Synchronization & Vetting Process for New Educational Qualification Accounts

Microsoft has introduced two new parameters when someone chooses the Education qualification as their entity. These new parameters, called EducationSegment, and Website, can be found in the form of fields, under the BSS Account Sync Options, and under the Storefront Details Step(3) (during the checkout process). In essence, these fields are utilized during the vetting process of the Education qualification in order to facilitate faster yet more controlled vetting and consequently simplify the transactions of Academic-priced offers and products for you, your resellers, and their end-customers.

Affected Microsoft Product Types

Since Microsoft offers both license-based and subscription-based products to customers with Education qualifications, certain Microsoft Product Types that offer such products are affected. These Products Types are:

• The Microsoft Perpetual Licenses - (license based).

• The Microsoft Cloud Services (Legacy) - (subscription based).

• The Microsoft Dynamics (Legacy) - (subscription based).

Currently, there are no available Educational NCE products. However, legacy products are expected to be updated to NCE in the future.

Setting the Education Qualification in Storefront & BSS

In the following two tabs called, Setting the Education Qualification in the Storefront Service Details Step, and Setting the Education Qualification in the BSS Account Sync Options, you can find the analysis of how the two Education fields (EducationSegment, and Website) must be setup during the ordering/checkout/subscription creation process of products with Education qualification in order for the customers' Accounts to be able to undergo the latest vetting process that Microsoft requires.

Flow of Ordering Education Products via Storefront

When a Storefront user places an order for an "Education" product, our system, depending on the circumstances analyzed below, checks the customer's qualification. Then, depending on the customer's eligibility and the Product type of the selected Education product for purchasing, the process either completely stops, in the case of a customer with no Education qualification, or stops but the vetting process is initiated, or it proceeds towards a successful checkout while the Education product is provisioned, in the case of an existing customer having the Education qualification.

The five main points of the flow of a Storefront order containing an Educational product are analyzed via the following theoretical (execution) example.

1. The system checks the products in the basket.

2. A review of the qualifications of those products initiates.

3. A review of the qualifications of the customer’s Account (for which the order is for) initiates.

4. Qualifications between the products and the customer’s Account are compared.

5. After the above comparison ends, one of the three following scenarios will be true:

   1. If the qualifications match, then the purchase proceeds and gets completed successfully and instantly by provisioning the Educational product to the customer.

   2. If the qualifications are different (excluding the special Microsoft qualification of State Owned Entity[SOE]) and none of the products is of Educational qualification, then the purchase does not go through, and no vetting or other process is initiated.

   3. If the qualifications are different and one of the Education products is of Perpetual Product Type, then the purchase does not go through, even if the two Educational fields are filled in for this customer. Also, an error message appears requesting from the Storefront user to remove the Education product from the basket in order to proceed with the checkout process of the other products inside the basket (whenever applicable), and at the same time, the same error message instructs the user to contact his CSP.

   4. If the qualifications are different and one of the products is of Legacy (Cloud, Dynamics) Educational qualification, then the purchase does not go through, but the two Educational fields need to be filled in for this customer, since the automatic vetting process with Microsoft starts. This means that the customer will have to wait for as long as three days in order to check if the vetting process was successful or not, before attempting to complete the order again.
      Also, an informative message appears requesting from the Storefront user to wait because the order is under review since the vetting process has begun with Microsoft.

Ordering an Education Product via Storefront

In this order example of a Perpetual(Product Type) Education product in Storefront, you can witness that the Storefront user has placed an order for a Microsoft subscription product called ‘BizTalk Server 2020 Branch (Education)’, and the checkout process stops because the customer is not an existing vetted Education qualification tenant in Microsoft.

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Once the checkout process is stopped, the following informative message informs the Storefront user of the available actions. More specifically:

Open

Another order example of a Legacy(Product Type) Education product in Storefront, you can witness that the Storefront user has placed an order for a Microsoft subscription product called ‘Dynamics 365 Operations - Order Lines for Education (Education)’, and the checkout process stops because the customer is not an existing vetted Education qualification tenant in Microsoft. However, the vetting process with Microsoft has been initiated, and the starting date of the vetting process is visible within the informative message.

Nevertheless, we would like to briefly cover other qualification scenarios that might arise in Storefront. Please continue to the following section of this page for more information.

Different Qualification Ordering Scenarios in Storefront

• The Customer is synced with Existing Vetted Educational Microsoft Tenant: The Storefront user checkouts with an Educational product in their basket. In the 3rd Step, “Service Details” they are asked to fill in the Microsoft domain prefix and the Education Segment field. However, the latest information will not be added to the Microsoft Partner Center. Even when they choose the flag “My customer is already using Office 365 service, and he/she owns this domain”, a warning inline message about the initiation of the vetting process is displayed. However, this should be ignored as the purchase will proceed normally without any actual vetting, and the subscription/asset/add-on is created/purchased successfully.
  
  

• The Customer is synced with Microsoft Non-Profit or Governmental Tenant: During the checkout process for an Educational product, a Storefront user is required to provide information in the Microsoft domain prefix and Education Segment field in the 3rd Step “Service Details”. If the user synchronizes with an existing State Owned Entity (SOE) Microsoft Tenant or an existing or new Commercial Tenant, they will receive an error message. This message indicates that they are unable to proceed with the purchase because they are not an existing and vetted Educational customer, and they should either remove the Educational product or update their qualification through Microsoft Partner Center. The message will appear as follows:

  • "The purchase of the education product  <Product_Name> cannot be completed, due to Customer's missing Education Qualification. Please contact your CSP to update the Customer Tenant Account. To proceed to checkout, please remove the education product <Product_Name> from your basket.”*
    
    

• The Customer is synced with Microsoft Commercial or SOE Tenant: As a Storefront user checks out with an Educational product in their basket, they are prompted to fill in the Microsoft domain prefix and Education Segment field in the 3rd Step “Service Details”. If they synchronize with a Microsoft Tenant that is currently under review to become an Educational Tenant, they will receive a message informing them that the purchase cannot proceed. This scenario is almost the same as the scenario mentioned previously but with a twist. This means that Storefront users will receive one of the two following messages, depending on the (Product Type) of the Education product in their basket:

  • For Legacy Education Products(s): "{product}" cannot be purchased because the "{customer}" validation is under review.”

  • For Perpetual Education Product(s): "The purchase of the education product  <Product_Name> cannot be completed, due to Customer's missing Education Qualification. Please contact your CSP to update the Customer Tenant Account. To proceed to checkout, please remove the education product <Product_Name> from your basket.”*
    
    

* For such cases, CSPs need to update the qualification of the Customer in the Microsoft Partner Center as well as in the BSS Account Sync Options, and after their successful validation from Microsoft, customers can proceed with purchasing an Education Product via the Storefront.

Flow of Ordering Education Products via BSS

When a BSS user places an order for an "Education" product, our system, depending on the circumstances analyzed below, initiates the vetting process for the customer's qualification. Then, Microsoft performs a validation to examine the customer's eligibility for purchasing an Education plan. As long as the vetting process from Microsoft lasts (for about three days or less), there is an intermediate stage called "in review" where the BSS user cannot continue the order because it is in a "review state". After this "review state", if the customer is eligible, his status gets updated in the Microsoft Partner Center (MPC) account, and the order can then be fully re-executed and provisioned. However, if the customer is not eligible for purchasing an "Education" plan, based on Microsoft's checks, the order cannot be executed at all from either platform.

The five main points of the flow of a BSS order containing an Educational product are analyzed via the following theoretical (execution) example.

1. The systems check the products in the cart.

2. A review of the qualifications of those products initiates.

3. A review of the qualifications of the customer’s Account (for which the order is for) initiates.

4. Qualifications between the products and the customer’s Account are compared.

5. After the above comparison ends, one of the three following scenarios will be true:

   1. If the qualifications match, then the purchase proceeds and gets completed successfully and instantly by provisioning the Educational product to the customer.

   2. If the qualifications are different (excluding the special Microsoft qualification of State Owned Entity[SOE]) and none of the products is of Educational qualification, then the purchase does not go through, and no vetting or other process is initiated.

   3. If the qualifications are different and one of the products is of Educational qualification, then the purchase does not go through, but if the two Educational fields are filled in for this customer, then the automatic vetting process with Microsoft starts. This means that the customer will have to wait for as long as three days in order to check if the vetting process was successful or not, before attempting to complete the order again.

Ordering an Education Product via BSS

In this Order example of an Education product in BSS, you can witness that the BSS user has placed an order for a Microsoft legacy subscription product called ‘Dynamics 365 Operations - Order Lines for Education (Education)’, and the ordering process stops due to the vetting process of Microsoft. However, this means that the vetting process with Microsoft has been initiated, and the starting date of the vetting process is visible within the informative message.

Once the vetting process gets completed and the customer is eligible to purchase Education products, the order needs to be re-executed in order to be completed successfully and provision the Education product.

Another order example of an Education product in BSS, you can witness that the BSS user has placed an order for a Microsoft subscription product called ‘BizTalk Server 2020 Branch (Education)’, and the checkout process stops because the customer has either Commercial or State Owned Entity(SEO) qualifications and the filling-in of the Education fields is not accomplished. Therefore, the following message appears:

“The purchase of Microsoft education products cannot be completed, due to missing new compulsory information required from Microsoft for Education Customers, since the 8th of May 2023. Please contact your CSP.”

This message informs the user that the compulsory Education fields are not filled in, so they need to contact their CSP to update the qualification of the Customer in the Microsoft Partner Center as well as in the BSS Account Sync Options, and after their successful validation from Microsoft, they will be able to proceed with the BSS purchase.

Nevertheless, we would like to briefly cover other qualification scenarios that might arise in BSS. Please continue to the following section of this page for more information.

Different Qualification Ordering Scenarios in BSS

• The Customer is synced with Existing Vetted Educational Microsoft Tenant: This Tenant can be either without the Education fields (old version) or with the Education fields. Once synchronization is completed, the user can successfully execute an order or create a subscription without going through the Microsoft vetting process since they are synced with an existing and vetted Educational Tenant. The user may fill in the two new sync option(s) (Education Segment and Education Website); however, this information will not be updated on the Microsoft Partner Center.
  
  

• The Customer is synced with Microsoft Non-Profit or Governmental Tenant: If a customer is synced with a Non-Profit or Governmental Microsoft Tenant, they are unable to purchase educational products. Even when the Education Segment field may be filled in under the sync options, the vetting process will never be initiated since this qualification cannot have an additional qualification. In case they try to purchase an Educational product, the following message will be displayed:

  • “Creation of new subscription for "{product}" is not possible for the "{account}" as is not qualified to purchase this product.”
    
    

• The Customer is synced with Microsoft Commercial or SOE Tenant with filled-in Education Segment in sync options: A BSS user is synchronized with a Microsoft Tenant that has either a Commercial qualification or a State Owned Entity (SOE) qualification, but they have filled the Education Segment in the new sync options. In this case, the vetting process will be initiated only after the first order execution with a Legacy Cloud or Legacy Dynamics Educational product or the attempt to create a new subscription with a product of the same qualification. The following pop-up message will appear:

  • when an order is executed:

    • “Execution of order for "{product}" is not possible for the "{customer}" as the validation of the Education Customer is under review.”

  • when a subscription is added:

    • “Creation of new subscription for "{product}" is not possible for the "{customer}" as the validation of the Education Customer is under review.”

  • in case of an add-on purchase:

    • “Adding of "{product}" to the subscription is not possible for the "{customer}" as the validation of the Education Customer is under review.”

In this case, no subscription or asset will be created. The customer will have to try again in three days.

• The Customer is synced with Microsoft Commercial or SOE Tenant without filled-in Education Segment in sync options: A BSS user is synchronized with a Microsoft Tenant that has either a Commercial qualification or a State Owned Entity (SOE) qualification, but they have not filled in an Education Segment in the new sync options. As mentioned in a previous section above, upon an order execution or the attempt of a subscription creation of an Educational product, the vetting process will not be initiated when the education segment is not filled in. Instead, the customer will get the following message:

  • “The purchase of Microsoft education products cannot be completed, due to missing new compulsory information required from Microsoft for Education Customers, since the 8th of May 2023. Please contact your CSP.
    
    

• The Customer is synced with a Microsoft Tenant who is ‘Under Review’ to obtain the Education Qualification: In case a BSS user attempts to execute an order or create a subscription, and they are synchronized with an existing MSFT tenant who is under Review to become Educational (and they have filled the education segment in the new sync options), they will receive a pop-up message stating that the purchase cannot proceed and that the customer is under review. More precisely:

  • when an order is executed:

    • “Execution of order for "{product}" is not possible for the "{customer}" as the validation of the Education Customer is under review.”

  • when a subscription is added:

    • “Creation of new subscription for "{product}" is not possible for the "{customer}" as the validation of the Education Customer is under review.”

  • in case of an add-on purchase:

    • “Adding of "{product}" to the subscription is not possible for the "{customer}" as the validation of the Education Customer is under review.”

In this case, no subscription or asset will be created. The customer will have to try again in three days or less, depending on when the vetting process was initiated.

Tenant Organizations

Tenant Organizations inherit the new Education fields from their root/parent Account.

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