Upgrading NCE Products

For the general rules on upgrading subscriptions, please see the page Upgrade/Downgrade a Subscription. Please note the following points when upgrading NCE subscriptions:

• NCE subscriptions can only be upgraded. It is not possible to downgrade NCE subscriptions.

• The upgrade paths for NCE products are created automatically when the Get Services Definition process runs.

• Whether seat reassignment will happen automatically depends on the customer's eligibility. Please check for any notifications (explained in the section Upgrading NCE Subscriptions | The Upgrade Process) or the Online Information tab, to ensure that seat reassignment has been successful or whether it must be done manually.

• It is not possible to increase the quantity when upgrading. As a workaround, you may perform a full upgrade and increase the quantity afterward.

• The promotion of the original product will be lost. If the target product has a promotion, the promotion will be applied after the upgrade.

• It is not possible to set the upgrade to occur at a future date, it is only possible to upgrade on the current date.

• The cancellation window of the upgraded subscription is the same as that of the original subscription.

• It is possible to upgrade a subscription at any time, even while it is in its cancellation window.

You can also check the following two tabs containing videos on upgrading an NCE subscription from the Storefront and the BSS.

Upgrade Paths

The upgrade paths for NCE products are created automatically when the Get Services Definition process runs. The following figure is an example of possible upgrade paths for M365 - Office 365 E3 (New Commerce), retrieved by the Get Services Definition:

Open

The Upgrade Process

• By selecting the Upgrade button, either from BSS or Storefront, all the available upgrade options appear in the Upgrade Product drop-down menu as retrieved by the Get Services Definitionprocess, regardless of eligibility. Please see the following screenshots showing the process in the BSS and Storefront, respectively.

Open

BSS

• When a product is selected, the eligibility check runs to check whether the specific subscription can be upgraded to.

  • If the product is eligible, the process can continue as shown on the page Upgrade/Downgrade a Subscription.

  • If the product is not eligible, an error message is displayed, stating <NCE product>: Could not find eligible upgrades for this combination of customer/subscription.

Upgrading an Annual NCE Subscription with Installments in BSS

Since the scenarios of upgrading a monthly or annual NCE subscription is fully supported in Storefront, in this section, we analyze the upgrade of an annual NCE subscription with a monthly payment plan (installments) from the BSS.

The BSS user can fully or partially upgrade an annual NCE subscription that has a monthly payment billing plan by clicking on the Upgrade button located inside the Subscription view page under the Shortcuts menu.

• Full Upgrade: The rest of the upgrade path is explained in detail inside the page.

• Partial Upgrade: The rest of the upgrade path is explained in detail inside the page.
  
  

During the execution of an upgrade from the BSS platform, the following events happen to the existing annual NCE subscription with a monthly payment plan:

Viewing NCE Subscription Upgrade Activity

The Online Information tab appears in the subscription view and contains the upgrade logs for NCE subscriptions. The data is retrieved from Microsoft Partner Center.

The table contains the following columns:

• Date - The date of the activity

• Activity - The type of activity (conversion/seat reassignment)

• Activity From - The initial Product

• Activity To - The target Product

• Quantity - The quantity which is transitioned

• Activity Status - The stage the activity is at (Started/Completed/Failed)

Notifications

NCE Upgrade Notification

A notification called NCE Subscription Upgrade is sent to the email of BSS user and their contact when an upgrade of an NCE subscription has started, with the following contents:

Subject:

Upgrade subscription {#Leases.Name#} with quantity {#Leases.Quantity#}

Body:

New Commerce Subscription {#Leases.Name#} upgrade has started. For more information, please contact your system administrator.“

Seat Reassignment Notification

A notification called NCE Subscription Upgrade Seat Reassignment Required is sent to the BSS account and their contact when manual seat reassignment is required, in the following 2 cases:

1. For a full upgrade, when automatic seat reassignment fails

2. For a partial upgrade

In the second case, the email is sent for both subscriptions, the original and the upgraded subscription.

The notification has the following contents:

Subject:

Upgrade subscription {#Leases.Name#} with quantity {#Leases.Quantity#}

Body:

Upgrade of subscription {#Leases.Name#} completed.

Manual seat reassignment is required!

For more information, please contact your system administrator.“

Possible Error Scenarios

During the upgrade process, it is possible to encounter one of the following messages:

• This New Commerce Experience Subscription is not eligible for Upgrade. – Displayed when the subscription is not eligible for an upgrade. The subscription may fail an eligibility check run by Microsoft, even if the upgrade appears to be available on the side of the client.

• Subscription quantity change is not available due to SKU mismatch between BSS and Microsoft Partner Center. – Displayed when an upgrade fails, and the BSS user attempts to change the quantity of the NCE subscription. This results in MS executing the latest available update action on the existing NCE subscription rather than the actual upgrade.

Table of Contents