Microsoft New Commerce Experience (NCE) FAQs

Microsoft's NCE comes with seat-based offers for commercial products from October 14-2021. The products that include in the portfolio are:

• Windows 10 E3/E5
• Office 365
• EMS E3/E5
• Microsoft 365
• Windows 365

• Annual or multi-year agreements seems beneficial
• 20% premium price for a short-term commitment
• New cancellation policy and refund terms
• Exclusive offers for Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365
• Microsoft will hold customers to their term period -The partners/distributors will be liable if customers are unable to pay for the subscriptions.

1-month Subscription:

• The flexibility of changing the number of licenses monthly based on consumption.
• Ends up paying 20 % more than the annual subscription.
• Subscriptions are monthly; auto-renewed at the new metered service rates
• Monthly billing for the previous month’s usage

12-month Subscription:

• Long term commitment
• Cost-effective as one can save 16.7% on the 1-month subscription
• Subscriptions are annual and auto-renewed
• Billing options: 12 monthly payments or upfront payment
• For the license-based services, the billing will be done in advance for the upcoming billing term. It will be done on the basis of the number of licenses when the prior billing term ended.
• Permits increasing but not decreasing the seat count

36-month Subscription:

• Longtime commitment
• Significant cost savings
• Billing options: monthly, annually, or upfront
• Permits increasing but not decreasing the seat count

Beginning on January, 10th, 2022, commercial seat-based offers in new commerce will be priced at:

Cancellation of subscription:

Partners can cancel their subscription with a prorated refund within the first 7 days for any term and on renewal of the subscription.

This means there will be a full refund issued if subscriptions are cancelled on day1, and a pro-rated refund if cancelled on day 2 and day 3.

Suspension of subscription:

Partners can suspend and resume subscriptions at their willingness.

During this time:

• Billing continues to the partner
• Users can’t access files or services
• Admins can access data

Adding add-ons

Add-ons are viewed as unique subscriptions irrespective of the base product. The end dates of the original and the add-ons are not the same.

Cancelling add-ons

Partners can cancel or delete the add-ons within the 7 days window.

Yes, two options are available.

Full Upgrade: All seats are upgraded. The Subscription ID remains the same and licenses are automatically assigned

Partial Upgrade: Some seats are upgraded. The end date will remain the same as the original subscription end date.

Customers are allowed to increase the seat count on a subscription during the mid-term. The number of additional seats will be prorated to the existing commitment term.

The seat count cannot be decreased and a customer has to wait until the subscription commits term renewal to reduce the seat count.

Yes. The customers are allowed to upgrade the subscriptions during the mid-term. The upgrades become effective immediately. Please note that all the upgrades are prorated to the existing commitment terms.

Regarding subscription downgrades, the option will not be available during the mid-term. Customers who want to downgrade will need to wait for their current billing term to end.

Yes. NCE allows customers to add more seat counts to their subscriptions in the mid-term and the new seats will be prorated.

The maximum seat count can be 2,400.

The transactions that have over 2400 seats will be considered with non-promotional costs.

In that case, the partner needs to buy separate subscriptions, with one subscription having 2400 seats and another having the remaining seats.

• NCE provisions 25 licenses for 30 days
• Cannot be cancelled
• Auto-Renewal is enabled
• No trial expiration alerts

There are 3 conversion options:

• Automatic Conversion
• Scheduled Conversion
• Manual Conversion

Automatic conversions converted automatically to paid mode at the end of the trial period. All 25 seats are converted to a paid offer. Paid subscription starts on the next day after the trial period:

• Term Duration: 1 year
• Monthly Billing Cycle
• 7 days cancellation window

• Paid Subscription starts on the next day the trial ends
• Can upgrade the SKU
• Has the option to increase or decrease the number of seats
• Can choose the term duration and the billing frequency
• 7 days cancellation window

• Paid Subscription starts on the day of the conversion
• Can change the SKU to an upgrade
• Can choose the Subscription for the licenses
• Can choose the term and the billing frequency
• Can increase, but not decrease the number of seats

No, only one eligible subscription can be migrated at a single time.

Ineligible subscriptions include:

• Subscriptions within their first month
• Inactive Subscriptions
• Trial Subscriptions
• Subscriptions with promotions
• Subscriptions with Add-ons
• Subscriptions for Government, Education or Non-profit
• Subscriptions for retired offers

• The term duration, billing frequency, and end date remain the same
• The legacy Subscription is suspended and billing stops
• The 7 days cancellation period starts for the NCE Subscription

You can discover promotions by either of the below options:

• Visit the promotions backlog (Microsoft list of available promotions that partners need to know about)
• Call the get Promotions API.

To operationalize the promotions, the partners need to use the getPromotions API.

With API, you get the list of promotions on the basis of segments and countries. Partners can also see important information to better understand the types of promotions that can be made available to country-wise customers.

Using the getPromotions API, you can get the below data about a promotion:

• Duration of promotion
• Applicable products and SKUs for a given promotion
• The percentage of discount available with the promotion

Before buying a product, the partners can visit the Review page within the Partner Center. Here, they can see whether a product purchase is eligible for promotion or not.

Another way to do it is by using the verifyPromotionEligibility API. Here, you need to use the customer tenant ID and promotion ID, and it will show true if the customer is eligible. In case the customer is not eligible, it will show the conditions not met.

Yes. Several promotions come with different discounts on the basis of the term. The term constraints are based on product SKUs matching the promotion.

In case a CSP processes a transaction where the term and promotion don’t match, then the transaction will be considered non-promotional.

No. You need to wait till the end of the current subscription term. When it ends, turn off auto-renewal and go with a new subscription. It is applicable for both mid-term and scheduled changes.

No, some promotions enforce only being acquired one time.

• A partner will see eligibility of false using the validate eligibility API with the error type of First Purchase.
• Partners can choose to buy the given SKU. However, it will come with a non-promotion price.
• Constraints are based on per customer, instead of per partner. If the customers have a promotion with this condition, they will not be able to get a second promotion from another partner.

• Promotional discounts are applicable for the full term of the purchase.
• If the renewal date comes in the duration of the promotion price, the promotion will also be applicable to the renewal.
• If the renewal date comes outside the promotional duration, then the subscription will renew at a non-promotion cost.

• If a partner moves from one subscription to another SKU, the promotion price will not continue with the new SKU. It happens because the promotion was configured for the subscription they had initially opted for.
• The partners who opt for a new SKU and might have a promotion won’t get the promotion applied automatically. They need to manually go for the new subscription.