O365 Migrations to CSP

Since the dawn of planet of apes…..errr apologies Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program as an avenue to create, configure, manage and support MS Cloud Customers, be it CRM Online, Office365 and/or Azure. This facilitates CSP Partners to control billing and 1st level support for these services. This add managed azure value to the profile for any re-sellers. 

[Update] Microsoft has rolled out new requirements for Direct CSP resellers. Do you know:

1. How your business will be affected?
2. If you transition from the Direct CSP model will you still be able to keep your Microsoft incentives?
3. Transitioning from the Direct to Indirect CSP can actually simplify the way you do business in the cloud.
4. Indirect CSP resellers get the best of both worlds:
   • No need to pay for Microsoft’s new support fees because your Indirect CSP will support you and your clients.
   • No impact to Partner Center Referral program.
   • No need to change your incentives, you continue to keep your Microsoft incentives.

Since 2017 many of the individual/EA customers are planning for transition to the CSP program. One thing crucial to note is sometime in process of this transition, an email gets fired up to the end customers stating “You are about to lose access to your O365 subscription”, which can cause a lot of confusion. 

As part of the transition process there are 2 steps that a customer will be required to do.  One is to approve you as their CSP Partner, and the second (and important step to avoid the above messaging) is to cancel their previous Advisor subscription.  Until this is completed, the customer will continue to be billed by Microsoft and you will also be billed for the CSP subscription.  No refunds or credits will be granted.

There are 2 options that a customer can use to accomplish this task:

Option 1: Customer calls into support to cancel via https://portal.office.com/Support/ContactUs.aspx

Option 2: Customers with fewer than 25 licenses assigned to users can cancel the subscription via the Office 365 Admin portal at: https://portal.office.com/admin/default.aspx#Billing

The entire Advisory to CSP transition process is spelled out and available via a great Office Mix presentation that is available, I do recommend going to Advisor to CSP Transition Guidance to review.

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