What is the End Date Alignment (Coterminosity)

The End Date Alignment is enabling NCE Coterminosity and has been designed to enhance the Marketplace experience for your customers and streamline the billing operations both for you and your customers. More specifically, the End-Date Alignment is designed to enable partners to align a new NCE seat-based subscription to an existing NCE subscription’s end date. A major issue that is addressed now is that of the end date alignment of a base and an add-on subscription.

Rules for Coterminating NCE Subscriptions

The existing NCE subscriptions from which the user may select and coterminate a new NCE subscription with, uphold the following rules:

• The existing NCE subscriptions must be active, either base subscriptions or add-on subscriptions.

• Active subscriptions purchased with flexible billing plans (monthly or annual installments) may also be eligible for selection.

• Existing active subscriptions across the same MSFT tenant are eligible for selection.

• Existing active subscriptions across the same MSFT tenant and under the Reseller’s MPNID are available for selection.

The End-Date alignment is not available for the following cases:

• Trial subscriptions cannot be coterminated with an existing subscription.

• Subscriptions from any other product type, other than Microsoft NCE Online Services.

• Software Subscriptions/Perpetual Licenses are not eligible for the End-Date Alignment.

• Subscriptions of any other status other than active.

• Subscriptions of any other provisioning sync status other than Synchronized.

• Legacy subscriptions.

The first term after setting up the End-Date Alignment can be shorter than the full term to align the renewal date with an existing subscription. After the first renewal, the subscription will run for the full term only. The charges will be prorated for the first short term. This prorated billing method applies to the first month for one-off payments and payments with installments. Please see the examples presented below.

You can also check the following video on coterminating an NCE subscription.

Ordering NCE Seat-Based Offerings and Aligning the End-Date

Storefront Buyers have the option, while ordering New Commerce Experience (NCE) seat-based products (either for personal use or for reselling), to choose if they wish to align the end date of the subscription, which is about to be created, with the end date of an existing active NCE subscription, that upholds the aforementioned rules.

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In the following table, you can better understand the relationship between the existing NCE subscriptions and the new NCE subscription, which is about to be created with coterminosity.

The End-Date Alignment feature is available on the Storefront Basket Items page only on eligible NCE products, that are chosen to be purchased as either one-off or via installments. This means that for every order item that supports the end date alignment feature, a toggle button appears (and is ‘off’ by default) next to the wording End Date Alignment, underneath the friendly name of the subscription.

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Once the toggle button is turned ON, a pop-up window appears, allowing the Storefront user to align the subscription end date with another existing NCE subscription, which will be chosen via a list of available subscriptions. The list of available subscriptions is populated based on the rules mentioned above.

On this drop-down list, Storefront users can see the existing subscriptions that fit the profile already mentioned, their subscriptions' friendly name, billing cycles (terms), and end dates.

In case of no eligible active NCE seat-based subscription availability, an informative message appears within the pop-up stating: “No active non-trial NCE subscriptions to align with”.

Once the Storefront user selects a subscription to align with, they can see the new end date of their subscription to be created on a preview, on the same pop-up window, under the Adjustment Preview section.

When the Storefront user has selected a specific end date from an existing NCE subscription and clicks on the Save button, the pop-up window closes, and they can see their chosen end date next to the End Day Alignment toggle, along with a pencil icon, in case they wish to re-edit the end date of the subscription.

In this stage, if the selected unit payment is:

• One-off: Then, the Basket Items page displays the billing details of the chosen product.

• Monthly/Annual installments: Then, the Basket Items page displays the billing details of the chosen product along with an extra informative field, located under the End-Date Alignment option, where the Storefront user is informed about the number of installments as well as the prorated (whenever applicable) first monthly/annual amount and the rest monthly/annual amounts that follow. Please note here that all installment amounts are displayed without tax.

If Storefront users no longer want to apply the End-Date Alignment, they can simply switch the toggle button OFF again, and the subscription end date will return to its original value.
Once the Storefront user successfully completes the checkout process, the new NCE subscription will be created and will have the same end date as the existing active NCE subscription that the user had previously chosen.

Installments & Coterminosity

Since after the 3.28.112 release and by combining the logic and rules described on this page concerning the functionality of the coterminosity feature as well as the logic and rules described on the https://interworkscloud.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ICPD/pages/746684417 page about the installments, the coterminosity feature fully supports the selection of installments as a mean of payment. Therefore, Storefront users who wish to purchase such coterminated subscriptions of NCE products with installments will be able to do so.

During the first step of the checkout process in Storefront, inside the Basket Items page, once a Storefront user has chosen to purchase an NCE product with installments and at the same time coterminate it with an existing NCE subscription, two different messages relating to the installments, might appear, because subscriptions with a custom end date and installments may not have all their installments of the billing plan (12monthly installments for annual subscriptions, 36 monthly or 3 annual installments for triennial subscriptions). This means it is quite possible that the 1st installment is shorter in duration than the rest. Let’s further examine each case:

1. Subscription with a custom end date and all or not all the installments of the term duration along with a shorter 1st installment:

   In this case, the number of installments implies that the existing NCE subscription used for the cotermination is an annual (12-month) subscription with two months already passed. Also, in this example, since the first installment amount (pre-tax) is smaller than that of the following installments, it means that the beginning of the coterminated subscription will be prorated because the existing NCE subscription, which the cotermination is based on, is already on its 3^rd month.
   
   

2. Subscription with a custom end date and not all the installments of the term duration along with the whole 1^st installment.

   In this case, the number of installments implies that the existing NCE subscription used for the cotermination is an annual subscription where two months have already passed. However, in this example, since all installment amounts (pre-tax) are the same, it means that the beginning date of the coterminated subscription will be the same as the beginning of the 10th term (out of 12) of the existing NCE subscription, which the cotermination is based on.

Viewing the Billing Plan of Coterminated NCE Subscriptions with Installments

Ordering Subscriptions with custom end dates is not currently available in BSS. Nevertheless, the total number of installments varies, affecting certain display areas in BSS. For example, the total number of installments appears under the Subscription View page, at the Billing Plan pop-up window, called, Installments Plan:

For more information concerning the Billing Plan and the Installment Plan pop-up window in the BSS platform, please check the https://interworkscloud.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ICPD/pages/899842049/Copy+of+Billing+Frequency+in+BSS#Viewing-the-Billing-Plan-of-Subscriptions-in-BSS page.
For more information concerning the Billing Plan in the Storefront, please check the https://interworkscloud.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ICPD/pages/734461953/Billing+Frequency+in+Storefront#Viewing-the-Billing-Plan-of-Subscriptions-in-Storefront page.

NCE Coterminosity Examples

In this section, you can find five tabs with end-date alignment examples from the Microsoft documentation to better understand how the actual NCE Coterminosity functions.

Managing Coterminated NCE Subscriptions

The following bullet points briefly explain how the coterminated NCE subscriptions are managed.

• Invoices: The prorated amount of a coterminated NCE subscription is calculated similarly to a subscription with proration, which essentially creates a mini billing cycle from the beginning(first billing cycle) until the second billing cycle, when the two subscriptions will be fully aligned. The same applies to coterminated NCE subscriptions with monthly/annual installments.

• Upgrade: The full and partial upgrades of coterminated NCE subscriptions are fully supported since they create a new subscription from scratch, and that new subscription has as the Start Date the date of end date of the coterminated NCE subscription was based on.

  • Upgrades (full and partial) of coterminated NCE subscriptions with installments follow the same logic as NCE subscriptions with installments. During the upgrade (full or partial) of a subscription through the Storefront, the correct number of installments is displayed in the message below the corresponding basket item.

• Suspension: The new commerce experience (NCE) suspension policies also apply here. Microsoft Partners can suspend and then resume a coterminated NCE subscription at any time without cancellation or termination. However, the billing of the Partner continues during the suspension.

• Cancellation: The new commerce experience (NCE) cancellation policies also apply here. Therefore, the new coterminated NCE subscription has a 7-day cancellation window, within which it can be canceled, in the prorated way. As a result of a cancellation within the allowed timeframe, a prorated credit invoice is created and is based on the number of active days in this first (short) billing cycle.

• Installments: The Installments feature is supported by the coterminosity feature.

• Import Customers Tool: Coterminated NCE subscriptions are fully supported on the Import Customers Tool. However, coterminated NCE subscriptions with monthly/annual installments are not fully supported yet. In the upcoming releases, this feature will also be supported.

• Health Check Mechanism: The Health Check Mechanism (HCM) fully supports coterminated subscriptions.

• Price Protection: The coterminated NCE subscriptions are price-protected with the same rules for all NCE subscriptions. Since the first billing cycle of the newly created coterminated NCE subscription is short, the price protection effective end date follows that logic. On renewal, the subscription will enter a new price-protected period, and the protected prices will be the prices that are in effect on renewal.

For example:

• Let’s assume you are ordering an NCE Product with a price protection term=12 on an annual unit.

• The existing NCE subscription End Date (the one that you want to be aligned to) is 31/10/2023.

• The new NCE subscription is eligible for cotermination and has a Start Date of 20/6/2023.

The first (short) billing cycle of the (new) coterminated NCE subscriptions is: 20/06/2023 - 31/10/2023

The second (normal) renewed billing cycle of the (new) coterminated NCE subscription is: 01/11/2023 - 31/10/2024

Therefore, the prices of the (new) coterminated NCE subscription will be protected during the first (short) billing cycle, and on subscription renewal, the latest prices and price protection will be automatically retrieved one last time, and those new price-protected prices will be applied for the rest of the term, which in this case is 12 months.

Coterminosity for Tenant Organizations

Storefront users of a tenant reseller organization can create an NCE subscription with a coterminated end date through coterminosity with an existing subscription. However, for coterminosity to be available for tenant reseller organizations, a root organization that never had enabled coterminosity before has to perform a Get Services Definition action in the respective instance. Afterwards, the products that have been imported to the catalog via the Get Services Definition action and have the Enable Custom End Date feature set to True on the root organization need to be transferred as such to the tenant organization, as well.

• For existing tenants (existing before the coterminosity feature was enabled in the root organization), an 'Update Tenant' action must be executed within the root organization to enable coterminosity in the Tenant Organization.

• For new tenants (created after enabling coterminosity in the root organization) will automatically inherit the coterminosity settings during their creation.

Furthermore, concerning the invoicing and backordering of coterminated NCE subscriptions from tenant organizations, they are back ordered as such back to root organization. Different time zones between the Root and the Tenant organizations do not influence end-date alignment in any way. Also, the coterminated end date is the same as with Microsoft Partner Center in both the root and tenant organization when backordering is active.

Coterminosity with Installments for Tenant Organizations

The aforementioned rules about the coterminosity for Tenant Organizations apply here as well, and although, the backordering of an NCE subscription with a custom end date and installments is supported, the Billing Plans must be enabled for the Tenant Organization. However, transferring coterminated NCE subscriptions with installments from a Lite Reseller to a Tenant Reseller is not yet fully functional.

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