Managing Renewals for NCE Subscriptions
- Panagiotis Papanastasiou
This page contains the rules which have been put in place to ensure consistency between the interworks.cloud Platform and the Microsoft Partner Center (MPC), concerning the renewals of NCE Subscriptions. Renewals are available to NCE Subscriptions with both qualifications of products (Commercial & Public Sector).
For information regarding the scheduling of changes in the:
Storefront portal, please see the page Scheduling Subscription Changes with Future Requests.
BSS portal, please see the page Manage Future Requests.
Please note that only NCE Subscriptions with Commercial NCE products can utilize scheduled changes.
In the upcoming releases, the scheduled changes will also be available to NCE Subscriptions with Public Sector NCE products.
The following rules apply to all change requests for Microsoft New Commerce Experience (NCE) subscriptions:
If the subscription status is not Active, renewal requests cannot be managed.
If a request already exists in the Microsoft Partner Center, a new request cannot be submitted.
If the request is canceled in the Storefront, it will also be canceled in the Microsoft Partner Center (MPC). This applies regardless of whether any extra actions have been added to the MPC (e.g., to change the billing cycle).
Please note that there will be no request for confirmation when a request is canceled in the Storefront.
To use the Manage Renewals function, the CSP should have the following 2 GDAP roles assigned:
Directory Reader
Global Reader
Available Process Period for Renewal Management of NCE Subscriptions
Inconsistencies can occur between our system and Microsoft Partner Center (MPC) regarding subscription start and end dates, as well as renewal times. These discrepancies may cause scheduled changes, like renewals or revocations, to be executed in only one system, leading to potential errors. To mitigate these issues, it is crucial to follow the specific “Locked Window“ rule analyzed below before managing renewals for Microsoft NCE subscriptions on our platform. This rule aims to ensure alignment between our platform and the Microsoft Partner Center, thereby reducing the risk of errors with scheduled changes.
Locked Window for Managing Renewals
A locked window around NCE subscription renewals has been enforced to temporarily restrict the ability to schedule changes before and after NCE subscription renewals. The window's size, ranging from 2-3 days before and after the renewal period of an NCE subscription, is determined by comparing the renewal dates in our platform and the MPC.
How it Works:
UTC Conversion: Our platform’s subscription dates are converted to UTC to match those in the MPC.
Renewal Date Comparison: We compare the end dates (renewal dates) of the subscriptions in our platform and the MPC.
Tolerance Time: A 24-hour tolerance time is applied around the renewal time for both BSS and MPC, creating two tolerance dates for each system.
Window Calculation: The minimum (MIN) and maximum (MAX) values of all four calculated dates (BSS and MPC tolerance dates) define the locked window period, which ranges from 2 to 3 days in most scenarios. During this locked window, scheduling or revoking changes is forbidden.
Large Discrepancies: If the renewal dates in our platform and the MPC differ by more than 24 hours, all scheduled actions are forbidden for that billing cycle. You will need to contact our support team to resolve the discrepancy.
Scenarios with “Locked Window” Examples:
Identical Renewal Dates (Difference = 0 hours) | Difference within Tolerance (0 to 24 hours) | Difference Exceeds Tolerance (More than 24 hours) |
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 Graphical Example of a Locked Window | ||
Error Messages During the “Locked Window”
If you attempt to schedule a change during the Locked Window period, you will receive one of the following messages:
For differences within the tolerance (0 to 24 hours): "This action cannot be performed at this time of the subscription’s billing cycle. Please try later."
For differences exceeding the tolerance (more than 24 hours): "This action cannot be performed because the billing cycle of this subscription in our system does not match with Microsoft Partner Center. Please contact our support team."
Process Flow
This section demonstrates the flow of the Manage Renewal process when a license quantity change, billing plan change, and billing term change request is submitted for an NCE subscription.
The storefront user clicks on the I want to… button and then clicks on the Manage Renewal option:
The Renewal Options dialog box pops up, allowing you to specify your license quantity changes, the billing plan changes (when applicable), and the billing term changes (when applicable). Click on Submit to save and submit the request:
Viewing the Requests
The request can then be verified in the Storefront in the Requests section in the subscription view:
Request Execution
Once the request has been created, it is sent to the Microsoft Partner Center (MPC) via an API call, so that when the renewal date is reached the MPC will make automatically the licenses' change, the billing plan change (when applicable), and the billing term change (when applicable). By logging into the Microsoft Partner Center at Build and sell your solutions— with the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, you can locate and select the subscription, and then click on the Manage Renewal option to verify the request.
If the request has been successfully processed in our platform, during the renewal date, the license quantity change, the billing plan change (when applicable), and the billing term change (when applicable) are reflected in both our platform and the MPC, while an invoice is also generated in our platform.
However, if, for any reason, the request has failed to be processed in our platform during the renewal date, an automatic retry mechanism handles the failed request, which retries for up to 4 attempts (1 renew + 3 retry attempts) until the future request for renewing the subscription is finally executed successfully. For this reason, the subscription enters a Pending state where the request cannot be revoked, and a message (ribbon) appears explaining the state of the subscription in both the Storefront and BSS portals as well as the state of the subscription in the Microsoft Partner Center (external system). During this Pending state, where the automatic retry mechanism processes the request, no changes to the license quantity are made in our platform, and no invoice is generated in our platform. Both of these actions occur once the request has been successfully completed.
Please review the following error message examples in both the Storefront and BSS portals for a better understanding.
Error Message of Future License Change Request During Renewal in Storefront:
Error Message of Future License Change Request During Renewal in BSS: