Forum Discussion
Colin2137
Jul 24, 2023Copper Contributor
Transferring Business Premium Licenses Between Partners
My understanding is that NCE imposes a strict limit of 300 Business SKU's per tenancy.
If we are transferring from a different CSP partner to ours we normally purchase the licenses first and then a...
ClaudioStallone
Jul 25, 2023Steel Contributor
Hi Colin2137 ,
As far as I know, there is still no technical limit of 300 pieces in the partner center. Thus, this should still be possible to perform as described by you.
Either way, this would be the correct and possible migration path:
- The old partner deactivates the automatic renewal of licenses
- Since the license changes to "Expired State" after expiration, the services and data are still available for 30 days for the user and administrators. See "CSP New Commerce Experience Handbook" on page 31 "Expired state":
- The new partner has 30 days after the expiration of the licenses from the old partner time to order the new licenses.
Colin2137
Jul 25, 2023Copper Contributor
Issue is that we are changing from being a Direct Reseller to an Indirect Reseller. The other complication is that the licenses are still on legacy terms. So if we purchase 290 via our Indirect Reseller and wait for the licenses to apply before suspending on the Direct partnership, the customer will temporarily have 580 licenses.
Hope this makes sense.
Hope this makes sense.
- LicensingConcierge1Jul 25, 2023
Microsoft
Hi Colin2137
The process is that Resellers should contact their Indirect Provider. If you're not already working with a provider (also known as a distributor), you can search the list of official Microsoft providers to find one.
If this reply answers your question, please Accept as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly. Otherwise, please let me know if you need further assistance on this topic.
Regards,Microsoft CSP Licensing Concierge
- ClaudioStalloneJul 25, 2023Steel Contributor
This should work, so you can add the new licenses through the indirect reseller. Once they are active, the old partner (direct reseller) must suspend the legacy licenses.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/subscription-lifecycle#legacy
- MartijnElfersJul 25, 2023Steel Contributor
ClaudioStallone unfortunately this would not be possible, as the 300 seats max is enforced in Partner Center on tenant level (for both Legacy and NCE). If the customer/tenant already has max amount of seats, another CSP partner can't provide that license to the customer anymore.
And indeed there's no subscription transfer option for seat-based subscriptions in NCE. So you need to do it manually. I can only think of these 3 options:
1. As the current partner provides 290 seats, you could do the transfer in steps of 10... might just take some time
2. Or ask the current partner to first suspend their subscription and you provision a new one as soon as possible. But of course this will impact software availability of the customer, which is far from ideal.
Risk here is that Partner Center might need some time to sync, so it might take a long time before you're able to provision the new subscription, all the while the customer not having access to the software.
3. Last option I'm thinking of is to purchase an E3 subscription, assign E3 license to all the users, suspend the current BP subscription from old partner, repurchase the BP licenses on your end, reassign BP to all the users, and then cancel the E3 licenses.
If you do that in a single day, you should not receive any costs for the E3 licenses as you immediately cancel the licenses again.- ClaudioStalloneJul 25, 2023Steel Contributor
Hi MartijnElfers ,
thanks for your input, unfortunately I can only verify this for NCE licenses, for Legacy I can't verify this anymore.
The best thing to do is create a Microsoft case and ask them what the best course of action is. Gladly for info what Microsoft recommends here.