Additional Service Plan Configuration Guidelines
Important: When configuring service plans, please bear in mind that each service plan must only contain one base SKU, but multiple add-ons and add-ons to add-ons can be added according to the business requirements.
In this section you will find information that needs to be taken into account when configuring service plans for each of the Microsoft products.
CSP Microsoft 365
Service Plan Parameter | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
Grace period | 0 days | Microsoft does not support any grace period. |
Hold period | 30 days | Subscriptions can be put into a "suspend" state for a 30-day period, during which they may be re-activated. |
Destroy service after hold period | Yes | After a 30-day hold period, Microsoft transitions a subscription from a "suspend" state to a "de-provision" state, so it can no longer be reactivated. As it is not recoverable, it is recommended to configure | to destroy the local subscription instance.
Subscription expiration notification | This can be configured at the discretion of the CloudBlue partner (i.e.7 days before Term End, 14 days before Term End, etc.) |
The purpose of a Subscription Expiration Notification is for the CloudBlue partner to notify its transacting partner and/or customer that a term-based product is nearing the end of its term. This notification allows you to inform partners or customers about:
Notes: |
NCE Perpetual Software
Service Plan Parameter | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
Subscription Expiration Notification | Not applicable |
The purpose of a Subscription Expiration Notification is for the CloudBlue partner to notify its transacting partner and/or customer that a term-based product is nearing the end of its term. This notification allows you to inform partners or customers about:
Note: The default behavior of NCE Perpetual Software is that the licensing is perpetual and does not have any expiration date against which to baseline a notice.| |
NCE Software Subscription
Service Plan Parameter | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
Renewal | No | Terms expire without the possibility of a renewal. Partners must place a new sales order to continue with the product in a new term. |
Subscription Expiration Notification | At discretion of CloudBlue Partner (i.e. 7 days before Term End, 14 days before Term End etc.) |
The purpose of a Subscription Expiration Notification is for the CloudBlue partner to notify its transacting partner and/or customer that a term-based product is nearing the end of its term. This notification allows you to inform partners or customers about:
Notes:
|
Commitment Terms | 1-Year or 3-Year | The commitment terms must be configured as indicated on the OfferID. |
Billing Period | Full Term Pre-Paid | |
Return Policy | 7 days after sales order for full credit in-arrears |
Important: Click here to obtain information on the latest return policy announced by Microsoft. The 7-day period is evaluated precisely, to the minute. The entire sales order must be returned. Zero (0) license keys may be activated. |
Renewing | No | Terms end without a renewal. |
NCE Microsoft 365
Service Plan Parameter | Value | Description |
---|---|---|
Service Plan Names | CloudBlue Connect Names are recommended. Alternatively, you can either use the name provided by Microsoft or a different name of your choice. |
CloudBlue Connect benefits from CB’s intellectual property Product Catalogue Automation Tools to enhance Microsoft Offer Names with:
There will be coming changes to the Microsoft Offer Names to enhance the Marketplace Search and Sales Order experience:
If you do not wish to use those names you can either use the original Microsoft offer names or a different name of your choice instead. |
Resource Names |
CloudBlue Connect resource names can be used for automated configuration. Other names can be used for manual configuration. |
The Resource Name must match with the name in CloudBlue Connect if you wish to use Product Configuration Manager (PCM) (with a .json input) for automated configuration. Partners may use other Resource Names by doing the following:
|
Subscription Expiration Notification | At discretion of CloudBlue Partner (i.e. 7 days before Term End, 14 days before Term End etc.) |
NCE M365 has a 7-day cancellation window for a renewal order (and sales order), that allows for penalty-free cancellations. For active subscriptions that have auto-renew enabled, CloudBlue partners should do the following:
The default behavior of NCE M365 active subscriptions is set to auto-renew at the end of term. If the transacting partner wishes to discontinue the service, a cancellation should be scheduled in advance. |
Commitment | Monthly, 1 Year, 3 Years | The commitment terms must be configured as indicated on the OfferID. |
Billing Period | Monthly, Annual |
NCE Microsoft 365 Return Policy
Return | Policy | Early Termination Fee (ETF) |
---|---|---|
|
Credit prorated to the commitment term will be issued to the ISV Direct Billed Partner in arrears on the next Invoice. |
Forfeiture of prepaid amount corresponding to a service considered used (within 7 days).
|
After 7 days of Sales Order | Returns (Cancels) prohibited |
Microsoft will continue invoicing for the entire remaining commitment term until the subscription term end date. Partners should ensure to disable the Auto-Renew option so that the subscription does not start a new commitment period. |
Additional Details on Microsoft's New Cancellation and Seat-Reduction Policy
Microsoft announced the implementation of a new cancellation-window duration for commercial seat-based offers in CSP New Commerce, effective since March 18, 2022 at 5 p.m. Pacific time (12 a.m. UTC on March 19).
Starting then, any new commercial seat-based subscription orders in CSP New Commerce will allow 7 calendar days for cancellations and seat reductions instead of the previous 72-hour window.
This change is intended to provide partners with additional time to make post-purchase corrections to orders.
Charges for canceled subscriptions or seat reductions will be prorated from the time the subscription is created until it is canceled or seats are reduced, as was the case with the 72-hour window.
For example, if a partner cancels a subscription 5 days into an annual term, the partner will be billed for those 5 days but not for the remainder of the year’s term.
Also, the 7-day window will apply retroactively to subscriptions purchased 7 days prior to the implementation of the change (for example, starting at 12 a.m. UTC on March 12). Orders submitted prior to that date and time will not be available for retroactive cancellation. As a result, a partner that ordered a subscription during the prior seven-day period can cancel or reduce seats on that subscription for up to 7 days, post-purchase.
For example, a subscription that was purchased at 11 a.m. local time on March 15 can be canceled (or have seats reduced) up until the same time on March 22.
As with the previous cancellation window, partners can submit the cancellations and seat reductions via either the Partner Center UI or their integrated API. Cancellations within the 7-day window will be enabled for the following commercial subscription scenarios:
-
New seat-based subscription purchases on New Commerce.
-
Seat-based subscriptions that have been renewed on New Commerce.
-
Seat-based subscriptions purchased on New Commerce as a result of a migration from legacy CSP.
-
Partial New Commerce upgrades that resulted in a new subscription.
-
Reducing seats from incremental seat adds on existing subscriptions or on new subscription orders.
Partner assets in the CSP New Commerce experience for seat-based offers collection are in the process of being updated to reflect this change.
What do CloudBlue Partners need to do?
To support the new policy, CloudBlue suggests partners perform the following:
-
Prepare a new Product Lifecycle Manager | Product Platform Requirements (PLM-Compliant PPR) with the 7-day policy instead of the 72-hour policy for PLM.
-
Upload the new PLM-Compliant PPR, and ensure the policies are updated on Commerce L0.
-
Push the changes to Commerce L1 and Commerce L2 as usual, through synchronization. Please allow time for synchronization to occur.
-
Double check that policies are fine on Commerce L1 and Commerce L2.
Cancellation Policies are not copied into subscriptions. Each time they are needed, they are taken from the Service Plan. So, the Microsoft 7-day policy will apply retroactively as described in the details above.
Going forward, CloudBlue will be triggering an update to CloudBlue Product Catalog Automation Tools (PCAT) > Product Catalog Configuration (PCC) so that newly generated PPRs will reflect the 7-day policy instead of the 72-hour policy.