Move license-based customers from other channels, tenants, and partners to the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program

Appropriate roles: Account admin | Sales agent

CSP partners may have customers with subscriptions and services from other channels. The customer may have subscriptions from Web Direct, other CSP partners, or the customer could have subscriptions as part of an enterprise agreement. This topic describes the best ways to move the customer's subscriptions and services from their current channel to a CSP for the same, existing customer tenant.

CSP Partners can support a customer services from other channels using channel transfers or by the manual path.

• The Channel transfers renew to CSP capability more easily allows the transacting CSP partner to see their customers EA services and schedule CSP subscription creations. This new capability unblocks CSPs to continue EA subscription stock keeping units (SKUs), primarily Teams enable SKUs that are end of sale. This path allows the CSP to continue their customer's services even if they're end of sale and can't be purchased through the CSP catalog.
• The manual path enables the CSP partner to purchase supported SKUs from the CSP catalog. The capability has a long history of being supported.
• Information on how to transfer Azure from EA to CSP can be found in the Azure transfer documentation.
• Information about moving services and data across tenants can be found in the topic Microsoft 365 tenant-to-tenant migrations.

The partner can either purchase CSP subscriptions for their EA customer through the manual path or use channel transfers. Both paths require the customer to have a relationship with the CSP Partner. Customers created in partner center already have a relationship with the CSP. Customers that aren't CSP Customers yet need to accept a relationship request from the CSP before the CSP can transact or renew EA subscriptions to their CSP billing account.

Establish a relationship to your customer

A CSP partner must ensure they have a relationship with the customer to purchase subscriptions for either the manual purchase or the EA to CSP channel transfer path. A relationship is required for purchasing outright via the manual path or using the channel transfers to renew to CSP capability. The CSP may already have a relationship, able to see the customer in their customer list. If the customer doesn't already exist, the partner needs to request a reseller relationship with a customer use the following steps:

1. Select Customers from the Partner Center menu and then select Request a reseller relationship.
2. Send the URL the request a relationship creates to the customer. The customer goes to this URL, logs in as an administrator, and accepts the relationship request.
3. After the customer accepts your invitation, you can provision the desired subscriptions and licenses for them (for example, the same Office 365 offer that the customer purchased previously).

Use channel transfers to renew EA to CSP

Channel transfers EA renewals allows the CSP to more easily view and acquire CSP new commerce license-based subscriptions that map to the expiring EA subscriptions. This informed purchase aligns the EA subscription SKUs to the available CSP SKUs, even if they're end of sale status. End of sale SKUs can't be purchased outright using the Partner Center catalog. However, the partner can use the channel transition of EA to CSP keep the customer's services in CSP even if the SKUs are end of sale state. Other SKUs that are generally available and not end of sale can be purchased using the manual path, supported for the past few years. The EA renewal path also conveniently aligns the start date of the newly created subscription to the end date of the expiring EA subscriptions, reducing the likelihood of duplicate services and billing.

As with any CSP customer action, the customer must be the CSP's customer, either by having the CSP create them outright, or by sending a relationship request the customer accepts. Once the customer accepts a relationship request, the CSP can purchase subscriptions in the catalog or use channel transfers to more easily renew the EA services to CSP.

CSP partners can use the channel transfers utility to view expiring EA agreements and acquire new commerce license-based subscriptions. EA to CSP renewals align to the same SKU. Partners that want to upgrade from an EA SKU to an CSP higher SKU need to first renewal to the same SKU in CSP and then upgrade to the SKUs their customer needs.

Renewals and upgrades

Partners that want to upgrade their customers’ product SKUs when renewing into CSP should first renew as-is into CSP. Following, the partner can leverage CSP upgrade paths to upgrade to the SKUs their customers need. As an example, if a customer has Microsoft 365 E3 Teams on EA, the partner can transition the customer’s Microsoft 365 E3 Teams subscription to CSP with the channel transfer tool. Following, the partner can then upgrade the customer’s Microsoft 365 E3 Teams subscription in CSP to Microsoft 365 E3 Teams, as desired.

EA agreements

EA agreements not renewed appear channel transfer page. Agreements that expired in the past 90 days or expiring in the coming 6 months appear under the customer's agreements. A partner selects the agreement to view the subscriptions for that agreement. Agreements in extended period term (EPT) are eligible for renew to CSP path. Partners need to work closely with their customers when renewing from EA to CSP to ensure their renewal to CSP aligns with the EA EPT opt-out date. Channel transfer EA to CSP renewals and manual CSP purchases don't update or modify any EA subscription or agreement information or data. More information on EA agreements, opting out of EPT and how to address parallel subscriptions can be found in the Online Services (OLS) lifecycle and Extended Period documentation. Partners can also manually purchase subscriptions in the catalog if the SKUs are available.

EA subscriptions

Partners can view an agreement's subscriptions and schedule them to renew to CSP. The subscription show a Renew to CSP link, allowing the partner to set the new commerce CSP license-based subscription properties that are created when the EA subscription expires.

Schedule renewal from EA to CSP

To schedule expiring EA agreement subscriptions to CSP, follow these steps:

1. Log into the Partner Center as an Admin agent using a Direct Bill or Indirect Provider partner tenant. Select Customers workspace.
2. Select the customer you want to evauate and renew to CSP. Clicking the customer takes the partner to that customer context.
3. Select Channel tranfers in the left navigation for the customer. This page enables partners to view EA agreements expired in the last 90 days or ending in the next 6 months.
4. Select the EA agreement to see that agreeement's subscriptions.
5. Select Renew to CSP next to the subscription the partner wants renewed to CSP.
6. Select the appropriate subscription properties for the CSP created subscription. These properties include term, billing plan, license counts, and if the new subscription's end date should be aligned to other subscriptions the customer may already have. Partners can edit, resubmit, or cancel before it is processed.
   • Renewals scheduled before the EA end date will be processed the following day, as early as 12AM UTC but may take up to 72 hours to complete. Typically the renewals take within hours of the next day.
   • Renewals scheduled after the EA agreement has expired are processed the following day from submitting the schedule starting at 12Am UTC

Important details about EA renewals using Channel transitions:

• The channel transfer EA to CSP is used by only Admin agents.
• Not all SKUs are supported, in this case the subscription show as Not available in CSP.
• Customers in CSP can have more than one partner and EA to CSP renewals are defined at the subscription level. A customer can have one subscription renewing to a CSP and other subscriptions renewing to a different CSP. If one partner claims an EA subscription renewal it will renew to their CSP Partner instance. The other partner sees Not available with a tooltip explaining another partner has scheduled the renewal.
• Once the subscription is renewed to CSP, the new commerce license-based subscription behaves and functions like any other newly created subscription. The newly created subscription aligns to the same new commerce license-based subscription cancelation policies and basic management features and capabilities.
• Partners cancel or update scheduled renewals by going to the subscription they've previously set a renewal for and cancelling it. They can also go back to a previously set renewal to change the properties such as license counts, terms, billing frequencies or coterming the subscription's end date.
• Indirect Providers need to set the partner of record after renewal to CSP on the newly created subscription.
• EA to CSP renewals create new commerce subscriptions that can be transfered between partners through the partner to partner transfer capability.
• Promotions are applied to the new commerce subscription if they're available. Partners can review the CSP promo guide to view available promotions.
• New subscriptions created through renew to CSP are the financial responsibility of the CSP partner, same as any CSP purchase and show up in the invoice and recon files like any new subscription purchase.
• There's no API support for EA to CSP renewals, only the Partner Center user interface.
• The EA subscriptions help the partner understand which subscriptions they need in CSP. EA renwals to CSP don't update any of the EA subscription data.
• EA to CSP renewals usually complete within a few hours after the EA agreement expires (UTC date time) but may take up to 72 hours during peak usage. Renewals don't happen mid-term of the EA subscriptions and only on expiration.
• EA to CSP renewals for expired agreement subscriptions are created 24 hours of setting the renewal. However, it could take up to 96 hours after setting the renewal.
• CSPs who invite new customers by a request relationship my find it takes up to 24 hours for the new customer to show EA expiring agreements.
• EA agreements that aren't expiring aren't eligible to renew to CSP, but CSP partners can always purchase any subscription they like for the customers in the Partner Center catalog.
• Renewals to CSP can't be undone however partners can cancel newly created subscriptions within the first seven days of creation, like any other newly acquired subscription.
• Partners who schedule renewals to CSP before the EA agreement end dates can edit the renewals up until the end dates. Partners should work closely with their customers in case their EA agreement ends up renewing after the channel transfer renewal is configured. In this case, the partner should likely remove the scheduled renewal to CSP since the EA is renewing.
• EA renewals to CSP are logged as migration events in the partner's activity logs as migrations. EA renewals to CSP create an order record in the partner's order history.
• EA renewals to CSP are supported as migration webhook events.

Follow the manual path

Moving a customer to CSP can always be accomplished via the manual path, but only for SKUs that are generally available for CSPs. SKUs are available per customer market and can be found in the CSP monthly price lists. For this path, the CSP who is taking over the customer services purchases the CSP subscriptions in the partner center catalog. Partners should align the purchase of their new CSP subscriptions for the customer to the expiration of the subscriptions in the other channels to avoid duplication of billing.

Partners should also be mindful to acquire the correct CSP subscriptions that align to the same provisioning IDs as the subscriptions in the other channels. Aligning the provisioning IDs (also called SKUs or part numbers) minimizes the partner tasks after they purchase the new subscriptions. Since the provisioning IDs are the same, they shouldn't need to reassign user license after acquiring the same provisioning ID subscription in CSP. Here are examples of common provisioning IDs.

Partners can use the Partner Center's offer list matrix for new commerce to find the provisioning IDs and strings for CSP product SKUs. This offer matrix can be found in the Pricing workspace in Partner Center.

Regardless of the starting channel (EA, Web Direct, or another CSP), CSP partners can acquire any product SKU that is available. Partners who purchase subscriptions with SKUs that are different than the other channel's subscriptions need to reassign licenses to users after purchasing or migrate data behind their services.

Purchase subscriptions for your customer

A customer may be able to cancel their original subscriptions in other channels or allow them to expire. Many subscriptions require the customer to keep their subscription for the full term and enforce cancelation policies. It's best to wait until the subscriptions are near their natural expiration dates before acquiring their new subscriptions in CSP.

• Customers should ensure that autorenew is turned off on their old subscriptions. See Subscription renewals.
• The state changes to Expired on the subscription end date.
• Partners must purchase new subscriptions 30 days from the term end date to prevent data loss.

The source partner should turn off autorenew and allow the subscription to go into Expired state if the subscription is being transferred manually. Turning off autorenew will avoid service disruption, because the subscription stays in this state for 30 days. During this time, users can continue to access files and services. To learn more, see Subscription lifecycle states. The destination partner can then repurchase the subscription during the 30 day grace period of the Expired state without service interruption.

Subscription credit

The customer might be eligible for a credit if they purchased through the Microsoft 365 admin portal (for example, through monthly or yearly billing direct from Microsoft).

Credits for subscriptions purchased directly from Microsoft are handled by Microsoft 365 billing support.

For guidance on how to cancel your Microsoft 365 subscription, see Cancel your Microsoft business subscription.

• Partners can contact Microsoft 365 support on behalf of your customer if they have delegated administration privileges (DAP) for the customer.
• If you don't have DAP, ask your customer to contact Microsoft 365 support directly to find out how much credit they're eligible for and how any credit will be given to them.

For more information about delegated admin privileges, see Obtain permissions to manage a customer's service or subscription.

Disruption, data loss, and reassigning licenses

• Partners don't need to reassign licenses, there's no data loss, and there's no disruption to end users if:
  • You provision the same offers as your customer has been using.
  • The number of licenses remains the same.
  • The offer is equivalent.
• Partners that purchase difference SKUs will need to update their license assignment.
• Customers with discontinued offers will need equivalent offers to prevent data loss.

Related content

• Use pay-as-you-go-rates with the Azure plan
• Working with other partners in Partner Center
• Microsoft 365 tenant-to-tenant migrations.