New commerce overage for Telco pay-as-you-go
Appropriate roles: Admin agent
New Commerce overage for Telco Pay-as-you-go is a convenient way to pay for Audio Conferencing and Calling Plan minutes. It helps ensure calling plan users can:
- Add toll-free numbers to use with Audio Conferencing meetings, auto attendants, or call queues. Toll-free calls are billed per minute and require an overage enabled.
- Dial out from an Audio Conference meeting to add someone else beyond the coverage included in Zone A countries/regions.
- Dial any international phone number when you have Domestic Calling Plan subscriptions.
- Dial international phone numbers beyond what is included in a Domestic and International Calling Plan subscription.
- Dial out and pay per minute once you exhaust your monthly minute allotment in the purchased calling plan and audio conferencing.
- Dial out and pay per minute for all outgoing calls, if you have a Pay-As-You-Go Calling Plan.
Partners can now enable overage capabilities for services that support it.
Note
In traditional license-based scenarios, there wasn't a way to enable service usage beyond monthly limits. Customers needing more than their plan provided or to operate outside of their plan requirements, had to purchase communication credits, or comm credits, directly from Microsoft as a prepaid pool from which to bill overage. Communication credits weren't offered in Partner Center.
But Telco SKUs with Overage options are now available from the new commerce experience. They include the same capabilities as communication credits and are available to all Cloud Solution Provider (CSPs). For more information, see new commerce experiences overview.
Using new commerce telco pay-as-you-go
To identify which product SKUs include overage capabilities
- View the Partner Center catalog product SKUs.
- Filter the new commerce price list by IncludesOverage in the tags column.
Partners can purchase the offers and enable the overage system after purchase. When enabled after purchase, the system configures the overage to an Azure Plan subscription only when customers exceed the allocated monthly calling minutes or call outside the parameters of the offer they purchased.
To enable overage
Partners can assign overage or disable it using the Manage Overage feature on the Subscriptions list. This feature is only accessible if the customer has a license-based subscription that includes overage.
Only admin agents on the transacting partner account can enable overage. Indirect resellers need to have their indirect provider's admin agents enable overage. An Azure plan subscription is a prerequisite to enable the overage. If there isn't an Azure Plan subscription available, the Admin can create it while activating the overage. If the customer didn't migrate from Azure Legacy to Azure Plan, the Azure Legacy subscription needs to be migrated to Azure Plan before set up. For more information, see Transition existing CSP offers to an Azure Plan.
From the Manage Subscriptions page, select Manage Overage. From this page, you can activate and assign which Azure subscription the overage charges flow to, or create a new one. At any time, you can turn off overage by setting the consumption subscription to None.
Note
Manage Overage requires having the ability to create an Azure plan. By default, partners can't configure Azure plans using their sandbox accounts. Partners who need to configure Azure plans with their sandbox account must apply for access. For more information, see Azure plan sandbox documentation.
Manage Overage is only accessible if the partner has subscriptions that enable overage. When monthly overage charges accrue, they're shown in the partner's reconciliation file.
Common Manage Overage blockers
Because managing overage is about aligning the Telco-pay-as-you-go SKU to an Azure Plan Subscription for billing purposes, certain permissions must be enabled to successfully set up the overage to the Azure Plan subscription. Also, some end customers might have policies set up on their Azure tenants and subscriptions that block setting up the overage. Consider the following points before setting up the Manage Overage for the Telco calling plan offer.
- Set up Granular Delegated Admin Privileges for the end customer’s Azure subscriptions. An easy way to confirm the setup is by selecting the Azure resources link in the Partner Center Subscriptions page and then change to the customer tenant. If you can't access the customer's tenant, set up GDAP for the customer's Azure service. Fore more information, see Obtain granular admin permissions to manage a customer's service
- Some Azure Policies might also block the alignment of the overage to the Azure subscription. You might need to temporarily allow the following settings.
| Respective Policy | Related Resource | Needed for | More support |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conditional Access | Token protection in Microsoft Entra Conditional Access | Microsoft Entra token exchange | Azure Support helps with adjusting Conditional Access. See Grant controls in Conditional Access policy. For more help, open a ticket in the Azure Support Portal. |
| Allowed Locations, or Allowed Locations for Resource Groups | Built-in policy definitions for Azure Virtual Network | Location-based Microsoft 365 Resource Group | Azure Support Portal helps with adjusting Allowed Locations. |
Align to an Azure Plan subscription
As the Telco pay-as-you-go SKUs with overage included is a post-usage experience, when you enable the overage, it aligns the overages to a billing system in the Azure New Commerce Experience. Here are some points to consider when you align the billing to an Azure Plan:
- When you enable overage, it requires alignment to an Azure Subscription within an Azure Plan.
- If a customer is already set up with an Azure plan, enabling overage can go to a new subscription under the existing Azure plan or to an existing Azure subscription.
- If the customer is currently using an Azure Legacy offer, they need to migrate to Azure Plan before being able to enable overage. Learn how to Move customers from current Azure offers to Azure plan.
- If the customer doesn't have an existing Azure plan when you set up the overage, a no-cost Azure plan and an associated default Azure subscription, Subscription 1, is created to charge overage consumption.
- Partners can always view or reassign overage to other subscriptions in Manage overage.
- Telco pay-as-you-go charges don't receive partner earned credit (PEC).
- You should expect to be charged and billed the amounts in the Microsoft Teams Phone and Calling site. Select the See rates for where you want to call option on the page to download and view the rates for various calling plans.
To track overage
You can monitor overage for a customer with two methods:
- Use of the daily usage reconciliation files as described in Use your reconciliation files.
- Cost management capability as described in Get started with Cost Management reporting.
Pricing and margins
Telco overage is billed based on monthly usage when the customer uses the number of calling minutes for the plan they have. Partners can discover and download the pricing for these charges at the Microsoft Teams Phone and Calling site. Partners can select the See rates for where you want to call option on the page to download and view the rates for various calling plans.
The pricing and calling plan overage charges aren't reduced for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) audiences and don’t receive PEC. ERP and Unit Price can be the same or have a difference per the specific product or segment.
Important details about overage
- Purchasing a license-based product SKU that includes overage capabilities only purchases the license-based product. Partners must take another step to turn on overage by going to the subscription management page and clicking Manage overage.
- Only Admin Agents for the transacting partner can enable overage.
Overage settings are per service per customer. Only one overage subscription can be assigned at a time. If a partner makes a first-time purchase of E5 with calling plans for a customer, that partner has overage assigned to their consumption subscription. If a second partner purchases an E5 subscription with calling plans for the same customer, the system respects the first partner's purchase and assignment.
Only the Partner for the first purchase can manage overage from the Subscriptions page. The Partner can disable or turn it off by assigning overage to None. If overage settings need to be changed from one partner to another, the three parties involved must first agree. After they agree, the existing partner can set overage to None to enable the other partner to set overage to their subscription.
Switch from prior Communication Credits to Telco pay-as-you-go offers by disabling Auto-recharge
Previously, customers would need to:
- Subscribe to Communication Credits to be able to acquire toll-free numbers for Audio Conferencing, auto attendant.
- Call queue capabilities available with Microsoft Teams Phone.
- Continue to use calling services when monthly minutes are used.
For now, there isn't compatibility between both Communication Credits and Telco Offers with Overage enabled. The Telco Overage can't be charged when a balance in the communication credits pool exists. So, consider the following points:
- When the Communications Credit has a positive balance, the commerce tool uses the remaining Communication Credits for billing until the remaining balance drains.
- When the Communications Credit balance is zero, and the CSP configured telco pay-as-you-go for the customer, the commerce system moves the customer to postpaid, and the new meter is validated.
Important
Most customers have the "Auto-recharge" flag enabled within their account, which automatically refills their Communications Credit balance to whatever threshold level they configured it. You need to disable this option if they wish to use the consumption meter. Otherwise, the Communications Credit balance indefinitely refills itself and the commerce system doesn't switch to the post-pay mechanism.
Telco pay-as-you-go APIs
- SKU properties include a consumptionType property to help the PartnerIDentify whether a SKU enables overage.
- Get overage to understand if any overage is currently set up for your customer.
- Update overage to update customer's overage to an Azure subscription or to set it to None.