Your Microsoft New Commerce (NCE) Experience Questions Answered

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Answers to your Microsoft NCE webinar questions

Manage Protect recently held a webinar on Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience (NCE) aimed to guide partners in navigating the changes and understanding the options available to them. We received a number of questions we didn’t answer within the hour. We have compiled them all and provide answers to your Microsoft NCE questions here.


Missed the NCE webinar? Watch it on-demand now.

Topic: What Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience (NCE) means for partners
Presenters: David Bugeja, Sales Manager, and Andrew Johnson, Managing Director, Manage Protect
Date: Feb 1, 2022 11:00 AM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney

“The webinar delivered by David and Andrew was extremely thorough and clearly they had spent many hours researching the NCE pricing changes, and understanding the subtle nuances that would be easy to miss. As an MSP with a partnership with Manage Protect over many years means we can trust this content and make strategic business decisions on the back of solid and accurate information.

The content was clear, concise and relevant and there was no question the team were unable to address.

The webinar saved me many, many hours of research and as a result, I am able to communicate to my clients with confidence about the upcoming changes.”

Rick Williams, Director, Platform 24

Your questions from our recent webinar on Microsoft’s NCE answered

1. When are the price increases taking effect?
Answer: Under NCE, price increases commence as of March 2022 for new tenancies and subscriptions.

2. Can you address how the month-to-month Forex USD AUD will effect AUD prices on a monthly basis? Can these also be fixed or will every monthly invoice be slightly different (based on exchange rate)?
Answer: Month-to-month pricing will be locked in on a quarterly basis by Manage Protect.

3. So even a monthly at 40% extra [increase in price] can’t be downgraded?
Answer: With month-by-month subscriptions, partner are able to increase at any time during the month, but can only downgrade on the monthly subscription anniversary (it is our intent to automate this process within Converge so partners can request a downgrade at any time during the month and this will be executed at their anniversary).

4. What’s the discount for migrating now?
Answer: The current promotion is running from 1 January – 31 March 2022 offers:
5% cashback for existing tenants, OR
10% cashback for net-new tenants.

This offer is for eligible Australian partners and customers who purchase the following on NCE:
– O365 E5
– M365 E3
– M365 Business Premium

5. What does the ACCC say about “No transfers between indirect providers”?
Answer: The ACCC looks after Consumer Law, these changes relate to Commercial Agreements, similar to that of a mobile phone plan.

6. Who has time to monitor sub [subscription] dates?
Answer: Manage Protect can help by offering a Subscription Renewal Date report. We are also looking at building functionality within Converge to send automatic reminder notifications.

7. Anyone got a template contract for these T&Cs [Terms and Conditions]?
Answer: MSPs needs and relationships with the customers will vary. Some include the standard Microsoft agreements into their agreements, others do everything monthly as this requires little or no change to their existing agreements. As we are not lawyers, we can’t provide advice – except, to maybe talk to your lawyer 🙂

8. Will the reporting integrate with proposed PSA [Professional Services Automation] integration?
Answer: Good question! The PSA integration is currently being enhanced to support other PSAs outside of just ConnectWise so it is a moving target right now. I expect it will, but it has not yet been confirmed.

9. Have you got a best guess as to the common SKU pricing for NCE on 1, 12 and 36 month terms as yet?
Answer: No, not as yet. We will share that information as it comes to hand. We should know sometime in February.
Please note that the NCE Roadmap blog has been amended with pricing updates and draft Recommended Retail Pricing for monthly and annual plans.

10. I presume these slides will be available offline?
Answer: Yes, please find the slide deck below.

11. So if I moved a tenancy from another CSP to Manage Protect in November 2021, then I get the current pricing until Nov 22 automatically?
Answer: Yes.

12. Don’t forget that going direct and putting client credit card in means there’s also an element of administration to ensure the credit card details are valid, don’t expire, and don’t go over the limit.
Answer: Microsoft is encouraging partners and channel to be stricter on payments with measures such as “Pause” in the service for those who haven’t paid. Take this into consideration when managing your billing, service and client relationships. It is both a risk and a challenge.

13. Do we have an ETA for EDU [Education] & NFP [Not-for-profit]? Expected this year?
Answer: No we don’t, but will share information with you as soon as it comes to hand.

14. Do you know when Microsoft are going to update their public websites with the price increases?
Answer: March 2022, however we are unsure of the exact date.

15. So with current customers, if [there is] no change to subscriptions, do we have until July 1 to update to NCE?
Answer: New subscriptions added to a tenancy after March 2022 will be provisioned under NCE. Any existing CSP legacy subscriptions have the option to renew on CSP Legacy up until the 30th of June 2022.

16. Can I start a 12 month subscription with a single seat, to set one seat as the minimum, and then ‘increase’ from there? Can I decrease the seats back down to the ‘one seat’ during that 12 month period?
Answer: No, you will be charged for the pro-rated amount on the additional seats (which will co-term) but you cannot decrease in seats, unless you decrease / cancel within 72 hours. Month-to-month contracts can go down in number of seats at the anniversary date.

17. Any templates or words best to use in the communications to clients?
Answer: We don’t presently, but are looking into this.

18. Pro-rate? Is that a thing on NCE? I thought not.
Answer: Pro-rate applies to changes / cancellations made during the 72 hour cooling off period. Manage Protect will not be passing on the Pro-Rata charges incurred by changes made within this window.

19. If client chooses a 12-month term option and pays monthly, will the monthly prices be fixed regardless of exchange rate?
Answer: In short, yes, a 12-month term payment locks in the rate.

20. So in January, if I start with 10 (NCE) seats, and then in March I go to 20, does 20 become the new minimum?
Answer: Yes.

21. Can the users change, if seat number remain the same?
A: Yes if you’ve purchase licences and allocate them to users, the same licenses can be re-allocated to other users / new users within the same tenancy (as they come and go within the business).

22. Besides the price change, if we went with 1 month NCE, would there any notable changes compared with the current arrangement?
Answer: The main difference is everything is done at the month anniversary, whereas CSP allows cancellation at any time. The current CSP offers the most benefits for month-to-month plans.

Please also be mindful that some individual SKUs are only available on monthly terms, others only on annual terms.

23. My understanding is if you start in April with 10 users and add 10 more in March next year, then you pay full year for the additional 10 added in March and then get the joy of renewing 20 in April… CORRECT?
A: No, you will be charged for the co-term amount for the additional month for the 10 additional users. Then, in April, you will have the expected joy of renewing your 20.

24. If I start a 12 month subscription under NCE for 10 seats, and then two months later I add 10 seats, I get pro-rata charged for the rest – I get that, but can I then not downgrade from 20 seats back to the original 10?
A: No.

25. How do I onboard a client that has a 36-month agreement with 30 months to go? Is it simply that we take over admin [administration] of their tenancy, and their existing licensing is sitting in there, and we just remove the old partner as a delegated admin? If they have crap licensing (i.e. Exchange Online, no security etc..) then we just have to upsell them to a real SKU, and they just waste the licensing they would have either committed to paying, or have paid for?
Answer: Yes. The customer will have to cut their losses or wait out the 36-month agreement.

26. So If I moved a tenancy from another CSP to MP in November 2021, the price is fixed at the current until Nov 2022?
Answer: Yes.

27. Can a tenancy have two NCE providers (like Synnex and Manage Protect) and both of them putting the same license into the tenancy with different subscription dates?
Answer: Yes.

28. Is there a place in Converge where we can get a report on current renewal dates?
Answer: Yes and No.
Yes – the renewal dates are visible when you view any subscription in Converge.
If you require a report on subscription renewal dates, please contact your Partner Manager.

29. So with bigger price rises coming for the lower end SKUs, it makes sense for us to push license upgrades to clients to get them to start a new 12 month CSP subscription for the likes of M365E3/E5, and hold that at the cheaper price for the next year.
Answer: This is more strategy for a partner, and is unique to the individual partner.

30. If partners are responsible for subscriptions, can partners move subscriptions between tenancies?
Answer: No.

31. Do partners already get Microsoft 365 at NFR [Not-for-Profit] pricing? If not, can Manage Protect petition Microsoft to comp M365 for partners? (comp=hospitality term for free!!!)
A: Not-for-Profit and Education doesn’t fall under the NCE program just yet. We don’t have visibility into that pricing or when it will be released, but we will keep partners posted when we find out more.

32. So with current customers, if there are no changes to subscriptions and number of licences, do we have until July 1 to change to NCE?
Answer: It comes down to when your renewal dates are. You can renew CSP legacy up until 1 July, afterwards CSP legacy subscription must be renewed under NCE. March 2023 is the end date of CSP legacy.

32. What happens if a client leaves an MSP, and they are not under contract but the NCE is for 24 months? Who continues to be billed for the license if you cannot take over a subscription?
Answer: Firstly, there are no 24-month plans in NCE.
Secondly, payments are paid in advance by customers. There are no further financial transactions between the outgoing MSP and the customer. The licenses sit within the tenancy.
Our understanding is that subscriptions are not transferrable to new or other indirect providers. It Initiates a new subscription when you complete a transition. Old subscriptions gets cancelled which means the customer will have to cut their losses if they make this choice.

33. Can you have two subscriptions of the same type: an old 36-month MSBP from old MSP and new 12-month MSBP from a new MSP, to increase and slowly manage licenses as the old expire?
Answer: Yes.


Did we answer your Microsoft NCE question?

We are trying our best to provide as much information we can to address your Microsoft NCE concerns and questions. If there’s something we’ve missed, or you have a more specific issue that you’d like to discuss, please contact us for a chat.

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