues to Import In Progress and then if the import is Completed successfully the row status changes to Imported or it changes to Failed To Import. The below diagram is a representation of that flow: |
The steps of a successful import execution are:
Billing Options of the Imported Azure Plan Subscriptions The imported Azure Plan subscriptions will be related either with the reseller's or the end customer pricelist or with the default pricelist you have defined for the Azure Plan product. Check Configuring Azure Plan Pricing for Resellers and Configuring Azure Plan Pricing for Direct Customers for more details. The imported subscriptions will be billed from our platform only for the current month regardless of when you have created them in the partner center. The previous months will be visible in our system as subscription renewals but with zero (0.0) amount and we will not generate any invoice for these billing cycles. |
If a customer's import has failed with Status "Failed To Import", you can re-run the import process to attempt to complete the import without errors.
To check what is causing the error and even correct it, you can navigate to the Results page via its corresponding tab.
A log of the failed import attempt will be kept in the Results page, even after you have re-run the "Get Customers" process and then retried the import. It will look like the following image:
During or after the import, you can reach the Results page by clicking on the corresponding tab to view the import process of the customer(s) as well as the import results in terms of the steps the tool has executed. Additionally, inside that page, you will find comments on information events, warning events or error events that may occur during an import. In the following analysis, we examine the content provided on that page.
For each import of one or more customers, the list adds a new row for each customer inside the Results page.
When viewing the Results page, you will find the import results logs distributed into four main columns; "Status", "MS Customer Name", "Tenant ID" and "Related BSS Account":
Once you expand the account's information, by clicking the arrow located at the beginning of each row, you can review the detailed logging for each step of the importing procedure of the specific account.
The expanded logging list depicts all import's steps in a temporal sequence and presents them via three columns, which are:
The messages within the expanded logging list are very user friendly and provide clear information about each import event's actions.
Logs on Previous Importing Attempts In case the importing attempt is not the first, the former logs will be stored on separate rows having the same account name but different timestamps so as to be more distinct. The user is able to expand and review the detailed logging of any of the previous importing procedures based on the timestamp of each row. |
Azure Plan Importer Tool for On-Premise Installations |
Import of New MS Tenant to BSS Along with his Azure Plan Subscription During the import of a new MS Tenant to our BSS via the "Import Customers tool", his Azure Plan(s) from his MPC account, will not be imported automatically to BSS as they will have to be imported via the "Azure Migration Tool". As a result, both tools will be required when importing a new MS Tenant as well as his Azure Plan subscription to our BSS. |