Update to 'auto opt-in' toggle for Microsoft NCE Licences upfront billing

Modified on Tue, 21 May at 4:26 PM

What will change?

CloudBilling is deploying a small change to the way the 'Auto opt-in' button for NCE Licences Upfront Billing works. This change is relevant for anyone reselling Microsoft NCE Licences. Until this update, the button read 'Auto opt-in new customers'. After the update it will say 'Auto opt-in new subscriptions and customers'. This means that, in addition to the current functionality, when the new version of the toggle is activated, the event used to determine whether a licence subscription is billed upfront is no longer 'the mapping of a customer' but 'whenever we see a subscriptionId on an NCE licence meter reading for the first time'.

Old view

Why make this change?

The purpose of the toggle switch was to make sure that once you moved over to upfront billing, all new customers would automatically be billed upfront for NCE Licences. The only prerequisite was that the activation of the licence subscription and the mapping of the customer in CloudBilling were both done immediately. Otherwise, the activation date of the licence subscription would predate the opt-in date (the date of the customer mapping). If the subscription predates the opt-in, CloudBilling does not retrieve the licence as being billed upfront.

In practice, it turned out a delay between licence activation and customer mapping was common. Thus, most licence subscriptions for new customers were billed post-paid instead of upfront. As such, the functionality did not function as intended. This change resolved this issue.

How does this functionality work?

When the 'Auto opt-in new subscriptions and customers' toggle switch is turned on, any NCE Licence items with a SubscriptionId that the connector has not seen previously will be retrieved as billed upfront. This means that any new licence subscriptions activated after the toggle is activated will be retrieved as upfront billed licences. Please note that this also applies to new subscriptions for existing customers.

Scenario	Old functionality	New functionality
New customer, new subscription, mapped immediately	Immediately billed upfront	Immediately billed upfront
New customer, new subscription, mapped after a few days	Billed post-paid, switch to upfront next renewal or cycleCharge	Immediately billed upfront
Existing customer, existing subscription	Billed post-paid, may opt-in to upfront through toggle in table	Billed post-paid, may opt-in to upfront through toggle in table
Existing customer, new subscription	Billed post-paid, may opt-in to upfront through toggle in table	Immediately billed upfront

As you can see, the functionality resolved the issue with the timing of the customer mapping and does not change the functionality for existing subscriptions for existing customers. Only the 'new subscriptions for existing customers' scenario is a departure from the way the functionality used to work. However, please be aware that all licences will eventually move over to upfront billing, so we strongly recommend moving over new licences to upfront billing anyways.

How can you start using this functionality?

If you are a Microsoft CSP reseller, go to the Connector page in CloudBilling. Go to 'NCE Upfront Billing' in the menu on the left side of the screen. On top of the table you should see a toggle that says 'Auto opt-in new subscriptions and customers'. Clicking that toggle switch will make sure all new licence subscriptions are billed upfront.