Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA) Verification Process

Owned by Panagiotis Papanastasiou
Last updated: Dec 10, 2020
6 min read

 

The Microsoft Partner Agreement makes the contracting experience easier while continuing to meet regulatory obligations and promote trust among Microsoft, partners, and customers. This dynamically created agreement delivers relevant terms based on partner type and the offers they’re qualified to sell. A more efficient contracting experience reduces complexity, and this perpetual agreement doesn’t expire or follow an annual revision cycle.

As partners of Microsoft, you (our Cloud Solution Provider partners) need to accept the latest Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA) in order to be able to transact in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.

From November 2020 Microsoft rolled out an implementation plan, that is executed in phases, where indirect resellers who have not accepted the MPA will be unable to create new customers or place new orders for existing customers in the Cloud Solution Provider program

MPA Verification Process for your Indirect Resellers

A verification of the Partner Agreement will take place in our system for every transaction with Microsoft. This verification process checks whether an Indirect Reseller has signed the latest Partner Agreement. The verification takes place on our BSS platform as well as on the Storefront.

As a general rule, if a Partner has not accepted the agreement the verification process will run before any transaction with Microsoft. If the resellers have not agreed, the process will stop with an informative message, which will redirect the reseller to the Microsoft Partner Center (MPC) to agree with the latest license. However, there are some changes that follow in the analysis below.

Verification Process

Each Microsoft partner (your indirect Resellers) has a Partner Global account (PGA) that is equivalent to HQ of a company. A partner can have also Partner Location Accounts (PLA) which is equivalent to divisions or subsidiaries of his company in another location. For his PGA account, he is having a global MPN ID that is used for managing all non-transactional business.  for each PLA it has a "location MPN ID" which is used for transactional business such as CSP or incentives programs. 

Microsoft accepts that the indirect reseller has signed the MPA if there is at least one CSP tenant which has signed the MPA in the same CSP region.

So, in the following paradigm even if you reseller enters his global MPN ID (123456) or the FRA location MPN ID (1234568), Microsoft will accept that he has signed the MPA because there is at least one tenant (in UK) that has signed the MPA. 


When the MPA Verification Process will be Executed?

The transactions that the MPA verification process will be executed are:

Storefront and BSS

  • Create a subscription

  • Execute an order

  • Change the quantity of a subscription (increase/decrease)

  • Edit a subscription/asset 

  • Add Add On

  • Change quantity of an Add On (increase/decrease)

Only in BSS

  • Activate inactive Subscription

  • Retry provisioning of a failed Add On

  • Retry provisioning of a failed subscription

  • BSS user executes a cancellation request that was created from the Marketplace 

Only in Storefront

  • Request for partial cancellation of add on or subscription

When the MPA Verification Process will Not be Executed?

The MPA verification will not be executed in:

 Storefront and BSS:

  • For full cancellation of a subscription.

  • For full cancellation of an Add-on.

  • For transactions of a Direct CSP (no Indirect Resellers are available).

Only in BSS:

  • For deletion of subscription(s).

  • For suspension of subscription(s).

Examples of no execution of MPA verification:

  1. On Storefront, you can fully cancel an add on from your subscription (if no automatic execution of requests is enabled). However, this action does not perform provisioning and as such, the MPA verification is not executed.

  2. On BSS, you can change the billing options of your subscription (e.g. its unit or when it is charged- on subscription start or end). However, this action does not perform provisioning and as such, the MPA verification is not executed. 

Not Signed MPA 

If your indirect reseller hasn't signed the latest MPA, our system will not allow him or any of your BSS users to place an order for any of the reseller's end customers. The error will be displayed in both BSS and Storefront, and it will be the following:

"Instance's name Error: The Reseller with MPN ID:0000002 has not accepted the Microsoft Partner Agreement yet. Please make sure the agreement is signed on Microsoft Partner Center in order to proceed"

In BSS this message will be displayed during order execution or when a subscription is updated:


In Storefront the error message is displayed during the Service Details step or during the Basket Item step depending on if the end customer has already been synced or not.

  1. The reseller places an order for a new end customer. If the end customer for whom the service is destined is unsynced, the Service Details step is displayed. Once the details are filled, we will retrieve the MPN ID defined on this page, and upon clicking the "Checkout" button, the MPA check will be executed. If the reseller whose MPN ID has been defined has agreed to the MPA, then the process will continue normally. If the MPN ID belongs to a reseller that has not agreed to the MPA, we will display the error on the Service Details page and the reseller will not be able to complete the checkout.



  2. The reseller places an order for an end-customer that has already been synchronized as a Microsoft tenant. In these cases, the MPA verification will be performed on Basket Items page for the following transactions: Buy extra licenses, Buy Addons, and Upgrade Trial to Paid.