December 2021 announcements

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This page provides the announcements for Microsoft Partner Center for December 2021

Monthly price list update has two slight delays in January

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-22

  • Capabilities

Summary

Two monthly price-list-related updates will be slightly delayed to January 3 or 4. (However, most pricing files will be available as expected, on December 31, 2021.)

Impacted audience

Direct-bill and indirect providers participating in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program

Details

Two price list updates that normally occur on the first of the month will be slightly delayed:

  • Azure usage-based price lists will be available by the end of the business day on January 3, 2022.

  • License-based pricing files will be up to date on January 1, 2022, but there will be a slight delay until any new offers are available in the catalog for purchase. The license-based catalog update is scheduled for January 4, 2022 at 5PM PST.

Most pricing files will be available as usual, on December 31, 2021 at approximately 6 PM PST.

Summary of pricing information availability for January

  • December 31, 2021, about 6 PM PST

    • License-based price list files and offer list matrix--both traditional and new commerce

    • Usage-based reservations price lists

    • Software subscriptions price lists

    • Perpetual software price lists

    • Azure plan consumption price lists

    • Azure plan reservations price lists

    • Azure plan consumption foreign exchange rates

    • Marketplace price list

  • January 3, 2022, about 6 PM PST

    • Usage-based price files updated

  • January 4, 2022, about 6 PM PST

    • Partner Center catalog refreshed with January 2022 updates

Next steps

  • Share this communication with the relevant individuals in your organization.

Manage your organization's commercial marketplace leads in Partner Center

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-17

  • Capabilities

Summary

From January 17, 2022, you can manage all commercial marketplace leads originating from Microsoft AppSource, Azure Marketplace, and Azure portal in Partner Center.

Impacted audience

Marketing managers or alliance managers who publish offers to the Microsoft commercial marketplace

Details

From January 17, 2022, all leads originating from Microsoft AppSource, Azure Marketplace, and Azure portal will be visible within Partner Center in the Leads tab of the Referrals workspace. This will provide one place to manage these leads, making it easier to manage your pipeline. A previously configured destination isn't required for these leads to be visible in Partner Center. If a destination has been previously configured, leads will be visible in Partner Center along with the destination configured previously for each offer.

Your leads in Partner Center will include campaign IDs, which are automatically populated in the marketing campaign of the referral. Bulk export of the leads in CSV format will be available from Partner Center. More information is available in January on Microsoft Docs: Manage leads.

Leads for offers published through the Office program in Partner Center aren't included as part of this release. We'll provide more information on when Office program leads will be available in March 2022.

If you're a first-time user of Partner Center, contact your account admin, who will provide you with referral admin access to view and manage leads in Partner Center. You can find more information on the referral admin role in Assign roles and permissions to users.

Next steps

Share this communication with the relevant individuals in your organization.

This communication is for awareness only; there's no action required on your part. The changes described in the previous section will be applied automatically.

Questions?

More information on this change is available in Manage leads.

If you have any questions, visit the Partner Center support page

Change log

This announcement was updated on January 18, 2022 to give the exact date for the change.

Application Governance Configuration issue: Don't order at this time

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-17

  • Capabilities

Summary

The SKUs for Application Governance Configuration published on the November price list should not be ordered.

Impacted audience

Cloud Solution Provider partners

Details

The following SKUs launched on November 1, 2021 should not be ordered. Any orders that included the SKUs prior to January 4, 2022 are still usable, but at renewal, customers will need to purchase the new SKUs to continue using the offer.

Offer display name Offer ID SKU
Microsoft Cloud App Security - App Governance eb463b9f-e2b4-4b68-b33a-08863662164f AAL-78364
Microsoft Cloud App Security - App Governance add-on for Microsoft Education (EDU) 1f61964f-86e0-4821-81ed-eebe194de173 - Student AAL-78387
Microsoft Cloud App Security - App Governance add-on for EDU eb072a24-ecc1-4ac0-b4c0-7c1646a05789 - Faculty AAL-78388

New SKUs will be included in the January 2022 price list.

Next steps

Share this information with the appropriate stakeholders in your organization.

Questions?

Support is available on the Microsoft partner website.

General availability promos for seat-based offers in CSP new commerce start January 10

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-16

  • Capabilities

Summary

The general availability (GA) and start of introductory price promotions for seat-based offers in CSP new commerce will take place on January 10, 2022.

Impacted audience

CSP direct-bill partners and indirect providers, and resellers through their indirect providers

Details

Microsoft has set January 10, 2022 for the GA of commercial seat-based offers for new commerce in the CSP program, following the technical release of these offers on October 14, 2021. This date also marks the beginning of the two time-bound promotions for commercial seat-based new commerce offers. As previously announced, these promotions will provide the following price discounts:

  • The annual term promo gives a 5 percent discount off the CSP price list amount. This promotional pricing is currently scheduled to run through March 2022 but can be extended.

  • The monthly term promo applies the regular annual term price instead of the usual 20 percent higher price point. This promo will run through June 2022.

More information about these promotions is available in the latest Global promo readiness guide.

All capabilities, features, and policies as part of the October 2021 technical release remain unchanged.

Next steps

  • As a reminder, there are several upcoming training opportunities to help your organization prepare for the upcoming seat-based offer changes. Review the training communication to register or to view the recorded sessions.

  • The partner resources in the New commerce experience for CSP seat-based offers will be updated shortly with additional details.

  • Review the latest version of the Operating guide.

  • Watch this video to learn how to use the new commerce experience for CSP seat-based offers collection, and resources available for support.

Questions?

For further questions about these offers, check your relevant Yammer communities.

Now live: Delegated Administrative Privileges (DAP) monitoring and self-service removal

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-15

  • Capabilities

Summary

Microsoft has launched new reporting tools that display active DAP connections and allow partners to turn off unused DAP connections.

Impacted audience

Direct-bill partners, indirect providers, and indirect resellers transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider program

Details

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) continues to detect nation-state (Nobelium) activity that exploits partner trusted relationships and admin privileges to gain access to downstream customers. To learn more on how to protect yourself and your customers read the following:

Partners can use delegated administrative privileges (DAP) to manage and support their customers' services. To improve security within the partner and customer ecosystem, Microsoft recommends turning off DAP when it's not in use.

Microsoft has launched new reporting tools so partners' administration agents can audit existing DAP connections with their customers. This reporting will capture how partner agents are accessing customer tenants across all tenants through DAP. Partners can then review and remove the DAP connection when it isn't in active use.

To learn more about this reporting feature, we've created a guide that documents the various filters and fields that are available within the report.

Key considerations:

  • Turning off DAP access for a customer will turn off the partner's administrator privilege to manage capabilities on the customer tenant.

  • Transacting partners can continue to place orders on behalf of their customers.

  • Partner agents can no longer raise a support ticket on behalf of their customers to Microsoft.

  • Turning off DAP won't affect current role-based access control roles on a subscription and won't affect partner-earned credits.

Next steps

Review the resources about this topic, and share with the appropriate stakeholders in your organization.

Change Log

• November 15, 2021: Monitoring and self-serve removal now live

• September 14, 2021: Original announcement

Enforcement of CSP customer onboarding requirements starts January 10

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-15
  • Capabilities

Summary

As part of our commitment to help partners and customers run their business based on trust, we will require customer information to be complete before accepting a partner relationship request, effective January 10, 2022.

Impacted audience

Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) direct-bill partners and indirect providers who have new or existing customers in the countries listed in the next section

Details

This release is a follow-up to our March 2021 release related to CSP customer onboarding that we described in our March 25, 2021 announcement.

Microsoft runs on trust. We're committed to providing a compliant, safe, and secure method of customer validation for transacting customer subscriptions in the CSP program.

Blocking criteria

Starting January 10, 2022, customers who meet all three of the following criteria will be blocked from accepting reseller relationships with partners, and partners will be blocked from purchasing for those customers:

  • The customer has an incomplete profile at Microsoft Admin Center.

  • The partner has a direct billing relationship with Microsoft (which means that the partner is either a direct-bill partner or an indirect provider).

  • The partner does business with new or existing customers in the following countries:

    • Thailand

    • Vietnam

    • Turkey

    • Poland

    • South Africa

    • India

    • Brazil

    • Iraq

    • Myanmar

    • South Sudan

    • Saudi Arabia

    • United Arab Emirates

    • Venezuela

    • Armenia

    • Azerbaijan

    • Belarus

    • Hungary

    • Kazakhstan

    • Kyrgyzstan

    • Moldova

    • Russia

    • Tajikistan

    • Ukraine

    • Uzbekistan

Blocking will be removed when a customer completes their profile at Microsoft Admin Center.

Fields in the customer profile marked with an asterisk (*) are required.

Next steps

Questions?

If you need support for your operations with Microsoft, open a service request.

Software price list updates for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-15

  • Capabilities

Summary

The CSP software price lists will be updated in March 2022.

Impacted audience

CSP partners who use the software subscription and perpetual software price lists

Details

To drive consistency across Partner Center price lists in the new commerce experience, we'll be updating the software price list for CSP partners, which will include the following:

  • There will be a single software price list, which will include both software subscriptions and perpetual software products. Partners should use the Tags column to identify the type of software product (for example, perpetual software or software subscription).

  • Software price lists will be combined into one row on the price list page in Partner Center with one downloadable file that includes all software products.

  • Software price lists will be downloadable by country or region.

  • Software price list will become available via API.

  • The updates will include new columns, updated headers, and additional product details, including TermDuration and BillingPlan as detailed.

Current column name Future column name
Product ProductTitle
ListPrice UnitPrice
Msrp ERP
Effective Date
Regions Market
SkuDescription
TermDuration—P1Y, P3Y, or Blank (Blank applies only to perpetual software)
UnitOfMeasure
BillingPlan (Monthly, Annual, Triennial, or OneTime, with OneTime applying only to perpetual software)
PricingTierRangeMin
PricingTierRangeMax
EffectiveStartDate
EffectiveEndDate
Tags–Software;Perpetual or Software;Subscription

This announcement is for awareness only. Partners might need to make changes to their systems to support this change. We'll share more details of the changes with partners in February, via Digital Operations Center (DOC).

Next steps

  • Share this update with the appropriate people in your organization.

You might be required to make changes to your systems to support this change. More details will be available in early February.

Questions?

If you have any questions, visit the Partner Center support page.

Change log

Dates in this announcement were updated from January to February on January 19, 2022.

Self-service trials available for Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-13

  • Capabilities

Summary

Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio trials are now available to individuals and departments via self-service sign-up or direct license request to their IT team.

Impacted audience

Partners selling online services to commercial customers

Details

Starting mid-February 2022, customers and individuals without global or billing admin rights can sign up for Microsoft Project or Microsoft Visio 30-day trials before directly purchasing subscriptions or engaging their IT procurement team. This means that customers' existing business sign-in details can be used to sign up or request licenses for the following trials on their established tenants managed by their organization.

Eligible subscriptions include:

  • Project plan 1

  • Project plan 3

  • Visio plan 1

  • Visio plan 2

Note

These trial capabilities are available worldwide except for India. They're not available to Education or Government customers.

Global or billing admins

Admins can use the same self-service purchase controls to turn off self-service trials while making use of subscription management capabilities to oversee and manage trial licenses on the Licenses page in the Billing section of the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Partner benefits

Partners offering their partner services to individuals and departments will have another option for their customers to sign up for trial experiences, with a more streamlined way to procure trial licenses from IT departments or through self-service sign-ups. Partner services can span project management or diagramming and data visualization, consulting, and training services.

Additional resources

Next steps

Review the resources about this topic, and share with the appropriate stakeholders in your organization.

Questions?

For further questions about these offers, check your relevant Yammer communities.

Change log

This announcement was updated on January 12, 2022. The sign-up date was changed from January 26 to mid-February 2022.

Customer List Search Enhancement: Search by Microsoft ID

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-13

  • Capabilities

Summary

On the customer list page, we have added an additional search capability. Partners can now search not only by company name or domain name, but now also with Microsoft ID.

Impacted audience

Direct-bill partners, indirect providers, and multitier partners participating in the Cloud Solution Provider program

Details

For partners with many customers, searching through the customer list has been a challenge because previously, the only search terms that partners could search by were company or domain name. We have now added search by Microsoft ID to enable partners to filter their customer list much quicker and find the customer information that they need.

Next steps

There are no actions required. This is a notice only.

Offer license matrix maps traditional offers to new commerce experience

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-10

  • Offers/Markets

Impacted audience

CSP partners who use license-based services price lists

Summary

For license-based offers, a mapping file is now available to support partners in their migration from the traditional experience to the new commerce experience (NCE).

Details

Partners have requested a mapping of traditional offers to their equivalent in NCE to help with their migration efforts. The traditional offer license matrix (OLM) has been republished to include this mapping.

Within the traditional OLM, a new sheet called NCE Mapping has been added. It has a column, NCE ProductID/SkuID, in which the NCE match to the traditional offer is provided. If the offer isn't supported yet in NCE, that is noted with Product not yet supported.

This file is provided to help partners migrate from traditional Microsoft 365/Dynamics 365 offers to NCE and is not intended to be a regular part of the OLM moving forward.

Although we're trying to be comprehensive, some traditional offers may be missing. We encourage you to provide feedback via our Yammer community if you have any questions.

Next steps

  • Download the Cloud Reseller Offer Matrix from Partner Center and view the NCE Mapping Excel spreadsheet to see the mapping.

  • Check your relevant Yammer communities.

Price correction: Teams Essentials Azure AD India

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-10
  • Capabilities

Summary

India's price for Teams Essentials Azure AD in the December price list is incorrect. The correct price for Teams Essentials Azure AD India is INR 80.

Impacted audience

Partners who may transact with Teams Essentials Azure AD India beginning in December

Details

The December price list has an incorrect price of INR 230.50 for the Teams Essentials Azure AD India offer. The correct price is INR 80. This error is only a price list issue. Upon invoicing, partners will get the correct price.

Next steps

Partners transacting Teams Essentials Azure AD in India should use the republished December price list for offer and pricing information.

Update: Download reconciliation files asynchronously

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-10
  • Capabilities

Summary

CSP partners can download monthly reconciliation and daily rated usage files from the Partner Center portal asynchronously. For the time being, this feature is available only in the sandbox environment.

Impacted audience

All partners

Details

Today, partners face multiple challenges in reconciling customer transactions. Partners access their customer transactions in two ways: downloading the reconciliation files from the Partner Center portal or fetching the data using APIs. As transaction volume increases, files become larger and larger, so it takes more resources and time to download the files.

Asynchronous file download alleviates the pain and increases efficiency without reducing transaction count.

Using asynchronous download

To use this feature, select the file type you want to download, followed by options such as the year, month, and invoice number for the closed billing period. To obtain the open period data, you must first select a currency and a period.

To download files asynchronously:

  1. Sign in to the Partner Center dashboard.

  2. Select the Billing tile.

  3. Scroll down to Billing history, where to the far right you’ll see the Export link.

  4. Select Export to go to the asynchronous file download page.

Known Limitations

Although we have observed some limitations, they are not serious. We will address these challenges in the coming week and keep you updated. As of now, we plan to launch this feature in production in January 2022.

  • Performance: When the page loads for the first time, it’s slightly slower. We are using analytics to find out the challenges and fix it.

  • Localization: The content of this page is in English and will be localized before general availability (GA).

  • Auto-refresh: Submitted requests don’t get refreshed automatically when the file is available for download. We'll get that refreshed automatically before GA.

  • Some additional information missing: Some helpful information is missing in the download request grid to help you find out the reports you downloaded to avoid regeneration. We'll add it and make them searchable before GA.

  • Export link on the task menu: Currently, the export link is on the Billing page, but before GA we'll move it to the left side task menu.

Next steps

Update: New commerce CSP seat-based pricing discrepancy across cloud products

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-09
  • Capabilities

Summary

The January 2022 Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) price list will correct price differences for seat-based offers between the existing and new commerce price lists.

Impacted audience

CSP direct-bill partners and indirect providers, and resellers through their indirect providers

Details

In early November, we communicated that price differences were discovered in certain countries and currencies between the existing CSP and new commerce CSP price lists. These pricing differences were found for new commerce seat-based monthly and annual term SKUs introduced as part of the October 14, 2021 new commerce technical release.

Microsoft will correct the pricing differences in the January 2022 new commerce CSP price list as follows:

Price type New commerce pricing
Unit, net, or wholesale price New commerce to match the existing (correct) price
Estimated retail price (ERP) New commerce might be slightly lower or higher than the existing price

These changes will apply to the following products. If you place an order for the affected products, countries, or currencies before January 1, 2022, it won't be at the correct price.

Note

Because of the time required to make these changes, the December price list preview won't reflect the updated pricing.

  • Exchange Online (Plan 2)

  • Exchange Online POP

  • Microsoft 365 Business

  • Microsoft 365 Phone System

  • Office 365 Business

  • Office 365 Business Essentials

  • Office 365 Business Premium

  • Office 365 E1

  • Office 365 E3

  • Microsoft 365 Business Voice (United Kingdom), which will be retired from the UK price list on March 1, 2022, but renewals will be allowed until June 30, 2022.

There might be future price adjustments for these products in the affected countries and currencies while we continue to align pricing for new commerce in CSP offers. You can download the full list of affected countries at New commerce CSP seat-based pricing discrepancy: affected countries. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Next steps

No action is required on your part.

To learn more about this launch, review the readiness resources in the New commerce experience for seat-based offers collection.

Questions?

For further questions about these offers, check your relevant Yammer communities.

December CSP community update and reminders

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-09
  • Capabilities

Summary

The CSP monthly update newsletter is now available, along with more CSP community resources that provide you with essential program updates.

Impacted audience

Cloud Service Provider (CSP) direct-bill partners and indirect providers

Details

This month's resources cover the following topics:

Launches

Clinics

CSP Community Q&A reminder

The monthly CSP community Q&A session provides you with an opportunity to learn more and ask questions about changes affecting the program. This month's call will focus on the topics listed in the previous section and more.

Register here to join the call.

Always available--Launch content on demand

Within the monthly CSP community collection, you can find:

For a consolidated view of all recent and active launches in a single place, visit the partner launch calendar. You'll find a timeline for each launch and links to published materials to help you learn more about that launch.

Need licensing readiness? The monthly CSP spotlight webinars cover the latest CSP licensing information available for all partners.

Next steps

Review the community resources and register for the Community Call Q&A.

Questions?

The monthly CSP community Q&A call is the best place to bring questions about operational change in the CSP program. You may submit a question up to 48 hours before the call. All launch-related questions will be answered in the call and/or in the Q&A document published after the call. You can visit last month's community collection and review the Q&A document that was published after the December event.

Questions on any other CSP topic? Visit the Partner Center support page.

Subscribe to Azure fraud notifications

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-08
  • Capabilities

Summary

Partners in the Cloud Solution Provider program should subscribe to Azure fraud notifications to be notified when cryptocurrency mining is detected in a customer's Microsoft Azure subscription.

  • To subscribe to Azure fraud notifications, sign in to Partner Center, select the Settings gear icon, select the Security tab, and then check Fraud events alerts.
  • Newly released APIs enable you to get fraud event details and update the fraud event after it's resolved.
  • Learn more at Azure fraud notification.

Impacted audience

All partners

Details

Cryptocurrency mining on Azure subscriptions doesn’t have legitimate financial value for customers. It’s also often a sign of a security risk in a partner’s or customer’s tenant.

All partners in the Cloud Solution Provider program who transact Azure subscriptions are required to subscribe to Azure fraud notifications to be alerted if fraud is detected and to take appropriate action to mitigate any fraud.

You can subscribe to Azure fraud notifications by selecting My Preferences in Settings in Partner Center.

When you subscribe, you'll be notified if cryptomining activity is detected in your customers’ Microsoft Azure subscriptions. You'll also receive a daily summary of any unresolved fraud events.

A set of APIs for retrieving the details of a fraud event and to update a fraud event notice when it's resolved have been released to assist you. Read Azure fraud notification - Update fraud event status for more information.

Next steps

Coming in January 2022: Technical release of granular delegated admin privileges (GDAP)

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-08
  • Capabilities

Summary

Microsoft is launching a technical preview for GDAP so partners can test granular and time-bound access to workloads in production and sandbox environments.

Impacted audience

Direct-bill partners, indirect providers and resellers, and control panel vendors transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider program

Details

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) has detected nation-state (Nobelium) activity that exploits partner trusted relationships and admin privileges to gain access to downstream customers. To learn more on how to protect yourself and your customers, read:

Microsoft is investing in securing the customer and partner ecosystem. In late January 2022, we'll release a technical preview of GDAP so that your organization can test the new capabilities before general availability. With this technical preview, you can begin to plan your transition from DAP to GDAP, thus better securing your ecosystem. As part of this technical preview release, all Microsoft 365 and existing DAP-enabled Dynamics 365 workloads will be in scope.

With granular delegated access:

  • Partners can control more granular and time-bound access to their customers' workloads, so that they can address customers' security concerns.

  • You'll have help in addressing concerns about data security, and that will reduce the likelihood of security incidents and help to make partners' and customers' ecosystems more secure.

  • You can restrict access per customer at the workload level of your employees who are managing your customers' services and environments.

  • You can report on how partner agents are accessing customer tenants across all tenants.

  • You can turn off or reduce unused GDAP or DAP connections to help with customer security and mitigate partner liability.

To learn more about the features of GDAP, refer to the November 2nd announcement.

You can learn more about the DAP monitoring tool at DAP monitoring and self-serve removal. It's important to review your DAP connections, both active and inactive. We recommend removing any inactive DAP connections as soon as the DAP removal functionality is launched in the coming week.

Next steps

  • For more information about our overall partner security requirements and investment, regularly check Partner security requirements.

  • To learn more about how your organization can access the technical release of GDAP and begin the transition from DAP to GDAP, we'll provide detailed operational guidance in early January in the Operations Readiness resource gallery.

  • If you'd like early access to test GDAP ahead of the technical release in January, submit your request through the GDAP pilot registration survey.

Changes to the Operations Readiness gallery

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-07
  • Capabilities

Summary

We've made changes to the Operations Readiness gallery to help you stay informed and quickly get to the most useful content.

Impacted audience

All partners

Details

We've introduced a set of monthly views in the Operations Readiness gallery. These views provide you with easy access to all of the latest changes and updates.

Monthly views

  • Partner launch calendar: This calendar provides you with a view of recent and upcoming launches and includes links to their announcements and content.

  • Community collections: These collections give you content in support of monthly community calls.

  • Product launch calendar: This calendar provides a view of recent and upcoming product launches and offers.

  • Promo guide: This calendar view gives information on promotions, including availability, products, duration, and eligibility. It also contains links for you to learn more about the promotions.

These monthly publications are updated on the second Tuesday of the month. We'll inform you when they have been published.

Finding a monthly view

Always-on views: You can access all these views from the Operations Readiness gallery home page by selecting a program tile

Screenshot of the Operations Readiness page at partner.microsoft.com with program tiles highlighted.

From any program home page you'll find:

  • This month's updates: This section gives you direct access to our most recent monthly views--launch calendars, community collections, promo guide, and more.

  • Communications: You can find published communications affecting your programs. The default view always shows the most recent communications in chronological order. You can also see all and sort, filter, and/or search within results to find the latest or most important communications for you.

Screenshot of the Cloud Solution Provider program page at partner.microsoft.com with monthly updates and communications highlighted.

Next steps

You can access these views from the program home pages on the Operations Readiness gallery by:

  • Going to the Operations Readiness gallery.

  • Selecting your program page to see This month's updates and Communications views for your program.

Download The Operations Readiness resource gallery to help you get the most from the Operations Readiness gallery.

Readiness: Date change for dual-mode attestation

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-07
  • Capabilities

Readiness: Date change for dual-mode attestation

Summary

To help partners and customers run their business based on trust, new requirements for partner attestation will be coming soon.

Impacted audience

Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners

Details

Microsoft runs on trust. We're committed to providing a compliant, safe, and secure method of transacting customer subscriptions in the CSP program.

To achieve this, Microsoft is enhancing features for the user interface (UI) and API, and we're inviting CSP partners to get an early look at the new capabilities and begin testing new attestation requirements. This feature was previously communicated to launch in December 2021 but has been rescheduled to launch on February 23, 2022.

The technical preview provides instructions on how to access documentation and API previews so that partners can start getting used to the new capabilities and required API updates. ​Note that the changes will break existing experiences for these APIs. Therefore, we strongly advise partners to participate in the pilot program prior to the full launch in February.

These changes will also be updated and available from the customer order UI in Partner Center in February.

Partner and customer impact

Breaking change: Indirect partners can't complete purchases without first attesting that they're acting as direct or indirect providers.

Partner attestation requires acknowledgment on behalf of the organization:

  • I confirm that my organization is acting as an indirect partner when choosing a reseller and as a direct partner in the absence of selecting a reseller.

The following APIs have been updated with the required changes and are now available:

For the feature supporting additional resellers for partners transacting in the European Union and European Free Trade Association countries and regions, check your inbox for upcoming communication.

Next steps

Share this information with all appropriate contacts in your organization, and check Partner Center announcements for future updates.

You can find more details in the Enrollment for Application Platform (EAP) webinar:

Questions?

Feel free to join and post questions to the Partner Early Adopters Program Yammer group.

Change log

2021-12-07: First publication of this announcement

2022-2-09: Information in this announcement was updated.

Enhanced promotion API capabilities and other important dates for CSP new commerce

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-06
  • Capabilities

Summary

Effective immediately, Microsoft has updated the verify eligibility promotion API for CSP new commerce.

Impacted audience

CSP direct-bill partners, indirect providers, and resellers through their indirect providers

Details

Effective immediately, Microsoft has updated the verify eligibility promotion API in the integrated sandbox environment and the technical release environment for the CSP new commerce experience. This update returns the remaining available seats that can be purchased at promotional pricing for a customer. Partners should rely on the verify eligibility API to understand whether a promotion will be applied before purchase. If an eligibility is false for a given promotion, the API will return the minimum and maximum along with the remaining available licenses .

Detailed information is included in the promotions seat count section in the latest version of the Operating guide.

Other important updates

To support self-service capabilities, Microsoft will turn on self-service functionality via Partner Center or API for seat-count reductions within the first 72 hours of a subscription term (after the initial purchase or renewal) or at midterm (from the number of seats added midterm), instead of this reduction requiring a support request. Testing of this self-serve capability will begin in the integrated sandbox environment on December 10, 2021.

On January 12, 2022, telco offers in CSP new commerce will be available for purchase in Canada. Partners can start testing these offers in the integrated sandbox environment on December 15, 2021. To learn more about telco offers, review the Telco and Paygo section in the Operating guide.

As a follow-up to the announcement on October 25, 2021, Microsoft will set the autorenewal default to “On” for software subscriptions purchases in CSP new commerce starting January 22, 2022. This intent of this capability is to simplify the renewal process for partners and their customers so that software subscriptions can autorenew at their designated renewal date by default.

Next steps

Review the seat-based offers in CSP new commerce webinar recording in which the Get Licensing Ready team walks partners through a wide variety of provisioning and billing scenarios in new commerce to help them understand how sales and billing will be affected by the new commerce experience.

As a continuation of the October and November special Operations training sessions, register for the December sessions to prepare for transacting Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Windows 365 offers in the new commerce experience.

Review the recordings from the three-day technical workshops held in November that focus on the technical capabilities and API integration that are required for the seat-based offers in the CSP new commerce release. Topics include price lists and catalog, purchasing, subscription management, billing, two-tier support, sandbox testing, and much more.

Watch the video about how to navigate new commerce experience for CSP seat-based offers collection and resources that partners will need to prepare for the new policies, features, and functionalities included in this release.

Questions?

For any questions about these offers, check your relevant Yammer communities.

Updates to GetMargins API coming in early 2022

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-02
  • Capabilities

Summary

The GetMargins API will be updated in February 2022 to include customer-specific margins.

Impacted audience

Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners who use the GetMargins API

Details

With the introduction of customer-scoped CSP Margins, the GetMargins API will begin including customer information in the response to show which customers each margin is applicable for. The customer information will include customerName and customerTenantId.

Next steps

Look out for more detailed updates in January 2022.

Questions?

If you have any questions, visit the Partner Center support page.

View this month's product launches and offers

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-01
  • Capabilities

Summary

The December product launch calendar is now published.

Impacted audience

All partners transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program

Details

The December 2021 product launch calendar is now available in the Operations readiness resource gallery. View the upcoming product launches and offers here.

Next steps

Review the product launch calendar, and share the information with the appropriate stakeholders in your organization.

Questions?

For any further questions about these offers, check your relevant Yammer communities.

SDK Release on .NET Standard (v3.0.0)

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-01
  • Capabilities

Summary

Partners can now download SDK Release on .NET Standard (v3.0.0) from NuGet Gallery | Microsoft.Store.PartnerCenter 3.0.0, along with updated public Partner Center SDK GitHub samples.

Impacted audience

Direct-bill partners and indirect providers participating in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program who are using the Partner Center .NET SDK.

Details

On December 1, 2021, partners can start downloading the version from NuGet Gallery | Microsoft.Store.PartnerCenter 3.0.0, along with updated public Partner Center SDK GitHub samples. This version includes updates to the following methods and the API changes that enabled New Commerce Experience.

Common Updates

Upgrade System.ComponentModel.Annotations to latest 5.0 version to resolve existing compatibility issues.

Transact and Manage

NEW API

POST {baseUrl}/v1/customers/{customer_tenant_id}/migrations/newcommerce/validate

POST {baseUrl}/v1/customers/{customer_tenant_id}/migrations/newcommerce

GET {baseUrl}/v1/customers/{customer_tenant_id}/migrations/newcommerce/{migration-id}

PUT {baseURL}/customers/{customerId}/subscriptions/overage

GET {baseURL}/customers/{customerId}/subscriptions/overage

POST {baseURL}/customers/{customerId}/subscriptions/overage

NEW FIELD IN PUBLIC CONTRACT

PATCH {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customer_id}/subscriptions/{subscription_id}

POST {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customer_id}/subscriptions/{subscription_id}/transition

GET {baseUrl}/v1/customers/{customer_id}/subscriptions/{subscription_id}/transitions

POST/PUT {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customer-tenant-id}/cart

POST {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customer-tenant-id}/orders

PUT {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customer-id}/carts/{cart-id}

Catalog/Price/Promotion

NEW API

POST {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customerId}/promotionEligibilities

GET {baseURL}/v1/productpromotions/{promotion-id}?country={country-code}

GET {baseURL}/v1/productpromotions?country={country-code}&segment={segment} New field in public contract

GET {baseURL}/v1/offers/{offer-id}?country={country-code}

GET {baseURL}/v1/products/{product-id}/skus?country={country-code}&targetSegment={target-segment}

GET {baseURL}/v1/products/{product-id}/skus/{sku-id}?country={country-code}

GET {baseURL}/v1/products?country={country}&targetView={targetView}&targetSegment={targetSegment}

POST {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customer-tenant-id}/products?targetView={targetView}

GET {baseURL}/v1/products/{product-id}?country={country}

POST {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customer-tenant-id}/products/{product-id}/skus

GET {baseURL}/v1/products/{product-id}/skus?country={country-code}&targetSegment={target-segment}

GET {baseURL}/v1/products/{product-id}/skus/{sku-id}?country={country-code}

GET {baseURL}/v1/products/{product-id}/skus/{sku-id}/availabilities?country={country-code}&targetSegment={target-segment}

POST {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customer-tenant-id}/products/{product-id}/skus/{sku-id}

GET {baseURL}/v1/products/{product-id}/skus/{sku-id}/availabilities/{availability-id}?country={country-code}

Customer

NEW API

GET {baseURL}/v1/customers/{customer-id}/validationStatus?type=account

Audit and Webhook

Audit Updated: Added new operation types for Add SoftwareAttestation and Add Device and Policy Updates at Auditing resources that help you get a record of Partner Center activity

Next Steps

Less than one month to transact offers in the Open License program

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-01
  • Capabilities

Summary

There are only 30 days left to transact in the Open License program.

Impacted audience

Partners transacting offers through the Open License program

Details

In December 2020, Microsoft informed partners transacting in the Open License program and partners in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program of the:

  • availability of perpetual software in CSP
  • intent to retire transaction capability in the Open License program on December 31, 2021.

Since that December 2020 announcement, Microsoft has continuously encouraged partners to migrate their Open License business to the CSP program, guiding customers to the cloud by using the perpetual software offers. Most recently, Microsoft informed partners of the December 1, 2021 launch of Get Genuine Windows Agreement (GGWA) offers in the CSP program.

As of December 1, 2021, partners have one final month to transact offers in the Open License program. From January 1, 2022, no renewals of Software Assurance (SA) and online services or new purchases of software licenses and online services can be made through the Open License program.

Partners must direct clients who require SA coverage to Open Value (OV) or Open Value Subscription (OVS) programs.

A few important reminders:

  • Submit your planned December Open License orders well in advance of the December 31, 2021 deadline. Don't wait until the last week of December to place orders.

  • Engage early with your resellers and customers to avoid unprocessed Open License orders at calendar-year end.

Per standard Regional Operations Center (ROC) commitments, Open License orders are processed on a best-effort basis. Microsoft doesn't guarantee that an order submitted before the Open License ordering system shutdown on December 31, 2021 will be processed, because of the time it can take to release and process that order. Remember that order compliance reviews as well as any surge in year-end order submission volumes could affect the release and process times of your Open License order.

  • If your organization anticipates Open License program orders having potential processing risks (prior to December 31, 2021), you are advised to place the order via software offers in CSP.

  • If your organization intends to place orders in the Open License program in December 2021, do so as early as possible to avoid processing delays that can affect the release and processing of the order.

You can review helpful assets in the Operations Readiness gallery, which features the latest information on transitioning from Open License to CSP, including on-demand webinar sessions to help partners onboard and transition customers as needed.

Note

From January 1, 2022 the End Customer Acknowledgment Form (ECAF) is required for all Open License Program (OLP) returns. This form was previously required for any return 60 days or more beyond the invoice date. More information can be found at ECAF guide and Open License Returns Tool guide

Next steps

For partners not yet onboarded to the CSP program: December 31, 2021 is the last day to transact Open License program offers for your customers. As of midnight, local time on January 1, 2022, you must have enrolled in and onboarded to the CSP program to transact perpetual software offers in CSP. To protect your revenue streams, you will need to transition those Open License program customers sooner rather than later and move their new purchases and renewals to the offers in CSP. In cases where customers require SA, the appropriate destination is either the OV or OVS (not available for nonprofit organizations) programs.

Share this update with your internal teams as needed.

Questions?

Review helpful assets in the Operations Readiness gallery:

For questions about these offers, check your relevant Microsoft partner communities.

January 2022 update: Online Services (OLS) and Software Channel Authorization guide

Categories

  • Date: 2021-12-01
  • Capabilities

Summary

There is an update to the OLS and Software Channel Authorization guide.

Impacted audience

Direct-bill partners, indirect providers, and multitier partners participating in the Cloud Solution Provider program

Details

In accordance with the subsection of the OLS and Software Channel Authorization, under those sections entitled "Notice of Changes" and "Changes to the Guides" in your Microsoft Partner Agreement, Microsoft is hereby notifying you that the OLS and Software Channel Authorization guide is being updated. A preview of the updated guide is available, with a redline demonstrating changes. The update will become effective 30 days from the date of this notice. There's no further action needed to be taken by you.

Next steps

There are no actions required. This is a notice only.