What is the NCE?

The new commerce experience represents the present and future of how Microsoft sells cloud products and services to customers, both directly and through partners. Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program is continuously evolving, putting partners at the center of the SMB customer digital transformation to ensure customers and partners have an optimal experience during this journey. The new commerce experience was launched in Microsoft’s CSP program for Azure plan, Server Subscriptions, and Azure reserved instances in 2019. Now, Microsoft is introducing a new set of offers in the new commerce experience for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Windows 365. These offer types are being added to Microsoft’s new commerce platform, with new functionalities, capabilities, and policies that differ from the legacy CSP provisioning platform. Once it’s fully launched, it will enable faster, simpler transactions.

The new commerce experience simplifies and streamlines how customers buy from Microsoft and offers them more options for tailoring these purchases to their business needs and goals. It also makes the selling process, requirements, and capabilities much more consistent across the Microsoft product ecosystem, with the consolidation of Microsoft purchasing options into three purchasing motions: Enterprise, Self-Serve (Web Direct), and Breadth (CSP). The NCE provides partners in the CSP program with new sales capabilities and new tools to manage subscriptions more easily and promotes long-term customer commitment with multiple term options.

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Timeline and Deadlines

The general availability release of New Commerce Experience for seat-based offers started in January 2022. The ability to place new orders on the existing platform will end on March 10, 2022, while the end date for receiving incentives on legacy CSP subscriptions is the 31st of December 2022.

Autorenewals of legacy Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) subscriptions are extended indefinitely.

Review also Microsoft’s Partner journey map. This document lists the key milestones in our journey to Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) new commerce and highlights the actions that partner organizations should take.

Microsoft Documentation

CSP new commerce experience Collection
New commerce experience for CSP seat-based offers Collection
This collection contains resources related to the new commerce experience in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Windows 365.
This CSP New Commerce Experience Handbook serves as a learning tool for partners in adapting to the CSP seat-based offers in new commerce release. It instructs partners on the provisioning, billing, and subscription-management processes involved in selling these offers in the new commerce experience.
The latest Global Promo Readiness Guide, a consolidated view of all current and upcoming promotions, is now available on the Operations Readiness resource gallery. See active and upcoming promotions and offers at the Global Promo Readiness Guide collection
Partner Center Announcements
A new commerce experience in CSP for Azure Collection
Perpetual software in the Cloud Solution Provider program Collection
Azure savings plan for compute Collection

Microsoft’s Vision

Microsoft’s vision for the future is to provide a single, connected platform experience for customers – regardless of which purchasing motion they buy through.

The new commerce experience will soon be the platform on which all CSP products and services are provisioned. The addition of M365, D365, Power Platform, and Windows 365 to new commerce will mean that all CSP products can be sold through that new platform. Over the next several months, during which new commerce and the existing CSP experience will be available side by side, partners will be moving existing subscriptions to the new commerce experience as well as placing new subscription orders on new commerce in preparation for the eventual decommissioning of the original CSP experience.

Later on, Microsoft will remove CSP partners’ ability to order new subscriptions or renew existing subscriptions on the existing CSP platform

Legacy vs NCE

What’s in for you

Transitioning to the new commerce experience positions you and your customers for future growth. The new commerce experience brings the CSP program into alignment with other programs, such as the Enterprise Agreement, so that all customers have a consistent purchasing experience and are subject to the same terms and conditions for cloud purchases—regardless of the Microsoft sales motion. Microsoft will continue to invest in the Cloud Solution Provider program as their primary sales motion for SMBs, as well as Microsoft’s overall commerce experience, to provide the differentiated offers and capabilities you need to grow your business. Though you can take a phased adoption approach, keep in mind that new subscription orders, offers, and renewals for seat-based offers in the CSP program will be exclusive to the new commerce experience—so it’s critical to plan accordingly.

At a high level, the new capabilities will offer:

Better customer engagement with discounted pricing on annual subscriptions and more agile payment options.
Flexibility in term and seat-counts for customers who don’t want to commit on annual or multi-year level.
New monthly-term offers are added with a 20% price premium.
Operational Efficiency with automated pricelist processing and many subscriptions management enhancements
Greater customer commitment with enforced cancellation policy and better upgrade options.
More flexibility for managing your services
New pricing and add-on options to promote product adoption.
Simplified billing experiences

Promotions and Incentives

Microsoft will support promotions in new commerce. These promotions will have varying discount amounts and durations.

Microsoft has made available Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platforms promotions in the new commerce experience for many annual and monthly term products. New commerce promotions will automatically be applied if the partner’s customer is eligible. Partners have two important resources to understand which promotions are available: the Global Promo Readiness guide

The promotions will apply to new commerce seat-based commercial offers except Windows 365, and to subscriptions of up to 2,400 seats.

New Features

The formal launch of seat-based offers in new commerce is currently scheduled for January 2022. Simultaneously, as part of this launch, an array of new features and functionalities will be introduced to CSP provisioning and billing, in response to partner requests and customer needs:

New feature/change	Legacy experience	New Commerce Experience
Product availability	Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 aimed at small and medium organizations	Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Windows 365 aimed at small and medium organizations
Subscription term	12 months for all products 36 months for some products	1 month for some products 12 months for all products 36 months for some products
Billing Options	Upfront	Upfront for monthly subscriptions Monthly or upfront for annual subscriptions Monthly, annually or upfront for the triennial subscriptions
Pricing	Pricing files included all 15 CSP currencies	The price list includes per market pricing for the products, SKUs and terms to purchase. This pricing is in the currency of the market where the partner is selling. To get the price lists, partners will need to select the market of the customer. All European market price lists will include pricing in 6 supported currencies in the European region (SEK, NOK, CHF, DKK, GBP, EUR)
Price list integration via API	Not available	Partner APIs provide online monthly pricing lists instead of partner processing lists manually
Cancellation policy enforcement*	Partner could suspend the annual subscriptions at any time without penalty or early termination fee. However, partner did not have the option to cancel the subscription immediately.	Partner can cancel with prorated refund within first 72 hours for any term (proration calculated daily). After 7 days (168 hours), no cancellation available, and the partner is billed for full term, even if the customer stops paying for or using the subscription (applicable to any billing plan). If seats are added midterm, same 7-days policy applies to any reduction of additional seats (support request required)
Suspend/resume subscriptions	To pause subscription, partner must suspend it, and then reorder it if subscription terminates after end of term. Partner billing is paused during suspension.	Partner can suspend a subscription at any time during a term. Partner billing continues during a suspension. If a customer’s subscription is suspended, it can remain in a state of suspension for the rest of the term but can be reactivated at any time before the end of the term. Partner billing continues during suspension
Promotions	Only the monthly billing plan is eligible for promotions	New commerce promotions will be implemented as a percentage off a given subscription (monthly, annual, or multi-year). These promotions will have varying discount amounts and durations. New commerce promotions will automatically be applied if the partner’s customer is eligible.
Ability to schedule changes at subscription renewal	Not available	Partner can schedule different seat counts, SKU conversions, term-length renewal changes, renewals to different billing option.
Automatic seat assignment with full upgrade	Only available with SMB SKUs.	Seats can also be assigned automatically at upgrade with Enterprise-level SKUs.
Auto-renewal option	On as a default. Cannot be turned off	On as a default. Can be turned off
Invoice Date	Varies on each partner’s CSP account billing date.	By the end of the 8^th calendar day (UTC) Same date for all partners
Invoice Files	One Invoice, Partner Currency, Partner Billing Date +3 Days	One invoice in partner currency
Billing Cycle	Varies on each partner’s CSP billing cycle.	Billing Cycle: The number of days that are in the monthly term billing depends on the purchase date and the month length Calendar Month: 1^st to the end of month
Monthly term subscriptions	Only annual-term subscriptions for license-based offers.	Subscriptions available on monthly terms at a premium price. Aligned with other purchase motions (self-serve and enterprise) and how competitors sell.
Multi-year billing plans	Partners selling multi-year subscriptions must pay monthly or upfront.	Partners can also be billed annually for multi-year subscriptions.
Trials	Availability for some products at 25 seats Cannot change seat count or cancel trial Convert trial to paid with same or different seat count, during trial period Manual conversion only	Availability for some products at 25 seats Cannot change seat count or cancel trial Convert trial to paid with same or different seat count, during trial period Auto-convert to annual paid for 25 seats is ON as a default Scheduling convertion is possible When converted to paid, the 7-days cancellation policy is applied.
Reconciliation file upgrades	Partners receive separate recon files once each month for license and usage-based subscriptions	All subscriptions are consolidated into one customizable recon file. Estimates of charges accrued during the month are provided and updated hourly
Subscription ownership enforcement	Customers buy from different partners to aggregate instances of the same SMB offer and buy multiple free trials.	Customer SKU limits are enforced across multiple partner tenants, preventing, for example, a customer from purchasing multiple lower-cost SMB SKUs from different partners. beyond established offer seat limits defined in Microsoft's product terms.
Promotional pricing transparency	No automatic notification for Government and state-owned entity customers when promotional reduced pricing is included in a CSP transaction.	Government and state-owned entity customers receive an email notification from Microsoft with details on the promotional discount and why that pricing was offered in the sale
Independent Add-ons - sold separately from base offers	Add-ons are purchased only in conjunction with purchases of the add-ons’ base SKUs from the same partner and were not displayed in the CSP catalog or shopping-cart UI	Add-ons discoverable in the catalog, with prerequisite SKUs displayed. Prerequisite subscriptions purchased from other partners or channels are accepted to enable add-on purchase
SKU Upgrades	Full upgrade or greater at midterm	Partial or full upgrades at midterm Upgrade and merge to an existing Subscription on the same target SKU Schedule an upgrade with a lower or higher quantity of seats at renewal
Change Billing Option	At renewal Can transfer to a new subscription with a different option	Midterm At renewal
Increase Seats in an existing Subscription	At any time	At any time
Decrease Seats in an existing Subscription	At renewal Midterm, currently with no penalty	Within 7 days from purchase At renewal

Transition to the NCE

Any commercial legacy subscription can be either migrated or repurchased in the new commerce experience.

As long as a commercial legacy subscriptions is active, partners may migrate it to new commerce in CSP at any time with several ways. Make sure you've checked all the ineligibility reasons.

Microsoft-led Migration to NCE:

Starting January 11, 2024, Microsoft will begin migrating automatically the active legacy commercial license-based subscriptions to the New Commerce Experience (NCE) subscriptions at the end of each subscription's term. The following graph illustrates Microsoft's Migration Milestones in 2024, starting from January 11th and continuing until the end of the year.

With our new automation, you can keep the subscriptions' data aligned with your Microsoft Partner Center while minimizing workload and operations burden.

Read More on the interworks.cloud Auto-Migration.

Use the interworks.cloud Migration Tool:
Currently, you or your Resellers/ Customers can use the interworks.cloud Migration Tool to automatically check the subscriptions' eligibility for a specific reseller or customer and migrate Legacy Subscriptions without addons to a new NCE subscription, by starting a new term. When using our Migration Tool, the Legacy Subscriptions are cancelled and the new commerce subscriptions are automatically created in the interworks.cloud platform and the Microsoft Partner Center.

By using the Migration Tool released by the interworks.cloud platform, you as a CSP Partner or your Resellers/ Customers can:

Check the transition eligibility of Legacy subscriptions
Select the subscriptions to be migrated
Select the Billing Cycle (monthly/annual) and the Billing Plan (paid in advance or monthly) to be applied to the new NCE subscription
Migrate in a bulk manner existing commercial legacy subscriptions to the new commerce, by creating new subscriptions for a new term.

Please note that Legacy Subscriptions with addons cannot currently be migrated with our Migration Tool. Also, when migration is completed, a new subscription is created for a new term and the original (legacy’s) end date cannot be kept.

Repurchase the subscription in the NCE and Cancel in Legacy:
Perform the "manual migration", as per Microsoft guidelines. Step 1: Purchase the corresponding licenses in the NCE. A new NCE Subscription for the licenses is created and billing starts. Step 2: Cancel the legacy Subscription and billing stops. Learn more about Mapping Legacy to NCE offerings.

Use the Microsoft Migration Tools:
You can perform the Migration to the New Commerce while editing a legacy Subscription in the Microsoft Partner Center or you can use the Batch Migration (BAM) Tool that was recently released by Microsoft. If you follow this option, you have to manually cancel the Legacy Subscriptions to our platform and import the newly created NCE subscriptions to your BSS by opening a support ticket to interworks.cloud Support Center or by using our NCE Subscriptions Importer Tool.

Please remember! When you Migrate in the New Commerce:

Licenses remain assigned to users
Users can access the services
Admins can access the data

Our NCE compliance approach

The interworks.cloud platform is focused on providing you the best experience and alignment with Microsoft, and offering you all the automation tools you need to focus on your business growth. We are currently updating our implementation to support new offerings and new capabilities that will allow you to harness the benefits of the NCE through our automation platform.

Our main purpose is to provide you with the automation needed to start selling NCE products as quickly and as easily as possible. In full alignment with Microsoft, we are bringing into the interworks.cloud platform new features and functional changes under a phased approach.

interworks.cloud platform Documentation

Microsoft New Commerce Experience in brief