Managing Overage

Some offers in the Microsoft catalog have overage capabilities, which allows users to continue using the service capabilities in a pay-as-you-go mode beyond the prepaid allocated monthly limit.

Scope

• Program: Cloud Solution Provider (CSP)

• Platform: New Commerce Experience (NCE)

• Cloud: Microsoft Cloud International (MCI)

• Countries: Global except China and embargoed nations

• Customer Qualification: Non-Qualified Commercial

• Products: Microsoft 365, Azure

Prerequisites

To enable the overage capability for a Microsoft customer, the following requirements must be met:

• The customer must have purchased, from any source or partner, at least one subscription-based NCE offer that includes the possibility of overuse beyond the prepaid allocated amounts.

• An NCE Azure plan and an NCE Azure subscription must exist to collect the overage costs when the customer exceeds the prepaid monthly usage allocation. The customer can choose to either create a new NCE Azure plan and subscription or use an existing one.

• The NCE Azure plan is retrieved from all existing subscriptions under the customer's tenant. If you pick your own Azure subscription, you are opting to receive all overage from all other partners and channels too.

Microsoft Limitations

The overage capability is enabled or disabled at a Microsoft customer level, not at a subscription level. This means that:

• One NCE Azure plan and subscription from one Microsoft partner will be assigned to collect usage from all of the eligible prepaid allocation offers, regardless of how they were sourced.

  • It is not possible to direct the overage from each prepaid subscription to a separate Azure plan and subscription.

  • Each time the customer acquires a new overage-eligible subscription from any source, its overage will be directed to the same NCE Azure plan and subscription.

• The Microsoft customer is commercially responsible to choose the Microsoft partner whose NCE Azure plan and subscription will receive all of the overage charges.

• Once a single Microsoft partner is chosen, attempts by other Microsoft partners to allocate overage to NCE Azure plans and subscriptions in their billing relationship with the customer will be rejected.

  • In this case, an error will be displayed informing that the operation could not be processed, with a call to action to contact support.

• Only the Microsoft customer can choose to relinquish the assignment of overage charges to an existing NCE Azure plan and subscription, and then allow a new single Microsoft partner to receive them.

  • CloudBlue is working to enhance the error message displayed when Microsoft rejects an attempt to allocate a new Azure plan and subscription. The updated message will provide more context on the expected behavior, the reason for the rejection, and a recommended action—specifically, to review with the customer their selected Microsoft partner responsible for overage charges on all eligible prepaid subscriptions.

• Disabling overage consumption—without switching to another Azure plan or subscription—will prevent all prepaid subscriptions with overuse potential from exceeding their limits, regardless of their source.

Note: When purchasing an offer with overage capabilities, enabling overage at the customer account level will not be requested by default. If the customer already has overage enabled through a Microsoft partner, any overuse from this subscription will automatically be assigned. If overage is not yet enabled for the customer, and the customer wishes to allow it, this must be activated separately at the customer level. Once activated, all future subscriptions with overage potential will automatically route overuse to this NCE Azure plan and subscription. Only admin agents from the transacting partner can enable overage capabilities.

Finding SKUs with Overage Capabilities in Connect

To see the available items with overage capabilities in the Distributor portal, complete the following steps:

1. In the Distributor portal, go to the NCE Microsoft 356 Commercial product and click Items.

2. Click Filter and type OVG to see the list of SKUs with overage capabilities. All the SKUs supporting overage will have OVG in their name.

Purchasing Products with an Overage Consumption Type

When placing an order in the control panel for resellers or customers, select NCE Microsoft 365 Commercial and filter the list of service plans to see those with overage capabilities (they will have OVG in the name). Select a SKU with overage capabilities and complete the ordering process steps to place the order.

Managing Overage

To enable or disable the overage capability for the customer's subscriptions with overage capability, complete the following steps:

1. In the customer's control panel, go to the Subscription details and click the Manage Overage button.

2. If the status of the overage capability is Disabled, click Edit to select the Azure Plan and Azure entitlement that will be used to collect overage costs.

   

   Note: If the overage capability is enabled and you wish to disable it, click Edit and select None in the Azure Plan list.

3. Select the Azure Plan and the Azure entitlement and click Save.

   Note: Remember that an Azure Plan and Azure Entitlement must exist before managing overage.