The Azure Plan Reservations are represented in our system as assets. The assets are part of our Billing module and when your resellers or your customers place an order for an Azure Plan Reservation, a new asset record is created in our platform for managing and invoicing purposes. 
In this page, we explain what information we keep in the asset record for each Azure Plan Reservation, what actions you can do for your Azure Plan Reservations and how you or your customers can manage them.

The Azure Plan Reservation Asset Record 

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For every Azure Plan Reservation purchased by a customer, our system creates an asset record. This record is the trigger for the provisioning mechanism and it is related with the Microsoft Azure Plan Reservation that is created in Microsoft systems.
This record is accessible through the Billing > Assets module. The information we keep for each Azure Plan Reservation is the following:

• General Information
  • Name: By default it's Azure Plan Reservation SKU title.
  • Status: The status of an Azure Plan Reservation can be active, expired or cancelled.
  • Provisioning Sync Status: It can be synchronized or failed analogous with the status we are keeping for the Office 365 subscriptions.  Note: If the status is failed, you need to edit and save the asset record for our platform to retry to provision the asset record.
  • Purchase Date: The date the asset record was created and the provisioning was executed.
• Product Section: Each asset record is related with the generic Reserved Instance product we are having for the Azure Plan Reservations. The rest fields of this section are asset's pricing details.
• Microsoft Azure Plan Reservation Details:
  • Expiration Date:  When the Azure Plan Reservation will expire. 
  • Reservation ID: The Microsoft ID.
  • Reserved Instance Order ID: The Microsoft Order ID of the Reservation. (It changes each month)
  • Reserved Instance Reference Order ID: The Microsoft Order ID. (Static - Used for the reconciliation)
  • Reservation Status: The status of the Azure Plan Reservation in Microsoft systems. 
  • Product ID: Microsoft product ID.
  • Product Title and Details: The Microsoft SKU title and description.
  • Scope: The scope of the Azure Plan Reservation.
  • Subscription: The id of the BSS Azure Plan subscription in our system.  It is the ID of the Azure Plan subscription from which the purchase process was initiated.
  • Purchase Date (UTC): The date the asset record was created and the provisioning was executed under the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
  • Billing Frequency: The billing frequency of an Azure Plan Reservation can be either "One-Time" or "Monthly".

Understanding the Asset View per Billing Frequency

The Billing Frequency field is added within the Asset View in order to accommodate the new "Monthly" billing frequency, having therefore two values; "One-Time" or "Monthly" depending on the user's selection during the order's execution. Additionally, the Asset Amount is renamed to "Asset Total Amount". 

Monthly Billing Frequency

• Asset Total Amount: The field has as a general calculation formula the following: the rounded Unit Price multiplied by the asset's quantity and multiplied again with the Reservation's Number of Terms/Months (either 12 or 36). 
   However, since the Microsoft Foreign Exchange (FX) rate is utilized for each monthly charge plan of each reservation, it means that the FX rate affects the value of the Asset Total Amount field, because the FX rate between the US Dollar and the Euro, for example, is an ever-changing variable number. Therefore, the first monthly charge plan for this reservation might be, for example, 47.40 Euros while the next month - that the FX rate between the US Dollar and the Euro has changed - might be 48.00 Euros. 
  Therefore, in order to properly calculate the actual value of the Asset Total Amount field (for reconciliation purposes, for example) is to sum all 12 or 36 monthly charge plans (completed & upcoming), since their value contains the already calculated FX rate variable. This sum will give you the exact number that is indicated as a value next to the Asset Total Amount field.
  
• Final Unit Price: The field is calculated as; the monthly fixed charge of the asset which has its two decimals rounded.
• Unit Price: The field reflects the monthly fixed charge having the product's number of decimals.
• Billing Frequency: The field depicts the Monthly choice of billing frequency, indicating that the "Asset Total Amount" is paid in terms.

One-Time Billing Frequency  

• Asset Total Amount: The field depicts the Final Unit Price which essentially is the total amount to be paid as one-off.
• Billing Frequency: The field depicts the One-Time choice of billing frequency, indicating that the "Asset Total Amount" is paid in its entirety.

Managing the Azure Plan Reservations from the Storefront

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Your resellers and your customers can access the Azure Plan Reservations they have purchased from the Assets section that is in the Billing area of your Storefront.

Understanding the Reservations' List 

By clicking on the "active reservations" link, your reseller or customer will be redirected to the list of the Azure reservations he has purchased.
He is able to view his Reservations' List along with the "Billing Frequency" of each reservation. 

• Reservations: The exact name of each reservation is depicted under this column. Please note that each reservation name is a link and upon clicking it you will be redirected to the Reservation View, analyzed on the following section of this page.
• Customer (appears only to resellers): This column depicts only the names of the reseller's end-customer that the reservation is for.
• Unit Price: This column depicts the unit price with or without VAT, depending on whether you have chosen to show the VAT or not, via the Marketplace options. The unit price will show the monthly fixed charge if the "Billing Frequency" is set to Monthly, otherwise it will depict the full charge when the "Billing Frequency" is set to One-Time. 
• Billing Frequency: This column depicts the set billing frequency of each instance (either "Monthly" or "One-Time").
• Discount: This column depicts the discount percentage that each reservation may or may not receive.
• Total Amount: The Total Amount is calculated based on the quantity of instances, the unit price of each instance as well as the discount that can be applied. If the Billing Frequency of the Instance is set to "Monthly" then the Total Amount field will display the term's amount whereas if the Billing Frequency of the Instance is set to "One-Time" then the Total Amount field will display the full amount. Also, the Total Amount field can be depicted with or without VAT, depending on whether you have chosen to show the VAT or not, via the Marketplace options.

Understanding the Reservation View

The details page of an Azure Plan Reservation in Storefront includes all the information our system keeps as explained in paragraph Azure Plan Reservation Asset Record.

In case the Billing Frequency is Monthly we display the reservation's total Cost. As "Total Reservation's Cost" we mean the "rounded monthly charge (without taxes)" multiplied by "the number of terms" and is displayed according to Account's currency configuration (as all the other Reservations amount on Reservation View). The reservation total cost is displayed in "Monthly Fixed Charges Plan" under the table with all monthly charges (Completed and Upcoming) and does not include any VAT.

One-Time Reservation View

Monthly Reservation View

"Monthly Fixed Charges Plan" Section

Every time a Reservation Asset is created as a "Monthly Fixed Charges Plan", this section is displayed on the Reservation View and reveals all completed charges and all upcoming charges which are generated with the Reservation creation. So the number of charges (Completed and Upcoming) is equal to the number of Reservation terms. These charges do not participate in any calculation of Account Balance or Account's available credit. For this section, there is no available actions and no paging required; all charges can be viewed through a scroller.

Charges Mechanism

The new charges mechanism creates a number of charges when a reservation, with Billing Frequency set to monthly, is executed. These charges may be completed or upcoming according to the account's billing options (since Reserved Instances products are whole charge product, use upfront billing and are set as "Exclude from Prorata"). The charge's number is equal to the Reservation's terms. All charges consist of a billing period, a due date and a fixed amount. If the charge is completed there is an extra field "Invoice" to be related to.

The first charge's billing period starts from the day the product is purchased and lasts 1 month since the charges are whole and monthly. The next monthly charges are created based on that monthly duration. For the billing period of charges, we apply the Subscription's billing cycle calculations with no prorata. All these generated charges are designated by a date, which is the actual date that the Invoice will be generated. Before the invoice generation, our system creates a Pending Invoice and its due date is the generated Invoice Date. Therefore, this date is calculated according to Account's billing option.

For example, an Account has purchased a Reservation with 12 terms(1 year) with Monthly Billing Frequency Today, 03/12/2019: 

The charge's amount is the fixed monthly amount based on calculations made after all discounts were applied but without taxes since all taxes are calculated and are applied on generating an invoice. Additionally, monthly charges are displayed in account's base currency based on Account's currency culture. When an invoice will be generated for a charge, the transaction currency exchange rate will be applied along with all the corresponding taxes.

Managing the Azure Plan Reservations in BSS

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The Azure Plan Reservations are stored in our system as asset records. You can find them if you navigate to BSS > Billing > Assets module or from the assets section that is available in account details page.

Assets as Subsection in Other Objects

Account View - Shortcut "Assets"

Assets are displayed in Account's Shortcut menu. On mouse-over the Asset module shortcut, we display an "abstract" view of the Account's assets. The Amount column in that view for Reservations are monthly is equal to the "Asset's Monthly Charge Price" multiplied by the "Asset's Quantity". The "One-Time" reservations will always display the full RIs One-Time amount.

Account View Assets Section

The Asset section is displayed also in Account View when scrolling down. In that section, all Reservations with Monthly billing frequency have as amount the "Asset's Monthly Charge Price" multiplied by the "Asset's Quantity". The "One-Time" reservations will always display the full RIs One-Time amount.

"Monthly Fixed Charges Plan" Section

The "Monthly Fixed Charges Plan" section is displayed on the Reservation View on BSS under the Invoices section and presents all “Completed Charges” and all “Upcoming charges” which are generated with the Reservation creation. The "Completed Charges" tab is visible only when there is at least one completed charge with its respective invoice, otherwise only the "Upcoming Charges" tab is visible. The main difference here is that all completed charges are related to a corresponding generated invoice. (This invoice may contain charges not only for the Reservation but also for other products, too.) An analysis of the two tabs (Completed Charges and Upcoming Charges) follows in the below sub-sections.

In this section, 4 records are displayed for example, so there is also a link "All Charges (##) >>"  that redirects you to a page with more extensive analysis of all the charges to be displayed. In that page, there is a list with both completed and upcoming charges which are sorted by date.

 

Completed Charges Tab

The content of this tab contains 5 columns:

1. The completed charge icon. 
2. The Billing Period field which reflects the billing period of charge which is monthly and starts counting from the purchase date.
3. The Date field which reflects the charge's due date which is the due date of the Pending Invoice and the date of the Generated Invoice.
4. The Invoice field which is the invoice's number link and is displayed only for completed charges. A charge is marked as completed the moment a pending invoice gets generated for this specific charge.
5. The Reservation Monthly Charge field which is the monthly estimated amount to be charged after all discounts apply (Pricelist's margin/markup, Volume Discount and Promotion) in Account's base currency.

Upcoming Charges Tab

The content of this tab contains 4 columns:

1. The upcoming charge icon.
2. The Billing Period field which reflects the billing period of charge which is monthly and starts counting from the purchase date. 
3. The Date field which reflects the charge's due date which is the due date of the Pending Invoice and the date of the Generated Invoice.
4. The Reservation Monthly Charge field reflects the monthly estimated amount to be charged after all discounts apply (Pricelist's margin/markup, Volume Discount and Promotion) in Account's base currency.

Provisioning of failed Azure Plan Reservation Assets

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The Azure Plan Reservation assets have a "Provisioning Sync Status" field for understanding if the Azure Plan Reservation has been provisioned successfully in Microsoft systems. If the sync status is failed, you can try to re-provision the Azure Plan Reservation asset by editing and saving the record.