How to Use Seamless Move for NCE Microsoft Active Subscriptions

Introduction

Seamless Move for Microsoft by CloudBlue is a suite of convenience tools for use by marketplace operators to enhance day-to-day activities of Microsoft customers that involve discretionary synchronization of the CloudBlue platform with the Microsoft NCE Commerce platform.

Seamless Move for Microsoft allows you to import certain Microsoft NCE active subscriptions to CloudBlue. You can import active paid non-ISV discounted subscriptions ranging across a set of product subtypes and partner qualifications. By importing qualifying subscriptions to CloudBlue, you will obtain better subscription management capabilities, hyper-scalability and reporting capabilities to provide best-in-class catalog and subscription management.

This document describes the Prerequisites and Eligibility Criteria and a job aid on How To Use Seamless Move for Microsoft.

Audience

• Marketplace Operators who perform the one-time readiness of Seamless Move for Microsoft in a marketplace.

• Staff Users of Microsoft partners as Commerce Marketplace Partner accounts who perform day-to-day tasks with Seamless Move for Microsoft.

Supported Scope

• Commerce Platforms: CloudBlue Shared SaaS, CloudBlue Dedicated SaaS, CloudBlue On-Premises.

• Distribution: 1-Tier direct to customer, 2-Tier indirect to reseller.

• Microsoft Program: Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) only.

• Microsoft Commerce Platforms: Modern New Commerce Experience (NCE) only.

• Microsoft Customer Qualifications: Non-Qualified Commercial Customers, Qualified Education Sector MCI Customers, Qualified Nonprofit Sector MCI Customers, Qualified Government GCC Customers.

• Regions: Worldwide except China and embargoed regions

• Products:

  • NCE Microsoft 365 to Non-Qualified Commercial Customers

  • NCE Software Subscription to Non-Qualified Commercial Customers

  • NCE Microsoft 365 to Qualified Education Sector MCI Customers

  • NCE Microsoft 365 to Qualified Nonprofit Sector MCI Customers

  • NCE Microsoft 365 to Qualified Government Sector GCC Customers

• Offers:

  • Public catalog paid non-discounted offers.

  • Specialized catalog paid non-discounted offers.

• Subscriptions: Active with or without co-terming.

  • Out of Scope: Expired, terminated, disabled or suspended subscriptions.

• ISV Partners: ISV Direct Billed Provider Partners, ISV Indirect Reseller Partners.

• Seamless Move Activities: Microsoft Partner Center (MSPC) to CloudBlue Platform import.

Out of Scope

Certain scope is not supported, because either Microsoft does not allow it and/or CloudBlue has not made support Generally Available (GA).

• Products:

  • NCE Perpetual Software (All customer qualifications)

  • Legacy CSP Commerce Platform Products (All)

• Offers: Trial.

• Subscriptions:

  • In Expired, Terminated, Disabled or Suspended status.

  • Importing active subscriptions with a pending Scheduled Change.

Allowed Actions After the Import

Importing an active Microsoft NCE subscription to CloudBlue does not affect the subscription in the Microsoft NCE Commerce platform (as viewable in Microsoft Partner Center (MSPC)).

Seamless move import allows Microsoft partners on a CloudBlue marketplace to begin managing the subscription from there. Changes initiated on a CloudBlue marketplace will be kept in sync with Microsoft. Going forward, Microsoft partners should avoid using Microsoft Partner Center directly, as changes made there will not be in sync with the CloudBlue Marketplace.

Any Microsoft-allowable actions that may be done in MSPC are available in CloudBlue. CloudBlue will dynamically display allowable actions. For example, opportunities to downsize, downgrade or cancel with immediate effect will appear only during the brief permitted window following a sales order or commitment term renewal order. At other times, only a scheduled change to take effect at the next commit term end date are allowed.

Billing Use Cases

• Subscriptions with the same commitment and billing term: This is the case of a subscription that has an annual commitment and annual billing, for example. In this case, since the imported subscription must be out of the cancellation window, the subscription will not be invoiced in the current subscription term. The customer will only be invoiced when the subscription is renewed at the end of the subscription term.

• Subscriptions with different commitment and billing term: This is the case of a subscription with an annual commitment and monthly billing, for example. In this case, CloudBlue will invoice the customer for every billing cycle of the subscription until the subscription is canceled.

• Subscriptions with perpetual terms: In this case, as payment is made before the import takes place, the imported subscription will not be invoiced to the customer.

Pricing Use Cases

Subscriptions with monthly billing or subscriptions which require billing before renewal must not have special prices, as the Seamless Move application will not be able to provide a spot price after the subscription has been imported. However, the application will be able to import a set of subscriptions which have the same billing and commitment terms with promotions.

• The Seamless Move application does not support the management of spot pricing. This means that if a subscription with a special price is imported, it will be necessary to manually adjust the price of the subscription after it has been imported. After the import, the subscription will have the price specified in the Service Plan.

• If a freeze is provided for the spot price on the renewal, the discounted price will be maintained after the renewal. However, if the freeze on the spot price is not maintained, the subscription will be renewed at the price specified in the Service Plan.

Using Seamless Move to Import Subscriptions

Important:
- Subscriptions to be imported must be in the active status.
- Trial subscriptions cannot be imported.
- Only Microsoft NCE subscriptions can be imported.
- Subscriptions can now be imported regardless of the auto-renewal status: enabled or disabled.
- Only subscriptions without scheduled changes on the renewal date can be imported.
- Only subscriptions without promotions can be imported.
- Only subscriptions that do not exist on Connect can be imported.
- The rating engine must be enabled to allow the migration of the subscriptions.
- Importing subscriptions on the same day they were created is not supported.

Important: Before using Seamless Move, see the Seamless Move prerequisites section.

Importing Multiple Subscriptions as a Reseller

Seamless Move allows you to import all the customer's subscriptions at once or just some of them. To do this, you just need to enter the customer ID and the corresponding Microsoft domain. Then, all the customer's subscriptions will be listed and you will be able to import all of them at once or select just the ones that you need to import.

To import multiple subscriptions, complete the following steps:

1. Log in to the UX1 control panel as a reseller and click Seamless Move > Microsoft.

   

2. Fill in the following fields:

   • Customer Name: Select the CloudBlue Commerce customer account where NCE subscriptions will be imported.

   • Microsoft domain name: Microsoft domain name of the subscriptions to be imported.

     Note: The Microsoft Subscription ID field must not be filled in when importing multiple subscriptions.

   

3. Once the details of the subscriptions to be imported have been displayed, select the subscriptions that you wish to import by using the corresponding checkboxes. You can select all the subscriptions at once by clicking the checkbox at the top.

   

   Note: In the Auto-renew column, you can see the auto-renewal status of the subscriptions that will be imported. Subscriptions can now be migrated regardless of the auto-renewal status (enabled or disabled).

4. Review the service plan that will be assigned to each selected subscription. If there is no service plan available for the subscription, it will not be possible to import it. In that case, the subscription will have a background color and it will be disabled.

    

   If an SKU is found in several service plans, you must choose one of them before proceeding with the import. In this case, the service plans found will be displayed in a drop-down list in the Plan column. Choose one of the plans to continue.

   

5. Click Import and then specify when a billing order will be created for the imported subscriptions: in the current billing period or in the next billing period.

   Note: The option to select when the billing order will be created will not be displayed to indirect resellers. The billing order will always be created in the current billing period for indirect resellers.

   

6. Click Import to start the process. If the migration order is completed successfully, a pop-up message with the migration order number will be displayed.

Importing a Single Subscription as a Reseller

If you need to import only one subscription, you will need to specify the Microsoft Subscription ID. Follow these steps to import a single Microsoft NCE subscription to CloudBlue Commerce:

1. Log in to the UX1 control panel as a reseller and click Seamless Move > Microsoft.

   

2. Fill in the following fields:

   • Customer Name: Select the CloudBlue Commerce customer account where NCE subscriptions will be imported.

   • Microsoft domain name: Microsoft domain name of the subscription to be imported.

   • Microsoft subscription Id: ID of the Microsoft NCE subscription to be imported to CloudBlue Commerce.

      

3. Once the details of the subscription to be imported have been displayed, make sure that the corresponding checkbox is selected.

4. To import an additional NCE Microsoft subscription, click Add more and repeat steps 2 and 3.

5. Review the service plan that will be assigned to the subscription. If there is no service plan available for the subscription, it will not be possible to import it. In that case, the subscription will have a background color and it will be disabled. If an SKU is found in several service plans, you must choose one of them before proceeding with the import. In this case, the service plans found will be displayed in a drop-down list in the Plan column. Choose one of the plans to continue.

6. Click Import and then specify when a billing order will be created for the imported subscriptions: in the current billing period or in the next billing period.

   Note: The option to select when the billing order will be created will not be displayed to indirect resellers. The billing order will always be created in the current billing period for indirect resellers.

   

7. Click Import to start the process. If the migration order is completed successfully, a pop-up message with the migration order number will be displayed.

Importing Subscriptions as a Provider

As a provider, you can now use Seamless Move to import the subscriptions of one of your reseller's customers. To do this, complete the following steps:

1. Log in to the UX1 control panel as a provider and click Seamless Move > Microsoft.

   

2. Fill in the following fields:

   • Reseller ID: Specify the ID of the reseller and press Enter.

   • Customer Name: Select the CloudBlue Commerce customer account where NCE subscriptions will be imported.

   • Microsoft domain name: Microsoft domain name of the subscriptions to be imported.

     Note: The Microsoft Subscription ID field must not be filled in when importing multiple subscriptions.

3. Once the details of the subscriptions to be imported have been displayed, select the subscriptions that you wish to import by using the corresponding checkboxes. You can select all the subscriptions at once by clicking the checkbox at the top.

   

4. Review the service plan that will be assigned to each selected subscription. If there is no service plan available for the subscription, it will not be possible to import it. In that case, the subscription will have a background color and it will be disabled.

    

   If an SKU is found in several service plans, you must choose one of them before proceeding with the import. In this case, the service plans found will be displayed in a drop-down list in the Plan column. Choose one of the plans to continue.

   

    

5. Click Import and then specify when a billing order will be created for the imported subscriptions: in the current billing period or in the next billing period.

   

   Optionally, you can review the prices that will be applied to the imported subscriptions by clicking the Export to Excel button. This will generate an Excel file where you can see the recurring unit reseller price and the recurring customer unit price that will be applied to the subscriptions (the price currently configured in the CloudBlue Commerce service plan).
   
   Then, a user with the Seamless Move Admin Operations privilege in CloudBlue Commerce will be able to edit the prices if necessary and upload the Excel file to ensure that the correct prices are applied to the imported subscriptions. This can be done by using the Admin Operations option in Seamless Move. For additional information see the following section: Managing Special Pricing in Seamless Move.

   

   Note:
   - The option to select when the billing order will be created will not be displayed to indirect resellers. The billing order will always be created in the current billing period for indirect resellers.
   

6. Click Import to start the process. If the migration order is completed successfully, a pop-up message with the migration order number will be displayed.