Software Subscription (Microsoft CSP) Overview

Welcome

Welcome to the Microsoft CSP Software Subscription Knowledge Base. This is an overview article, that will provide you with links to other articles relating to Software Subscriptions. Before moving on to any of the below articles in our menu, please ensure that you have thoroughly read through the terms and conditions below. 

 

Software Subscription Article Menu

1. Terms and Conditions
2. Notes/Limitations
3. Ordering / Provisioning Process
4. Billing Process

Software Subscription Terms and Conditions

Before placing an order for Software Subscription, please ensure that you, your company, and the end customer fully understand the implications of the below clauses:

• I acknowledge that an active customer tenant under the CSP program with Crayon within PRISM is required (i.e. New tenant order or a completed transition);
• I acknowledge and understand that PRISM will provision the software subscription product as per the order I place and does not take responsibility for the partner’s choice of resources. Any additional cost or loss incurred due to change/cancellation of an order will be charged back to the partner.
• I acknowledge that submission of an order in PRISM is an acceptance of and commitment to pay the related invoice/s.
• I acknowledge that the minimum initial Windows Server subscription purchase is 16 cores, and cores are generally sold in blocks of 8. The minimum initial SQL Server subscription purchase is 4 cores, and cores are generally sold in blocks of 2.

Notes/Limitations

In this release of the Software Subscription feature within the PRISM portal; we wanted to advise you of any limitations or notes that you should be aware of:

1. Subscription Term – The subscription term cannot be updated within the subscription page as it will be greyed out. The product subscription term will be displayed as part of the product offering for this release.
2. Renewal -The subscription will not auto rewnew, similar to NCE, the parnter can use the Manage Renewal button in PRISM to renew the subscription.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Suspend Subscription - The feature is greyed out and not available for Software Subscription products.
4. End date Alignment - The ability to set end date alignment is available on screen, but this feature will fail as it is not available for non NCE Licence-based products.
5. Quantity Change - not available for Software Subscription products.
6. Cancel - Software Subscription can be canceled in Partner Centre but it is not an option in PRISM. We request that any requirement to cancel a Software Subscription be raised as a support ticket to CSP Support.
7. The billing cycle of "OnceOff" will now be selectable on the price list pages.
8. Historical Data - Only perpetual subscriptions purchased after the release date will appear in PRISM. Historical data will not be loaded. For SS, historical data will be loaded on the next tenant sync, if the MPNs match.

Ordering / Provisioning Process

Partners can now place orders for Software Subscriptions within PRISM, below are the process steps for ordering.

Within PRISM, navigate to the Programs tab, then select the Microsoft CSP tile (please note that this step differs from how historical Perpetual orders were placed)

Below we will define the steps for both creating a tenant and provisioning a Software Subscription product; if you have an existing tenant created in PRISM that has the status of Normal, then this action of creating a tenant is not required, and you can skip directly to provisioning a product by navigating to the Manage Tenant Screen and selecting Add New Subscription.

Creating a Tenant

Step 1: Select ‘Manage’ under the Microsoft CSP program tile

Step 2: Select ‘Create New Tenant’ under the Provision heading

Step 3: Select the Use Existing PRISM Customer or Create New PRISM Customer radio button. 

      Step 3.1.1: Use Existing PRISM Customer: use the search bar to search for a customer you have             previously created

      Step 3.1.2: Type the end customer’s name into the search bar and select ‘Search’ 

    Step 3.1.3: Once you have the correct end customer select ‘Select Customer’

Step 3.2.1: Create New PRISM Customer: below the radio buttons fill in the General Information and Primary Address sections for the customer

Step 4: Enter the Tenant Domain and Qualification Type; please note that if the domain prefix cannot be used an error message will be displayed next to the Tenant Domain field.

Step 5: Complete the contact details of the user creating this tenant

Step 6: Complete the Microsoft Customer Agreement section

Step 6: Select Next

Subscribe to a Product

Step 1: Under the Add Subscriptions page, update the “How would you like to be billed for your subscriptions?” option to “Monthly or Annually” based on your need. Here we have chosen the 'Monthly' option.

Step 2: Within this page, you will be presented with various SKUs that can be ordered, and products can be searched using the ‘Filter Products’ search bar.

When selecting an SKU, please be mindful that the SKU Term matches the End Customer’s requirements. (Under Perpetual, all SKUS are cost once off, under Software Subscriptions, SKUs will have a 12- or 36-month option and the 3 year option is invoiced for 3 years upfrtont) 

Step 3: Otherwise, you can scroll through the screen to locate the SKU that matches your requirements best.

Step 4: Once you have located the appropriate product, adjust the quantity required to suit your needs using the "+" and/or "-"; review the total value of your order under the 'Order Summary' and select 'Submit order'.

Note: The Order summary displays your "total monthly price", which is your monthly billed value and "total commitment price", which is your term commitment in subscribing to the product.

Note: There is an option available to align your subscription end date based on your prior commitments within the tenant; if left blank, your billing date will be based on the provisioned date.

Note: There is a greyed-out commitment term ( highlighted in Orange)with a defaulted value; please ignore it as it's not applicable for Software subscriptions at this point in time. 

Step 5: Once "Submit Order" has been clicked, the system starts provisioning in the background and provides you with the following message. 

Billing Process

Step 1: The invoice will be sent within 24 to 48 hours of the order provisioning confirmation.

Software Licenses are billed Annually / Monthy – An invoice for the billing frequency will be generated within 24-48 hours post-order completion. The invoice will show as CSP Indirect however there will be a tag for Software Subscription or Perpetual