What is the NCE Migration Tool?

The Migration Tool is a feature introduced in the 3.28.59 Release which allows the migration of active and synchronized Microsoft legacy subscriptions to the New Commerce Experience (NCE) respective subscription. Therefore, with this tool, you can migrate existing Microsoft subscriptions and transform them into New Commerce Experience subscriptions, automatically from within your Storefront. The tool's scope is per customer, meaning that the results appear per Microsoft Tenant. As a result, a reseller, for example, can choose to migrate one or more of the eligible legacy Microsoft subscriptions of a given end customer (Microsoft Tenant) asynchronously.
By accessing the tool via the Storefront or BSS and choosing certain parameters (depending on who accesses the tool), the legacy subscriptions that are available for migration are retrieved and displayed. The migration can begin by choosing one or more of the displayed eligible legacy subscriptions.

Accessing the NCE Migration Tool

The tool can be accessed from both the BSS platform (1) and the Storefront (2).

1. To access the NCE Migration Tool in BSS, the user has to navigate to BSS Setup > Administration > System Options > Applications Setup, then locate the Microsoft Cloud Services service manager to click on the Settings button. From there, the BSS user can click on the instance for which they wish to run the NCE Migration Tool and simply click on the Go to NCE Migrator button.

   Open

   

   
   
   

2. To access the NCE Migration Tool in Storefront, the user has to Log In to the Storefront, and from the profile icon, they must select the My Account option.

Open

On the My Account page that opens up, they can locate the section Microsoft Cloud Services at the end. Next to the Microsoft instance, you can witness the Migrate to NCE button.

Therefore, if more than one Microsoft instance is available, you can choose from which instance you wish to begin the migration by clicking the respective button.

Once the “Migrate to NCE“ button is clicked, the Storefront user is redirected to the migration tool's page.

Configuring the NCE Migration Tool Step 1

After opening the NCE migration tool from the corresponding instance, Storefront users land on the first tab of the migration process called Current State. Here, they are presented with certain options depending on their user type, be that distributors, resellers, or direct customers.

Distributors View

When a distributor accesses the NCE migration tool, the following three elements are visible.

• Instance: This field is locked since it only displays the chosen Microsoft instance for the migration that the Migrate to NCE button was previously clicked.

• Select Reseller: This drop-down menu provides the distributors with the option to either pick one of their resellers or select the No Reseller option in order to pick one of their direct customers from the Select Customer drop-down menu.

• Select Customer: This drop-down menu provides the distributors with the options to:

  • Pick one of their resellers (in the event that the same reseller has been selected on the Select Reseller drop-down menu) if they wish to migrate an NCE subscription that the reseller is using for personal usage.

  • Pick one of the reseller’s end customers (in the event that a reseller has been selected on the Select Reseller drop-down menu)

  • Pick a direct customer (in the event that the No Reseller option was selected from the Select Reseller drop-down menu).

Resellers View

When a reseller accesses the NCE migration tool, the following two elements are visible.

• Select Customer: This drop-down menu allows the resellers to pick one of their end customers.

These aforementioned options (Select Reseller & Select Customer) concerning the Distributors, as well as the Resellers View, are required by our tool to prepare the existing and eligible subscriptions before the migration.

Direct Customers View

When a direct customer accesses the NCE migration tool, no elements are visible since the direct customer’s subscriptions are automatically displayed and checked for eligibility upon entering this page.

A direct customer, after the tools first configuration, can refresh the findings of the page by clicking on the Refresh button.

Migration Eligibility Process STEP 2

After the distributor or the reseller defines the above steps and clicks on the Check Eligibility button, the actual check process between our BSS and the Microsoft Partner Center is initiated, and the results appear inside the following table. The same check process happens automatically for the direct customer without needing to select something or click on the Check Eligibility button.

The columns of that table are split into two distinct categories.
The first nine (9) columns are the data that stem from the existing (traditional/legacy) Microsoft Cloud Services subscriptions, whereas the remaining four (4) columns contain mostly configurable options and informative data that derive from the respective Microsoft NCE subscription, and become enabled once the user selects one of the checkboxes at the beginning of each row in order to continue with the migration process:

Customer Name: This field contains the name of the customer, which essentially is the BSS account name.

Subscription: This field contains the name/description of the legacy subscription.

Eligible: This field contains the status of whether the legacy subscription is eligible for migration (Yes) or not (No).

Reason for ineligibility: This field remains empty (with a dash) if a legacy subscription is eligible. Otherwise, the reason for the ineligibility appears in a friendly, informative message.

Product: This field contains the name of the product or add-on with which the legacy subscription was created with.

Billing Cycle: This field contains the billing cycle of the legacy subscription, such as Monthly, Annually, etc.

Qty: This field contains the quantity of the legacy subscription.

End date: This field contains the end date of the billing cycle of the legacy subscription.

Subscription amount: This field contains the payable amount of a legacy subscription per its billing cycle.

Billing Cycle: This field becomes editable when the checkbox at the beginning of the row gets clicked. For more information, continue to the following (Configuration…) section of the page.

Billing Frequency: This field becomes editable when the checkbox at the beginning of the row gets clicked. For more information, please continue to the following (Configuration…) section of the page.

Qty: This informational field displays the number of licenses of the legacy subscription that are migrated to an NCE subscription. For more information, please continue to the following (Configuration…) section of the page.

End date: This field currently contains the informative value Start new, meaning that the end date will not follow the renewal date of the legacy subscription. For more information, please continue to the following (Configuration…) section of the page.

Configuring NCE Subscription Preferences Before the Migration STEP 3

Once the user sees all the results and decides to begin the migration process, there are some options to consider concerning the transformation of a legacy Microsoft subscription to an NCE subscription. Upon clicking on one or more of the checkboxes of the eligible legacy subscriptions for migration, the Storefront user is able to choose the Billing Cycle and, in certain cases, the Billing Frequency of the NCE subscription that is about to be created from the legacy one, as displayed below.

Billing Cycle: This field becomes editable when the checkbox at the beginning of the row gets clicked and contains the new billing cycle of the subscription that is migrated to an NCE subscription. Its available options are either 1 Year or 1 Month, depending on the predefined (by Microsoft) availability for each particular NCE subscription.

Billing Frequency: This field becomes editable only when:

1. The following five Billing Frequency/Plan rules are all met:

   1. The Billing Frequency checkbox option is enabled inside its Microsoft Service Manager (instance) settings.

   2. The BSS organization for Tenant Resellers & Country Tenants must have enabled the Billing Plans option under the Shortcuts menu of the Parent organization.

   3. The Bill To Account, of the order, has the Billing Frequency option enabled inside the Account settings.

   4. The NCE product, towards which the migration happens, has its Billing Frequency option enabled.

   5. The NCE product, towards which the migration happens, offers a Billing Plan.
      
      

2. And, the checkbox at the beginning of the row gets clicked.

When editable, the Billing Frequency field will contain the preferred configuration of the billing frequency of the subscription that will be migrated to an NCE subscription. Suppose, for example, in the previous field (Billing Cycle), the selected option was 1 Year. In that case, the Billing Frequency offers two options: Annually, meaning to be billed for the whole cost of the year upfront, or Monthly, meaning to be billed by splitting the overall cost into equal monthly terms. These Annually and/or Monthly options become available according to the predefined (by Microsoft) availability for each particular NCE subscription. Consequently, any applicable and available billing frequency options are locked to the specific billing cycle chosen by the user.

Qty: This informational field displays the number of licenses of the legacy subscription that are migrated to an NCE subscription. This means that the same number of licenses that the legacy subscription had are the ones that are migrated to the new NCE subscription.

End date: This field currently contains only the informative value Start new. This value means that the end date will not follow the renewal date of the legacy subscription. In later releases, the field will become editable, and the second option, named Current, will be the option where the end date will follow the renewal date of the legacy subscription.

Initiating the Migration Process STEP 4

Once the Start migration button is clicked, after one or more legacy Microsoft subscriptions have been chosen for migration and their respective NCE subscription pre-options have been configured, the Storefront user is met with a verification pop-up window that needs confirmation for the migration process to actually begin.

By clicking on the Migrate button, you acknowledge the continuation of the migration process, and after this point, another pop-up window is displayed where the migration process prepares the legacy Microsoft subscription.

In this migration phase, the web browser pop-up window displaying this part of the migration progress must not close.
Once this migration phase is completed, the Storefront user is redirected to the second tab of the migration tool called Results.

Migration Flow

Although the NCE Migration Tool is aligned with the Auto-Migration feature, if the 'Auto-Migration' webhook is disabled or unable to function properly in your organization, the NCE Migration Tool will continue operating via its migration flow by completely omitting the migration flow of the Auto-Migration feature. Therefore, the migration flow is the following:

1. The first step of the migration process is to suspend the legacy subscription in BSS and then dispatch the migration instruction along with the configured options from the third step to the Microsoft Partner Center via an API call. At this point, the status of the NCE Migration Tool is set to Processing.

2. After the migration is complete on the Microsoft Partner Center, their systems dispatch the migration ID and the ID of the newly created NCE subscriptions to our platform.

3. For every successful migration, a new order is created on our platform. These orders have the suffix “NCE Migration tool” and include the NCE product to migrate to.

    

4. The order is executed for the NCE subscription to be created. The NCE Subscription is connected to the NCE subscription ID received from the Microsoft Partner Center in the second step. On the NCE subscription, we keep the NCE Migration ID and Legacy External Subscription ID

5. The new NCE subscription will be billed using the pricing calculation rules we apply to all NCE subscriptions.

6. The legacy subscription will be marked as canceled, and a credit invoice will be calculated for the remaining period. Information about the migration is kept on the subscription details page.

7. Once the new NCE subscription has been created in the BSS platform, the NCE Migration Tool marks the migration status as Success.
   In case there was an error or a timeout during the migration process, then the status of the tool changes to Error, followed by a description, under the Comment column, of what went wrong.

Monitoring the Migration Results Step 5

The BSS and Storefront users can proceed to monitor the migration process at any time they wish since the migration process runs asynchronously without the need for user supervision until it finishes. The migration progress can be accessed by the second tab of the migration tool called Results.

To monitor ad-hoc the migration process of a given customer, you need to select that customer from the two drop-down menus and then click on the Select a Customer button, whenever applicable.

Here, the BSS and Storefront users are presented with an overview list containing each migration progress per each legacy Microsoft subscription that either is being migrated to NCE subscriptions in the Microsoft Partner Center or has finished the migration. In the example above, there is just one migration in progress.

The overview list is comprised of the following six (6) columns:

• Legacy CloudPlatform Subscription: This is the id of the legacy Microsoft subscription in the BSS platform.

• NCE CloudPlatform Subscription: This is the id of the NCE Microsoft subscription in the BSS platform.

• NCE PartnerCenter Subscriptions: This is the id of the NCE Microsoft subscription in the Microsoft Partner Center.

• Status: The status indicates the state of the migration process for a particular subscription. This field is updated every 1 minute. The default statuses are the following:

  • Processing: This is the displayed status when the migration is ongoing.

  • Success: This is the displayed status when the migration has finished successfully.

  • Error: This is the displayed status when the migration has not finished since there was an error in the process, either from Microsoft or from our systems.

• Comment: The comment field remains empty (with a dash) if the migration is under Processing or Successful status. Otherwise, if the Error status appears, a friendly informative message elaborates on the issue.

• Partner Center Migration Date: The date and time the migration process was completed at the partner center.

• CloudPlatform Order: This is the order number through which the new NCE subscription is created into the BSS platform.

• Completion Date: The date and time the migration process was completed on our BSS platform.

Once the migration process is completed, the:

1. BSS users can witness all the fields filled in and the Status displaying the word Success in green color, while all the IDs, with the exception of the NCE PartnerCenter Subscription ID, function as a hyperlink that redirects the users to the respective view pages in BSS.

2. Storefront users can witness all the fields filled in and the Status displaying the word Success in green color.

Invoicing of Newly Created NCE Subscription

After a successful migration, the newly created NCE subscription is invoiced based on the default NCE product price list and not on the legacy price list assigned to your customer’s account for the legacy Microsoft subscription. Consequently, during the migration process, the system only chooses the price list for which the currency and unit (billing cycle) match those of the NCE subscription.

The inner workings of the migration tool during the migration phase, where the billing data are calculated, are the following:

The tool checks whether an applicable price list contains that NCE product under the “Billing To” account. If it exists, then it applies those pricing rules to the product price. Otherwise, it applies the default NCE price list of the NCE product. If more than one NCE price list is assigned to the “Billing To” account in BSS for that NCE product, then the tool retrieves the most recent one. Also, before the pricing is defined, during the execution of the order of the NCE subscription, if there is any applicable promotion based on that product, it is applied. Once the pricing is done and the order is executed successfully, the creation of the NCE subscription is completed inside the platform.

Examples:

• Annual Billing Plan: If the Annual billing plan for a migrated NCE subscription was selected, then the price of that subscription will remain constant for a year, so if the cost price from the NCE price list was, for example, 100 $ on 10/03/2022, this price will be the same for a year, until 09/03/2023.

• Monthly Billing Plan: If the Monthly billing plan for a migrated NCE subscription was selected, then the price of the subscription will remain constant for a month, but it is susceptible to upcoming pricing changes, upon renewal, from Microsoft since each month the price might remain the same or fluctuate. Therefore, if the cost price from the NCE price list was, for example, 9 $ on 02/04/2022, the price may or may not change the following month.

Handling Migration Errors

In case there are errors during the migration process, for any reason, the Status column displays the word Error in red color while the Comment column displays the reason for the error.

• Error stemming from Microsoft: If the error arrives from the Microsoft side, the text inside the Comment column begins with the word Microsoft: .

• Error stemming from BSS platform: If the error arrives from our side, the text inside the Comment column begins with the word Cloud Platform: .

Furthermore, once a migration error occurs during the creation of the BSS order, and after one hour that the order does not get successfully executed, a new dynamic column named Actions appears where a Retry button becomes accessible and allows only the BSS user (Distributor) to retry to re-execute the BSS order once more to finish the creation of the NCE subscription. The Retry button must only be clicked after the error, displayed under the Comment column, has been handled.

Also, next to the Actions column title, there is an informative tooltip icon that, upon clicking on it, the user becomes informed of the Retry button and the next steps for resolving the issue before clicking on the Retry button.

Therefore, depending on the error, the BSS user can try to solve the issue if, for example, is something simple. Otherwise, the BSS user can contact either Microsoft or the interworks.cloud support department in order to resolve it, while the Storefront user will have to contact the distributor to solve the issue.

Viewing the Legacy & NCE Subscriptions in BSS After the Migration

After completing the migration, the BSS user can view details about the migration and related details between the legacy subscription, which is now canceled, and the newly created NCE subscription, which is now active and synced.

View of Legacy Subscription

By accessing the BSS Subscription view page of the legacy Microsoft subscription, you can witness that it is canceled after the migration. Furthermore, two informative custom fields are available: NCE Migration Status and NCE Subscription ID. The first field depicts whether the migration was completed, whereas the second field depicts the ID of the newly created NCE subscription that replaced the legacy one.

View of NCE Subscriptions

By accessing the BSS Subscription view page of the newly created Microsoft NCE subscription, you can witness the subscription being active and synced after the migration. Furthermore, two informative custom fields are available: NCE Migration ID and Legacy External Subscription ID. The first field depicts the migration ID with which this subscription was created (which can be searched in the NCE Migration Tool), whereas the second field depicts the ID of the legacy Microsoft subscription that this subscription replaced.

Checking the Legacy & NCE Subscription(s) in Storefront After the Migration

After completing the migration, the Storefront user can verify the successful completion of the migration process by verifying that the legacy subscription has been canceled while a newly created NCE subscription is now active and synced.

Table of Contents