Managing NCE Subscriptions
- Panagiotis Papanastasiou
This page explains the management capabilities we offer for the NCE subscriptions (based on Commercial and Public Sector products) and we also focus on the differences with the legacy subscriptions. The main differences are the following:
Cancellation is limited to the first 7 days of any term, with a full refund for the first day and prorated refund for the upcoming days. Also, each seat added has its own cancellation window of 7 days, regardless of the cancellation window of the original NCE subscription.
Subscriptions support both suspension and cancellation. You can suspend and then resume a new commerce subscription at any time without cancellation or termination. Billing continues during the suspension.
You can check the following video on managing NCE subscriptions.
The NCE Subscription Record
For every NCE product License purchased by a customer, our system creates a subscription record. This record is the trigger for the provisioning mechanism, and it is related to the Microsoft subscription created in the Microsoft Partner Center. The subscription includes all the fields we have for a subscription and the properties specific to the NCE products.
Billing Cycles
The three available billing cycles for NCE subscriptions are monthly, annual, and triennial. Since all the NCE products are excluded from prorata, the billing cycles of those products will start upon their creation date. Consequently, the billing cycle is a full billing cycle based on the product unit, and the subscription end date is always calculated based on the start date of the subscription for a full period.
For example, for orders placed on the last day of a month, the end date is calculated as follows:
For months that have 31 days, the subscription end date will be on the 30th.
For months that have 30 days, the subscription end date will be on the 29th.
For February, which has 28 days, the subscription end date will be on the 27th in non-leap years. For a leap year, the subscription would end on the 28th.
NCE Subscription Statuses
After Microsoft introduced on October 26, 2022, a new subscription status called Disabled in the Microsoft Partner Center, our systems also support this new subscription status under an existing BSS status called Inactive.
In essence, when an NCE subscription inside the Microsoft Partner Center (MPC) has the status Disabled, it means that the subscription is not renewed. For more information concerning the actual correspondence between the BSS statuses and the MPC statuses, please check the following table.
Correspondence between BSS Statuses and MPC Statuses of NCE Subscriptions
BSS Status | Microsoft Partner Center Status | Explanation for BSS users |
|---|---|---|
Active | Active | When a subscription is active and provisioned. |
Suspended | Suspended | When a subscription is suspended yet provisioned. |
Inactive (to be activated in the future) | does not even exist for Microsoft yet. | When a subscription is going to be activated and provisioned on a future date. |
Inactive (after subscription end date, not renewed subscription) | Expired / Disabled | When a subscription is inactive and not provisioned in BSS it might have three distinct statuses in the Microsoft Partner Center depending on the means it got inactive. |
Cancelled | Deleted | When a subscription is canceled. |
Pending for Cancellation | Active | When a subscription is going to be canceled on a future date. |
The main difference between the two Microsoft statuses is that the subscription which Expired was left to expire since it was not set to be renewed (after its lifecycle period via the Auto Renew option) whereas the Disabled subscription has either passed through its Expiration period and has gotten into its Disabled period or it was suspended before its end of the term, and as a result, it has become disabled via suspension (also known as Suspended - Disabled).
Typically, a subscription can be under the Expired state for 30 days, the Suspended-Disabled state for 30 days, and the Disabled state for 90 days in the MPC.
For the first line of the graph, for example, the NCE subscription has expired (immediately after its end-of-the-term date), then it enters the Inactive(Disabled) status:
Active > Expired (30 days) > Disabled (90 days) > Deleted *
However, for the last line of the graph, for example, the NCE subscription was suspended before its end-of-the-term date, then it enters the Inactive(Suspended-Disabled) status before eventually entering the Inactive(Disabled) status:
Active > Suspended > Suspended - Disabled (30 days) > Disabled (90 days) > Deleted *
*After the Disabled state is concluded (after 90 days), the status of the NCE subscription in the Microsoft Partner Center changes to Deleted. This means that the NCE subscription gets deleted and is non-recoverable. In BSS the same NCE subscription will have at this point the status Cancelled.
For more information regarding the Microsoft Partner Center NCE subscription statuses, please check the Subscription lifecycle states - Partner Center link.
Provisioning Status
Each NCE subscription has a provisioning sync status similar to the one we keep for the legacy subscriptions. This status can be either success or failed. The provisioning can be retried for the failed subscriptions by using the Retry button. Check Managing Subscriptions that Failed to be Provisioned for resolving failure scenarios.
1-1 Relation between BSS Subscriptions and Microsoft Subscriptions.
There were scenarios for the business licenses for the legacy subscriptions where you could have two or more BSS subscriptions linked with the same Microsoft subscription. This is no longer necessary for the NCE subscriptions because Microsoft has removed the restriction for the number of business subscriptions a tenant could have.
With this restriction out of the picture, our system always creates a new distinct subscription every time a new NCE subscription is created in our system. For enforcing this, we have also made unavailable the “Maintain Once Active Subscription…” option from the NCE product type.
Auto-Renewal Options for Customers
Storefront
Storefront users can select to have their subscriptions renewed automatically. To enable or disable auto-renewal, select the Auto-Renew toggle switch. When auto-renewal is enabled, the renewal date is displayed below the switch.
For more information, please see the page Subscription Auto-Renewal Management via the Storefront
You can also check the following video on managing the Auto-Renew functionality of an NCE subscription.
BSS
In the BSS, enable or disable auto-renewal by selecting the corresponding option, which is located under the Shortcuts menu of each subscription and reflects the subscription status.
For more information, please see the page Managing Subscription Automatic Renewals
Also, you can find information on how to edit the Pricing Info of an NCE subscription during its renewal at the Changing the Pricing of a Subscription | ChangingthePricingofaSubscription ChangethePricingfortheNextBillingCycle page.
Changing the Subscription Licenses
You can increase & decrease the NCE licenses of a subscription. Please note that each seat increase has its own cancellation window of 7 days, regardless of the cancellation window of the original NCE subscription.
By proceeding to the Buying Extra Licenses from Subscriptions Details Page page, you can find a step-by-step guide, on increasing the licenses.
Increase Licenses | Decrease Licenses |
|---|---|
Increasing the quantity of NCE subscription licenses is available. However, only the immediate execution is currently available from the three main execution options (namely, the immediate, at a specific date, and at the end of the billing period). Consequently, when a BSS user requests an increase of the NCE subscription licenses, the following pop-up window will appear, with its execution type locked to the Immediate option. | Decreasing the quantity of NCE subscription licenses is also available. However, only the immediate execution is currently available from the three main execution options (namely, the immediate, at a specific date, and at the end of the billing period). Consequently, when a BSS user requests a decrease of the NCE subscription licenses, the following pop-up window will appear, with its execution type locked to the Immediate option. |
You can also check the following two tabs to view the videos on changing the license quantity of an NCE subscription from the Storefront and the BSS.
Scheduling a Change of Subscription Licenses in Storefront
Your customers can schedule a change in the number of licenses via the Storefront (currently only applicable to Subscriptions with Commercial NCE products) without going through any lengthy processes or workarounds, either when viewing the subscription, or through the list of subscriptions. Please note that the aforementioned note(1) and warning(2) apply to scheduled changes as well. For more information, please check the Scheduling Subscription Changes with Future Requests page.
In the upcoming releases, the option to schedule a change in the number of licenses, via the Storefront, for a Subscription with Public Sector NCE products will also become available.
Canceling NCE Subscriptions
For information on canceling NCE subscriptions, please check the respective Canceling NCE Subscriptions page.
Suspending NCE Subscriptions
Microsoft introduced for the NCE subscription a new suspension policy: Microsoft Partner can now suspend and then resume a new commerce subscription at any time without cancellation or termination; Partner billing continues during the suspension.
We are fully aligned with Microsoft policy, and as a result, a BSS user can suspend an NCE subscription. This action results in the subscription’s suspension on Partner Center as well. The service will continue to be billed from our system while the subscription is suspended.
You can check the following video on suspending NCE subscriptions.
Activate a Suspended Subscription
For our systems to be aligned with Microsoft, when a suspended NCE subscription gets activated again, the “Auto-Renew” option of the subscription turns off by default since Microsoft has the same implementation.
User Management (via Storefront Workspace)
The current version of the NCE integration does not support managing the user licenses from the user's management facility we have introduced in the Storefront’s workspace section. Currently, if a customer has purchased NCE licenses, the setup button redirects him to the Microsoft admin portal. However, it is planned to be supported in one of the subsequent versions of the NCE integration.