September 2023 announcements

  • Article

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

Online Services Usage – Microsoft 365 program page retirement

  • Date: September 29, 2023
  • Workspace: Incentives
  • Impacted audience: Incentives Admin | Incentives User enrolled in Online Services Usage – Microsoft 365

The Online Services Usage – M365 program page will no longer be available effective October 2023. With the upcoming launch of the Earnings workspace and the movement of Online Services Usage – M365 program into Microsoft commerce incentives, the new Earnings workspace will provide the following benefits to the partners enrolled in the Modern work usage engagement(s):

  • Earnings page: Provides earning and payment insights.

    • Ability to filter earnings by Solution Area, for example, Modern Work and Security.
    • Ability to filter by partner association, for example, Use or consume.
    • Top 50 customer-specific earning and payment views with the ability to search for any customer.
    • By program summary: Earnings and payment breakdown by engagements and levers.
    • View all reconciliation attributes in the Earnings: Default download, for example, by monthly active users (MAU), paid available units (PAU), high watermark (HWM), workload, Claiming partner of record (CPOR) claim ID.

  • Revenue page: Insights into why certain usage became eligible vs ineligible

    • Top 50 customers with highest usage: eligible MAU, ineligible MAU, and earnings
    • View of usage records that became eligible or ineligible, with the ability to search for customers by ID or customer name. Details include customer ID, customer name, workload, usage, earnings, PAU, HWM, and the ineligible reason code.
    • Detailed download of usage that became ineligible.

  • Additional details for awareness:

    • Historical earnings and payment data can be downloaded from the Earnings page for the Online Services Usage – M365 program using the Earnings – Default and Payment reports. The pages in general show data worth three years at any point.
    • The daily usage views, recommendations and opportunities specific to Modern Work that was available in Online services usage – M365 page will no longer be supported.
    • Earnings for the month of October 2023 with new program year rules will be available through the end of November 2023 under Microsoft commerce incentives.

Next steps

To learn more about the Earnings workspace, see Earnings pages in Partner Center.

Now Live! Partner Center Technical Corner blog series: September 2023 edition

The September edition of the Partner Center Technical Corner blog is live! This edition takes a deep dive into the various ways in which we're actively addressing and enhancing security measures in Partner Center.

  • Date: September 27, 2023
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: All partners

The September edition covers the following key topics:

  • Securing the channel spotlight
  • New commerce experience in CSP
  • Membership
  • Introducing the Surface Reseller Alliance Program
  • Co-sell
  • Microsoft commercial marketplace
  • Partner Center roadmap

Previous editions

Next steps

Monthly Update: What's new for Solutions Partner designations, specializations, and other program offerings and benefits

Important capabilities, offers and updates have been introduced to improve the way partners can further differentiate their deep technical expertise across a set of priority scenarios with high customer demand.

  • Date: September 26, 2023
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Partners enrolled in the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program

Available now

  • Expansion of the Solutions Partner designation qualification window from 30 days to 180 days—effective September 19, 2023, we expanded the qualification window for the Solutions Partner designation. For renewing partners, the qualification window is moving from the 30 days after your anniversary date to the five full months prior to your anniversary date plus the month of the anniversary date. If you qualify at any time in that qualification window, you're eligible to renew at your renewal window, even if your score falls below 70 again before your renewal window. For new partners, the qualification window changes from the date of qualification to the five months before the day you qualify, plus the months of qualification. Once you've qualified, you have 30 days to enroll. For more details, read the updated article in Partner Center.

Note

If you're not enrolled in a designation today, your qualification window end date will always be the current date, and will roll forward every day. If you are enrolled in a designation, your qualification window for that designation will close on a specific date relative to your anniversary date. You can find your qualification window dates by solution area in Partner Center on each designation details page, along with your highest historical scores for each of the last 6 months. Qualification windows will vary by solution area based on current enrollment status.

Coming soon

  • Training Services Partner designation and performance reports in Partner Center—in early 2024, the Solutions Partner for Training Services designation will be available through a set of Learning Partner requirements in categories for number of learners trained, certifications purchased, training delivery quality and capability across Microsoft solution areas.

  • In Q3 CY 2023, the Training Services partner performance reports in Partner Center will be available to partners enrolled in the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. Stay tuned for more updates when they become available via our Learning Partner Community.

  • Partner Support Services designation public preview—last month we announced the opening of the limited public preview for partners to get an early look at the designation and get on the fast track to qualifying when the program is fully available. Learn more about the criteria for joining the public preview and nominate yourself with this simple form.

Reminders

  • Legacy benefits are still available to partners who held a legacy competency on September 30, 2022. If your legacy benefits expired since October 2022 and you don't have an active benefit kit through a Solutions Partner designation, check Partner Center offers to see if you're eligible to renew your legacy benefits.

  • Business Intelligence (BI) specialization: Showcase your experience and success in implementing Power BI to strengthen organizations. Learn more about the program overview and requirements.

Next Steps

Reminder of Cloud Solution Provider commercial legacy seat-based subscription migrations to new commerce and update on Public Sector offers in new commerce

Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners should migrate customers with commercial legacy subscriptions to new commerce now, before Microsoft-led migrations begin in 2024 on customers' renewal dates. Also included is an update on the plan for CSP Public Sector legacy migration to new commerce.

  • Date: September 26, 2023
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: CSP Direct Bill and Indirect Resellers, Indirect Providers

CSP legacy commercial subscription migrations reminder

As previously announced in July 2023, Microsoft begins migrating all CSP commercial subscriptions that remain in the legacy system to new commerce in January 2024. This migration includes CSP commercial offers being used by Government entities worldwide.

All legacy subscriptions that Microsoft migrates to new commerce is set to an annual term with the same billing plan and seat counts that the customers had in legacy. This Microsoft-led migration occurs on the date of subscription renewal, starting with all subscriptions set to renew in January 2024 and continuing throughout the 2024 calendar year. Partners will have seven days after migration is complete to change the subscription term, quantity or cancel the subscription if necessary.

We recommend that partners manage their customers' migrations now to ensure the customer has the terms that best suit their business needs. If customers want monthly subscription terms, partners should migrate them before the legacy subscriptions reach end of term in 2024. In addition to setting customized terms with customers, proactive migration also gives partners the opportunity to socialize the change with indirect resellers and others in the partner's ecosystem.

Most Microsoft 365, Office 365, Security and Dynamics 365 commercial offers are currently available in new commerce. Partners can find the current list of CSP legacy offers available for new commerce migration in the NCE Mapping tab of the legacy Offer Matrix document, which is in the Partner Center pricing workspace. Over the course of calendar year 2024, Microsoft shares the timeline for migration of all other remaining CSP legacy offers, including multiyear offers. Our intent is to ensure a Microsoft-led migration path for each CSP legacy offer at the time of customer renewal, starting with renewal dates in 2024 and beyond.

Resources to help partners migrate customers to new commerce

To support partners with their migration effort, Microsoft runs CSP Technical Training and CSP Spotlight calls in the months of October, November, and December. These learning sessions give partners the opportunity to learn about migration details from Microsoft experts. Documentation is also available to assist partners who plan to drive their customers' migrations themselves. Partners can review the Migrate subscriptions to new commerce article on Microsoft Learn and the other how-to documentation in the Resources section below, to complete customer migrations themselves.

Update on new commerce timeline for CSP Government Community Cloud, education and nonprofit legacy offers

In July, Microsoft announced that CSP legacy Public Sector offers for Government Community Cloud, education and nonprofit would be available in CSP new commerce in November 2023. However, we have received feedback from partners that making system changes at the end of the calendar year would be difficult. To avoid business disruption for partners, we'll launch Public Sector offers in new commerce and begin Microsoft-led migrations of Public Sector offers in calendar year 2024. We'll provide an update on the revised timeline for both launches soon.

Next steps

Revenue page now available for preview

Understand how Microsoft commerce incentives are evaluated for eligibility of revenue (monetary value of transactions or metered consumption) or usage (monthly active usage).

  • Date: September 22, 2023

  • Workspace: Payouts (will be known as Earnings during General availability)

  • Impacted audience: Incentives admins | Incentives users participating in Microsoft commerce incentives only

  • The new Revenue page is available for preview. The new page includes UI views to see usage-based customers, enhanced search, and download capabilities. All information on the page is the latest and can be used immediately.

  • The page is available as a deep-link in the Revenue summary page of the Payouts workspace.

    Screenshot shows the link titled: Coming soon: Earnings workplace. The link goes to the new Revenue page.

Revenue page capabilities

  • Understand the eligibility of revenue or usage evaluated for incentives.

  • Get insights into the top 50 customers by eligible and ineligible revenue and usage. Search and look up info for any customer.

  • Get insights into customers, subscriptions, product level revenue, or usage metrics by reviewing the ineligibility reason code. You can search at the customer or subscription level.

  • See and download detailed reports that give details of ineligible revenue/usage.

We'll be previewing the page for two weeks. During this preview phase, check out the new features and provide feedback to us.

Screenshot shows the feedback page, titled Tell us about your issue.

Next steps

This page will permanently be part of the Earnings workspace when it's generally available in October 2023. The Payouts workspace will retire at the same time.

The Earnings workspace goes live in the first half of October 2023 with the following pages:

  • Revenue
  • Earnings
  • Reports

Monthly update: Important actions partners need to take to secure the partner ecosystem

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

  • Date: September 19, 2023
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Direct bill partners, indirect providers, and indirect resellers transacting through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program and with advisors.

Milestones reminder

  • Transitioning delegated admin privileges (DAP) relationships to granular delegated admin privileges (GDAP) roles—Microsoft has completed the creation of GDAP relationships as part of Microsoft-led DAP to GDAP transition and has begun DAP removal:

    • Review the frequently asked questions related to this milestone.
    • Validate the newly created GDAP relationship and create a new GDAP relationship with the necessary Microsoft Entra roles in case you require extra Microsoft Entra roles to manage customers.

  • Creating new customers—Default GDAP will be available in Sandbox starting September 25 and in production starting October 9. More details are available. Partners must explicitly grant granular permissions to security groups in the Default GDAP.

  • On October 9, 2023, DAP will no longer be available with reseller relationships. The updated Request Reseller Relationship link remains available in Partner Center UI and the API contract “/v1/customers/relationship requests” property URL still returns the invitation URL sent to the admin of the customer tenant.

  • The bulk migration tool is available through the end of November 2023. You can continue to create and apply GDAP templates in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse beyond this date, and a consent link is generated to provide to customers.

Partners should continue:

  • Requesting GDAP if admin access is required for a customer tenant.
  • Disabling DAP if DAP relationships are no longer required. The person with the admin agent role within the partner organization should review the DAP monitoring report and disable DAP relationships immediately.

Available now

  • Microsoft 365 Lighthouse enables GDAP setup for any customer tenant with built-in role recommendations tailored for Managed Service Providers. Partners can create GDAP templates to save settings they’ve configured and reapply them as needed. Review the guidance and details.

  • Familiarize yourself with the new GDAP UI in Admin Relationships and Role assignments to Security Groups within Partner Center.

  • Reminder that Microsoft Entra ID is now called Microsoft Entra ID.

  • Endpoint Manager has been renamed to Microsoft Intune under Administer Services in Service Management page.

Coming soon

  • GDAP auto extend feature—Starting October 30, 2023, partners will be able to auto extend new or existing GDAPs by 6 months.

  • Migrating from Microsoft Entra ID to Microsoft Graph API—Azure AD Graph will be retired soon. There won't be further investment in Azure AD Graph, and Microsoft Entra Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have no service level agreement or maintenance commitment beyond security-related fixes. Investments in new features and functionalities are only made in Microsoft Graph. All partners must take steps to migrate existing apps/APIs on Azure AD Graph to Microsoft Graph. APIs: Review Partner Center authentication for more information.

Next steps

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

Transfer Azure savings plans between partners in Partner Center

We have enabled the ability for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners to transfer Azure savings plans between CSP partners within Partner Center.

  • Date: September 14, 2023
  • Workspace: Customers
  • Impacted audience: Direct bill partners, indirect providers, and indirect resellers transacting through the CSP program

The Azure savings plan for compute was made available to customers and partners in October 2022. At the time of launch, Azure savings plan was only available to CSP partners through the Azure portal. On June 15, 2023, it became available in Partner Center.

We've enabled the ability for CSP partners to transfer savings plans to other CSP partners from within Partner Center in production. This feature is generally available for Admin Agent roles as of September 14, 2023.

Next steps

Tax invoice requirements for ISVs selling in Japan

The purpose of this communication is to inform you that from October 1, 2023, the tax invoice (Tekikaku Seikyusho) will be introduced by the Japan Tax Authority. Note that publishers and developers have sole responsibility to manage taxation.

  • Date: September 12, 2023
  • Workspace: Billing
  • Impacted audience: Publishers and developers who are registered as qualified tax invoice issuers (Tekikaku Seikyusho Hakko Jigyosha)

On October 1, 2023, the tax invoice (Tekikaku Seikyusho) will be introduced by the Japan Tax Authority.

Note that publishers and developers have sole responsibility to determine all compliance required for, and to manage, End Customer Taxation including but not limited to registration, tax calculation, tax collection, tax remittance, validation of business status of customers and providing tax invoices to customers.

Microsoft acts as an agent or commissionaire (as applicable) of the publisher or developer. Microsoft will keep issuing commercial invoices; however, such commercial invoices don't qualify as tax invoices (Tekikaku Seikyusho).

For more information, see:

Next steps

Share this information with all appropriate contacts in your organization, especially they who are responsible and accountable for managing tax status and details.

Questions

Contact your Microsoft representative or submit support request.

Your Dynamics 365's Cloud Migration Promo (CMP) subscription expiration

Starting October 1, 2023, CSP subscriptions for Dynamics 365's Cloud Migration Promo (CMP) won't autorenew--action is required to maintain service.

  • Date: September 8, 2023
  • Workspace: Customers
  • Impacted audience: CSP direct bill partners and indirect providers

Details

New subscriptions for Dynamics 365's Cloud Migration Promo (CMP) ended on June 30, 2023 as communicated in the offer's terms and in CSP Global Promotions Readiness Guide. Starting October 1, 2023, upon expiration of each subscription's promotional term, this promotional offer might not be renewed in Legacy CSP and a regularly priced new commerce subscription should be ordered to maintain service.

More information about legacy CSP offer retirement can be found in the CSP Offer Retirement guide, a new collection in the partner readiness gallery. It provides partners with a clear understanding of legacy offer retirement plans and dates. More offers will be added to the retirement guide on a monthly basis.

Next steps

Review the CSP Offer Retirement guide, talk to your customers, and ensure you're meeting their needs with the latest available new commerce product SKUs.

Questions

Contact Partner Support if you have any questions or need more information.

Sales deal execution playbook updates

There are changes to the sales deal execution playbook.

  • Date: September 7, 2023
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Microsoft Fields and Sales teams (such as partner development managers and commercial executives), compliance communities, and everyone in the partner ecosystem.

We've updated the following topics in the sales deal execution playbook to provide guidance on navigating the most common compliance-related questions:

We overhauled the customer purchase commitment section, and provided language clarification in the other listed sections.

Next steps

Review the updated topics in the sales deal execution playbook to ensure alignment with Microsoft policies and best practices.

Questions?

Fill out this form to provide feedback or if you have any questions.

Changes to Microsoft 365 and Teams licensing in Europe

Changes to Microsoft 365 and Teams licensing in Europe will take effect on October 1, 2023.

  • Date: September 5, 2023
  • Workspace: General
  • Impacted audience: Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) direct bill partners, indirect resellers, and indirect providers

Microsoft is making important changes to the licensing and availability of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. We're making these changes in response to feedback from the European Commission (EC). We believe that this new licensing approach takes meaningful steps to address the EC's feedback while limiting disruption for customers and partners.

What's changing?

Starting October 1, 2023, we'll introduce a new lineup of commercial Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites in the EEA and Switzerland that don't include Teams, and a new standalone Teams offering for Enterprise customers. Existing customers in the EEA and Switzerland who wish to continue using the suites to which they have already subscribed can continue to use, renew, and add seats to their current plans as usual.

This new lineup will do the following:

  • Introduce new EEA- and Switzerland-specific suites without Teams, which will be named the same as the full suites plus "EEA (no Teams)."
  • Introduce a new EEA-specific standalone Teams SKU for Enterprise: Microsoft Teams EEA.
  • End the sale of net-new subscriptions to all existing Enterprise SKUs with Teams (Office 365 E1/E3/E5 and Microsoft 365 E3/E5) in the EEA and Switzerland.
  • Continue to offer existing SMB and Frontline suites with Teams (Business Basic/Standard/Premium, Microsoft 365 F1, Microsoft 365 F3, and Office 365 F3) alongside the new versions without Teams.

For more information, see the full breakdown of SKU and price changes.

Consult the FAQ document and partner guidance deck on the Teams in EU partner website to learn more about the changes. There's a short training video available to help you learn how to talk about this change to your EEA and Swiss customers.

Next steps

Familiarize yourself with the full details about what's changing. The following resources contain valuable information for addressing customer queries:

Questions?

For questions not addressed in the FAQ or to receive clarification on pricing, offer availability and upgrades, migrations, and conversions, create a support request in Partner Center.

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

Monthly views are now published including the updated partner launch calendars, the CSP Bimonthly Update newsletter, along with other CSP community resources that provide you with essential program updates.

  • Date: September 5, 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 calendars collection. There's a timeline for each launch, with links to published materials to help you learn more about that launch.

The downloadable CSP Bimonthly Update newsletter aggregates recent CSP announcements, updates, events, and reminders in an easy-to-read document.

Partner Journey Maps provide detailed navigation along the journey of Microsoft's highest priority transformations.

Need licensing readiness? The monthly CSP spotlight webinars cover 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.

Next steps

Review the Partner Launch Calendar, monthly newsletter, and register for upcoming Community Q&A calls.

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 the Partner Center support page.

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

The latest Global Promo Readiness Guide has now been published.

  • Date: September 1, 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.

Upcoming enhancements to the CSP and CSP-Hoster programs

We're announcing new offers and benefits for our customers and partners in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program and the CSP-Hoster program.

  • Date: September 1, 2023
  • Workspace: Pricing
  • Impacted audience: CSP partners, CSP-Hosters, and SPLA partners

In October 2022, we expanded the CSP program and introduced hosting benefits under the CSP-Hoster offering. Our goal is to empower partners to build hosted solutions with speed and scale and for their customers to bring their own licenses to hoster.

We're excited to announce upcoming enhancements in CSP with new product offers that benefit our CSP customers and partners, extending them to CSP-Hosters.

We're also thrilled to announce significant reduction and simplification to reporting in the CSP-Hoster program.

The following offers will be introduced starting October 1, 2023:

  • System Center subscriptions

    CSP partners can offer System Center as either a 36-month or 12-month subscription to their customers for use on-premises or with an Authorized Outsourcer. CSP-Hoster partners can also offer System Center as part of their hosted solutions to customers.

  • Extended security updates (ESUs)

    CSP partners will be able to offer ESUs for end of support versions of Windows Server and SQL Server.

    Customers will then have the right to use licenses covered by ESUs on deployments on-premises or within outsourced environments running on Authorized Outsourcers. Customers can also apply ESU licenses to "license-included" workloads acquired from Services Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) partners or CSP-Hosters.

    CSP-Hoster partners will also be able to provide hosted fulfillment of Windows Server and SQL Server software out of mainstream support that is supported by corresponding ESU licenses also purchased as license included or bring-your-license (BYOL).

ESU eligibility requirements

Customers will require Software Assurance (SA) or an equivalent subscription to be eligible to buy the associated ESU. Perpetual licenses only don't qualify.

However, a customer doesn't require SA or subscription to utilize ESUs with license-included services purchased from SPLA providers.

ESU prerequisite rules

For years 2 and 3 of each ESU, customers must have purchased the prior year(s). For example, to use year 3 ESU, customer must also have purchased years 1 and 2.

Planned ESU pricing*
SKU Pricing
Windows Server Standard 2-Core Year 1 $134.00
Windows Server Standard 2-Core Year 2 $134.00
Windows Server Standard 2-Core Year 3 $134.00
Windows Server Standard 8-Core Year 1 $534.00
Windows Server Standard 8-Core Year 2 $534.00
Windows Server Standard 8-Core Year 3 $534.00
Windows Server Data Center 2-Core Year 1 $769.00
Windows Server Data Center 2-Core Year 2 $769.00
Windows Server Data Center 2-Core Year 3 $769.00
Windows Server Data Center 8-Core Year 1 $3,078.00
Windows Server Data Center 8-Core Year 2 $3,078.00
Windows Server Data Center 8-Core Year 3 $3,078.00
SQL Server Standard 2-Core Year 1 $3,585.96
SQL Server Standard 2-Core Year 2 $3,585.96
SQL Server Standard 2-Core Year 3 $3,585.96
SQL Server Enterprise 2-Core Year 1 $13,747.40
SQL Server Enterprise 2-Core Year 2 $13,747.40
SQL Server Enterprise 2-Core Year 3 $13,747.40

* Actual launch pricing might vary slightly.

Simpler and less reporting

Starting October 1, 2023, we're making CSP-Hoster reporting simple and less frequent, including no longer requiring customer tenant ID information.

  • No more monthly reports: CSP-Hoster reporting will be reduced to quarterly reporting versus monthly. Just one each for the quarterly periods of January-March, April-June, July-September, and October-December.
  • No more customer tenant ID: CSP-Hosters no longer need to provide customer tenant IDs for either license-included or BYOL.
  • Fewer products to be reported: Partners might continue to offer license-included services for the many products in CSP, or accept customer BYOL for eligible products. They will no longer need to report all products. Quarterly reporting will be for just six products.
  • Secure submission via Partner Center: Quick and simple uploads.

CSP-Hosters continue to benefit from the customer BYOL and the simplified verification process introduced on April 1, 2023, which remains unchanged.

*Dates are subject to change.

Next steps

Questions?

Partners can reference the CSP-Hoster program guide for more information on partner requirements and responsibilities.