May 2023 announcements

  • Article

This page provides the announcements for Microsoft Partner Center for May 2023.

Microsoft Teams Audio Conferencing promo discount expiration

With the expiration of the 12-months free Audio Conferencing promotion, learn how to guide your customers to the right Audio Conferencing SKU.

  • Date: May 25, 2023
  • Workspace: Customers
  • Impacted audience: CSP direct-bill and indirect providers in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program

Starting October 2020, a promotion that enables free Audio Conferencing for 12 months has been available to CSP Partners. This promotion ended June 2022. At the end of the 12 months, Partners who purchased this Audio Conferencing SKU (Product ID: CFQ7TTC0LHSL) will find their subscriptions renewing at the nonpromotional price of $2.50 USD per-user per-month.

Partners can purchase a supplemental $0 add-on SKU (Product ID: CFQ7TTC0JXCZ), which enables Audio Conferencing with unlimited toll dial-in minutes, 60 dial-out minutes per-user/month to United States and Canada phone numbers pooled at the tenant level regardless of tenant location, and Operator Connect Conferencing. Partners who wish to take advantage of the Audio Conferencing $0 add-on SKU will need to purchase the new SKU.

Despite the availability of the $0 add-on SKU, customers can choose to continue using their existing Audio Conferencing SKU at the nonpromotional price as the subscription includes unlimited toll dial-in minutes, 60 dial-out minutes per-user/month pooled at the tenant level to Zone A countries/regions, and Operator Connect Conferencing. Partners who need dial-out beyond the United States and Canada should consider staying with their original Audio Conferencing SKU.

Next steps

  • Consult the Partner Center price lists for current pricing for product SKUs.
  • If your customer has been using the Audio Conferencing SKU (Product ID: CFQ7TTC0LHSL) with the expiring promotional price, work with them to determine which Audio Conferencing SKU best meets their needs.
  • Partners who wish to purchase the new $0 add-on SKU (Product ID: CFQ7TTC0JXCZ), should also ensure that autorenewal isn't enabled for their existing Audio Conferencing SKU.
  • Ensure user licenses are assigned for any newly purchased SKU.

Resources

Announcing new AI capabilities in Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit

  • Date: May 24, 2023
  • Workspace: Marketplace offers
  • Impacted audience: Nonprofit organizations

We’re excited to announce powerful new AI tools and capabilities in Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit that will help nonprofit organizations accelerate their missions. While AI could be used across many parts of a nonprofit organization, putting AI to work to amplify fundraising and marketing efforts allows nonprofit professionals to spend more time working with the communities they serve. It’s a practical place to start our AI journey together and solves issues common to almost every nonprofit on the planet.

Next steps

Read the full announcement at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/announcing-new-ai-capabilities-microsoft-cloud.

Questions

For demos and partner-specific information: Microsoft Cloud For Nonprofit.

Archival Policy for Marketplace Leads

Effective June 26, 2023, you'll have access to six months’ worth of marketplace leads. You can access them under the Leads section in the Partner Center Referral workspace.

  • Date: May 24, 2023
  • Workspace: Leads
  • Impacted audience: All partners who receive marketplace leads

Beginning June 26, 2023, you'll be able to download/interact with the marketplace leads for six months.

There are no changes to qualified leads or co-sell opportunities. This change is only for the marketplace leads. No other experience changes are being introduced.

Next steps

Beginning today until June 26, 2023, you can download the historical data of your Marketplace leads from the Partner Center Referral workspace. By downloading local copies of the information, you can continue to use data older than six months.

SDK release on .NET Standard (v3.4.0)

Partners can now download a new SDK release on .NET Standard (v3.4.0) from NuGet Gallery | Microsoft.Store.PartnerCenter 3.4.0. You can also download updated public Partner Center SDK GitHub samples.

  • Date: May 14, 2023
  • Workspace: APIs
  • Impacted audience: Direct-bill partners and indirect providers participating in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program who are using the Partner Center .NET SDK

As of May 24, 2023, partners can start downloading the new version from NuGet Gallery | Microsoft.Store.PartnerCenter 3.4.0, along with updated public Partner Center SDK GitHub samples.

For SDK release notes, see .NET SDK release notes.

Important

On June 1, 2023, the Partner Center team will discontinue support for the Partner Center .NET SDK and archive it on GitHub.

Next steps

Sell your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)-based apps on Azure Marketplace

Custom meters for transactable Kubernetes apps are now available on Azure Marketplace.

  • Date: May 18, 2023
  • Workspace: Marketplace offers
  • Impacted audience: Commercial independent software vendors (ISVs) in the Azure Marketplace

We’re thrilled to announce our new custom meters feature. Before you publish your application on the marketplace, you can create a Kubernetes application that’s charged based on custom billing dimensions (such as bandwidth, transactions, and emails processed). Customers pay according to their consumption of these dimensions, with your application informing Microsoft of billable events via the commercial marketplace metering API. You can also add multiple dimensions and tier the pricing logic in your application to meet your unique billing needs. Moreover, with marketplace insights, you can now track customer adoption and gain valuable insights specific to your custom metering, like the detailed insights you gain for predefined billing.

What are the benefits of custom meters?

  1. Flexible pricing: Because customers have varying usage patterns, you can tailor your Kubernetes application to cater to these different dimensions. You can also monetize any dimension that aligns with your application’s unique attributes, making it a win-win for you and your customers.
  2. Increased revenue: With custom meters, you can monetize both fixed and variable billing dimensions. These meters allow you to capture additional usage beyond an initial fixed bill, helping boost your revenue over time and retain your customer base.
  3. Enhanced business agility: Custom meters allow you to adapt to changing custom needs and factor in multiple billing dimensions based on their varying budget constraints. It’s a flexible solution that helps you meet the unique needs of your customers.

Next steps

For more information, see:

Questions?

For more information on this change, view the resources listed in the previous section. If you have any questions, submit a support ticket via the Partner Center Support page.

New timelines: Important actions to secure the partner ecosystem

Important capabilities and updates to improve your security posture and protect your customers' tenants are now available.

  • Date: May 18, 2023
  • Workspace: Account settings
  • Impacted audience: Direct bill partners, indirect providers, and indirect resellers transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program and with advisors

We'd like to share the latest dates for the upcoming granular delegated admin privileges (GDAP) milestones.

Transitioning delegated admin privileges (DAP) relationships to GDAP roles

Microsoft will begin transitioning DAP relationships to GDAP roles as of May 22, 2023.

  • A notification is sent to the admin agent security group users once the GDAP relationship has been set up successfully.

    Important

    May 23 update: Based on partner feedback received, we have suppressed the GDAP notifications when relations are set up successfully during this Microsoft-led transition process.

  • This transition excludes scenarios where a GDAP relationship exists in an expired, pending, or terminated state.

  • For more information, see GDAP Microsoft-led transition.

Creating new customers

DAP is currently granted when a new customer tenant is created. As of September 25, 2023, Microsoft will no longer grant DAP for new customer creation and will instead grant GDAP with default roles when a new customer tenant is created.

The default roles vary by partner type. The following table lists the respective roles:

Default Microsoft Entra roles granted Description Indirect providers Indirect resellers Direct partners
Directory readers Can read basic directory information; commonly used to grant directory read access to applications and guests x x x
Directory writers Can read and write basic directory information; for granting access to applications, not intended for users  x x x
License administrator Can manage product licenses on users and groups x x x
Service support administrator Can read service health information and manage support tickets x x x
User administrator Can manage all aspects of users and groups, including resetting passwords for limited admins x x x
Privileged role administrator Can manage role assignments in Microsoft Entra ID, and all aspects of Privileged Identity Management x x x
Help desk administrator Can reset passwords for nonadministrators and help desk administrators x x x
Privileged authentication administrator Can access to view, set, and reset authentication method information for any user (admin or nonadmin) x x x
Cloud application administrator Can create and manage all aspects of app registrations and enterprise apps except App Proxy x
Application administrator Can create and manage all aspects of app registrations and enterprise apps x
Global reader Can read everything that a global administrator can, but can't update anything x x x

Retirement of bulk migration tool

The tool is still available through the end of November 2023.

Partners should continue:

  • Requesting GDAP: If admin access is required for a customer tenant, then the partner (with the admin agent role within the partner organization) should request, and the customer should approve a GDAP relationship with the appropriate Microsoft Entra roles.
  • Disabling DAP: If admin access isn't required, the partner (with the admin agent role within the partner organization) should review the DAP monitoring report and disable DAP relationships immediately. If admin access is needed, then the partner should complete the GDAP setup and then disable DAP. DAP can now be disabled in bulk using the bulk migration tool.

Some other security updates are as follows:

  • Starting May 31, 2023, we're launching a new security alerts dashboard in Partner Center to help partners protect and detect Azure fraud. The detections are based on a set of anomalies across ARM activities, billing meter consumption, identity risk signals, crypto mining, and quota increase requests. Partners should immediately take action to adopt the new security alerts in the Partner Center portal and/or API to mitigate any monetary loss. For more information, see Azure fraud detection and notification.
  • GDAP relationship creation issue fixed—A fix has been deployed in April to resolve the issue faced during customer creation, where a 404 error was displayed for partners with no existing reseller relationship with the customer. This took place when they navigated to Partner Center portal > Customer workspace > Administer > Customer > New Relationship.

Next steps

  • Strengthen your security posture and navigate the evolving threat landscape with Microsoft cybersecurity tools and resources.
  • Sign up for dedicated CSP Security Q&A sessions to have your queries answered by subject matter experts.
  • Find guidance and resources in securing the partner and customer ecosystems Partner Readiness gallery.
  • Review the journey map to navigate the transformational journey for partners to Zero Trust.

Request contract change for Update Customer Qualifications API

The Update Customer Qualifications API has recently been updated to adopt a new request contract that allows greater flexibility when working with Customer Qualifications. This new contract will be mandatory and enforced starting May 17th, 2023.

  • Date: May 16, 2023
  • Workspace: APIs
  • Impacted audience: CSP direct-bill and indirect providers in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program

The updated request contract has three new fields: EducationSegment, Website, and ValidationCode. Partners can start the migration to the new contract immediately.

Partners who only consume the Partner Center SDK v3.2.0 and above aren't affected by this change.

The API will continue to accept the old contract until May 17th, 2023.

More details on the API contract can be found at Update a customer's qualifications.

Next steps

Review the information on this article and share with the appropriate stakeholders in your organization.

View the revamped customer list with new and improved features

We've made it easier to create new customer orders and work with customer tags.

  • Date: May 16, 2023
  • Workspace: Customers
  • Impacted audience: Partners transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider program.

We're excited to announce the redesigned landing page of the Customers workspace, the Customer list page with new features that aim to provide an improved user experience for our partners. With simplified navigation aimed at enhancing productivity, partners are able to create a new order for a specific customer directly from the customer list page, and manage and assign tags for more streamlined customer management. To learn even more about these changes, see:

Next steps

If you're ready to take advantage of these exciting upgrades, sign in to the Partner Center now to explore the revamped landing page in the Customers workspace.

May Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) monthly updates and community reminder

Monthly views are now published including the updated Partner Launch Calendar, the CSP monthly update newsletter, along with CSP community resources that provide you with essential program updates.

  • Date: May 10, 2023
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: CSP direct bill partners and indirect providers

Always available — Launch content on demand

For a consolidated view of all recent and active launches in a single place, visit the Partner Launch Calendar. Find timelines and links to published materials to help you learn more about that launch.

The downloadable CSP Monthly Update newsletter includes recent CSP announcements, updates, events, and reminders.

See the Partner Journey Maps to learn more about the journey of Microsoft's highest priority transformations.

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

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.

Register here to join upcoming calls.

Questions?

The monthly CSP community Q&A call is the best place to ask about operational changes in the CSP program. You can submit a question up to 48 hours before the call.

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

The Referral Leads details page is more responsive and easier to use

The Leads tab in the Referrals workspace has a new and improved look, including a familiar grid view similar to the Co-sell opportunities page.

  • Date: May 10, 2023
  • Workspace: Referrals
  • Impacted audience: Referral admins

As part of a larger effort to improve the experience and performance of the Referrals workspace, we’ve updated the look for the Leads pages.

While the main pages have familiar grid views, the Lead details page has updates to make the page more responsive and easier to use.

Try the new views out today and share your feedback with us!

Sign in to Partner Center and select Referrals workspace > Leads grid view.

To learn more, see the Referrals user guide

Questions?

If you have issues that the documentation can’t address, contact Support.

Upcoming: Purchase Azure savings plan for compute in Partner Center

Azure savings plan for compute will be available for purchase in Partner Center by the end of June 2023.

  • Date: May 8, 2023
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Direct bill partners, indirect providers, and indirect resellers transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program

On October 18, 2022, Azure savings plan for compute was made available to customers and partners. At the time of launch, Azure savings plan was only available to CSP partners through the Azure portal. By the end of June 2023, it will be available in Partner Center.

Azure savings plan for compute is a flexible pricing model that unlocks savings when customers commit to spend a fixed hourly amount on select compute services for either one or three years.

This plan helps customers:

  • Save compared to pay-as-you-go prices on select compute services
  • Automatically optimize savings across select services globally up to the hourly commitment
  • Save on their terms by customizing the plan's term length, billing frequency, and hourly commitment to fit their needs

Next steps

View the latest promotions and offers in the Global Promo Readiness Guide

The latest Global Promo Readiness Guide has now been published.

  • Date: May 2, 2023
  • Workspace: Pricing
  • Impacted audience: Partners transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider program

The latest Global Promo Readiness Guide, a consolidated view of all current and upcoming promotions, is now available on the Operations Readiness resource gallery. See active and upcoming promotions and offers at the Global Promo Readiness Guide collection.

Next steps

Review the latest monthly Promo Guide in the Operations Readiness resource gallery. Share this information with the appropriate contacts in your organization, and let us know if the guide is helpful by responding to the “Was this page helpful?” question at the bottom of the page.

Questions?

If you have questions, go to CSP Support.

Join the monthly Korean CSP Operations Q&A community calls

Korean CSP partners only. The Partner Operations team will be providing monthly CSP Community Q&A calls in Korean starting in May.

  • Date: May 1, 2023
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: CSP direct-bill and indirect providers.

Microsoft invites you to our Partner Operations: Community Q&A call for Korean CSP Partners. These sessions are dedicated to assist CSP Direct Bill and Indirect Providers with questions related to CSP launches and upcoming changes. Our goal is to help drive a smoother business relationship with Microsoft. The monthly CSP community Q&A sessions provide you with an opportunity to learn more and ask questions about changes affecting the program.

Next steps

Questions?

The monthly CSP community Q&A call is the best place to bring questions about operational change in the CSP program. You can submit a question up to 48 hours before the call. Questions on any other CSP topic? Visit Partner Center Support.

Deal registration and manual processing deadline reminder

Deals must be registered by partners on or before Friday, June 16, 2023 at 5pm PST, to qualify toward the FY23 incentives.

  • Date: May 1, 2023
  • Workspace: Marketplace offers
  • Impacted audience: Top-tier partners with marketplace offers

For the fiscal year 2023, deals must be registered by the partners on or before Friday, June 16, 2023, at 5:00 pm PST to qualify toward the FY23 incentives. Deal registration functionality will be unavailable from June 17, 2023, to June 30, 2023.

Registration deadline:

  • Deals must be registered by the Partner on or before Friday, June 16, 2023.
  • All revalidation and disputes must be submitted by the Partner on or before Friday, June 16, 2023.

Manual processing deadline:

  • Deal review or the Deal Confirmation Form (DCF) must be completed/submitted by the partner on or before Wednesday, June 28, 2023.
  • Any deal revalidation must be concluded with a decision on or before Wednesday, June 28, 2023.
  • Marketplace deals must meet incremental deal value by Wednesday, June 28, 2023.

Additional notes

  • All above deadlines are recognized and enforced at 5:00 pm PST.
  • All revalidation requests and disputes must be submitted in Partner Center.
  • Deal review completed by Monday, June 26, 2023, is guaranteed to be processed in current fiscal considering upstream data latency dependencies.
  • For Marketplace deals, only deals registered from April 1, 2023, will be allowed to roll over until September 30, 2023, to meet the incremental deal value required for approval.
  • There will be no additional processing after the cutoff date.
  • Deals requiring a Deal Review or a Deal Revalidation must be completed in the month registered for it to count in the same month, otherwise it will roll over to the following month.

Important updates for Azure IP co-sell deals in the commercial marketplace registered in Q4

In an effort to streamline FY2023 Q4 marketplace deal processing, all marketplace deals over $1M will be streamlined in their review to facilitate Q4 close.

  • Date: May 1, 2023
  • Workspace: Marketplace offers
  • Impacted audience: Top-tier partners with marketplace offers

To keep the momentum going for completing transactions in the Microsoft commercial marketplace in Q4 FY23, there are two updates to Azure IP Co-sell to be aware of:

  • First, Microsoft is enhancing the process for deals valued at more than $1 million dollars. Specifically, the waiting period for uplift validation is being eliminated, allowing these deals to be credited within this fiscal year.

    To streamline Q4 marketplace deal processing, all marketplace deals over $1M will be streamlined so the marketplace high value deals equal or above $1M registered from April 1, 2023, will undergo the review call for POE requirement verification (or DCF if PPP) to ensure timely validation to be captured within fiscal for FY23 results.

  • Second, for all other deals closed in the commercial marketplace, only deals registered from April 1, 2023, will be allowed to roll over until September 30, 2023, to meet the incremental value required for approval.

Next steps

Reminder - Changes to license assignment - Impact on partners

Microsoft previously announced that on March 31, 2023, the MSOnline and Azure Active Directory Graph license assignment APIs will be retired to enable the transition to Microsoft Cloud Licensing. This specifically impacts User license assignment in CSP (via both Partner center UX and API) in two conditions. First is where the customer has a Conditional Access policy: Partners will need to work with the customer to identify and exclude the Partner Tenant from the Conditional Access policy (see GDAP FAQs). Second is where the partner is using Partner token: Partners will need to move to Partner Access Token (see Enable secure application model).

  • Date: May 1, 2023
  • Workspace: Customers
  • Impacted audience: Partners trying to assign licenses and upgrade subscriptions for their end customers

From May 1, partners will see the below error messages (when using AssignUserLicensesAsync, UpgradeSubscription with license transfer) if customer tenant has Conditional Access policy and partner tenant is not added in the exclusion list of the same:

  • API:

    HTTP status HTTP error code Error code Description
    Forbidden 403 900309 Access has been blocked by Conditional Access policies. The access policy does not allow token issuance. Learn more at Users and groups in Conditional Access policy - Microsoft Entra
    Bad Request 400 900316 Partner token is not allowed in license management calls. Please call with Partner Access Token - Enable secure application model

Next steps

Partners need to work with the affected customers to identify and exclude the partner tenant from the Conditional Access policy.

When creating a Conditional Access policy:

  1. Select Exclude.
  2. Check the Guest or external users box.
    • This selection provides several choices that can be used to target Conditional Access policies to specific guest or external user types and specific tenants containing those types of users.
    • There are several different types of guest or external users that can be selected, and multiple selections can be made, such as Service provider users (for example, a Cloud Solution Provider).
    • One or more tenants can be specified for the selected user type(s), or you can specify all tenants.

For more on how to exclude a partner tenant from the Conditional Access policy, see the GDAP FAQs.

Where the partner is using Partner token - API Error code 900316 Partner token isn't allowed in license management calls. Call with Partner Access Token.

Solution: Update APIs to use Partner Access Token per Enable secure application model.

Get support

If you need help with the Conditional Access policy, create a service request with Azure Support using the following parameters:

  • Summary: Conditional access
  • Issue type: Technical
  • Service type: Microsoft Entra sign-in and multifactor authentication
  • Problem type: Conditional access
  • Problem subtype: Grant or block access

Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo capabilities add-on SKU coming to CSP

Beginning June 1, 2023, the Multi-Geo capabilities add-on SKU will be available in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) new commerce experience (NCE).

  • Date: May 1, 2023
  • Workspace: Customers
  • Impacted audience: CSP direct bill partners and indirect providers, and resellers through their indirect providers

Multi-Geo will enhance the value of partners’ Microsoft productivity business, by giving their customers the ability to meet global data residency requirements within their Microsoft 365 tenant. Customers can expand their Microsoft 365 presence to multiple regions within an existing Microsoft 365 tenant, through the creation of new satellite geography locations to host users’ data.

Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo is an add-on SKU with three purchase options available for partners or customers who are managing Microsoft 365 subscriptions in new commerce:

  1. One-year subscription paid monthly
  2. One-year subscription paid annually
  3. One-month trial subscription

Because this add-on SKU is user level, partners need subscription licenses for each user to be hosted in a customer’s satellite geography location. CSP partners must purchase a number of Multi-Geo licenses equal to or greater than 5 percent of their customer’s total eligible Microsoft 365 subscription seats.

Multi-Geo will be available to CSP partners in the NCE license-based price list preview on May 1, 2023, and in production on June 1, 2023.

Next steps

Questions?

Consult the available readiness materials for assistance. If you have issues that the documentation can’t address, contact Support.