Introduction: New commerce add-ons

Appropriate roles: Admin agent | Sales agent

Note

The new commerce experiences for license-based services include many new capabilities and are available to all Cloud Solution Provider (CSPs). For more information, see new commerce experiences overview.

Partners can purchase add-ons in new commerce to enable other services that complement a previously purchased product. Some examples of add-ons are calling plans, more disk space, or other features that can be added if the customer has the base services.

Add-ons in new commerce

New commerce add-ons include similar concepts to traditional license-based add-ons. New commerce add-ons, like traditional license-based, include the concept of prerequisites. Prerequisites are product SKUs the customer must have for the add-on to function correctly.

Prerequisites for an add-on are found the catalog APIs for a given SKU and in the Partner Center catalog user experience. Purchasing add-ons require one or more of the prerequisites to exist on the customer tenant.

The primary difference between traditional and new commerce add-ons is in how they're purchased. Partners apply the add-on to the base offer subscription in traditional license-based scenarios. Partner purchase new commerce add-ons from the catalog itself. This purchase experience aligns the add-on discoverability to the base offer, making it easier to find and purchase the add-ons.

Many of the concepts about how add-ons work, from a services perspective, remain true across traditional and new commerce. Both traditional and new commerce transactions register and provision the add-on services. Provisioning happens the same way in both cases. Also, a single add-on's services can compliment more than one base product SKU the add-on is designed to work with.

Identifying add-ons

Partners can identify Add-ons and get lists of prerequisites by reviewing the SKU details when getting SKUs via the API. Add-ons are also identified in the new commerce offer matrix ProductSkuPreRequisites column. SKUs with ProductSkuPreRequisites values are add-ons.

Purchasing add-ons

Add-ons exist for both traditional license-based and new commerce experiences. The key difference is how the add-ons are discovered. New commerce add-ons are discovered and purchased from the catalog, the same place the base offers or prerequisites are found. Traditional license-based add-ons are only discoverable and added by going to the base offer's subscription details page.

New commerce experience add-ons are discovered and purchased in the catalog itself. Partners can filter by new commerce add-ons by selecting the product type dropdown. Add-on products are identified by the information icon next to product SKU. Partners can select this icon to get more information about the add-on's prerequisites.

Partners can get more details about the required products for an add-on by selecting View compatible base product subscriptions to show a list of Product SKUs that must exist for the partner to purchase a given add-on.

Add-on enforcement

Partners are shown helpful information about add-ons when attempting to purchase a new commerce add-on product when the customer doesn't have the prerequisites. Partners can validate whether an add-on's prerequisites exist in the Partner Center catalog, and review page experiences.

When an add-on doesn't have the support prerequisites, the user interface displays a message The addon is not purchasable without a compatible base product.

Partners using the CreateCart API see errors on the cart line item if the add-on doesn't have the required product SKUs. The error code is 400041 with the description The addon is not purchasable without a compatible base product.

New commerce add-on enforcement verified the provisioned product skus and not subscriptions. It's possible to acquire a new commerce add-on if the prerequisite is from another partner, different channel (Direct), and if the prerequisite exists in the legacy system.

Important details when purchasing add-ons

Add-ons are purchased as distinct product SKUs if the customer satisfies the prerequisites. Add-on subscriptions have their own distinct term alignment. Partners that purchase add-ons notice the term and associated end date might not be the same as the prerequisite.

Partners convert a product SKU to a higher SKU that already has the add-on services can file a service request with support to turn an add-on off.

Partners are expected to manage the term end dates for add-ons they acquire to ensure there's alignment as needed to the base offers. Partners should avoid situations where a base product SKU term might end leaving behind dependent add-ons that expire later. Active management and alignment of add-on term end dates to their base subscriptions helps ensure customers aren't paying for add-ons whose base offer is expired. When an Add-on license purchase is transacted on the New Commerce platform, an eligibility check is performed on the customer tenant to ensure prerequisites are met. Add-ons in New Commerce are technically enforced, which means that their purchase is blocked if no qualifying prerequisite license is found on the customer tenant. Qualifying prerequisite licenses can be purchased through multiple channels, including Web Direct, Volume Licensing agreements, CSP traditional license-based commerce, or another New Commerce Experience CSP partner.

Unlike traditional license-based commerce, a New Commerce add-on subscription isn't nested under or linked to its prerequisite base subscription. When add-on licenses are transacted, a new subscription is created.

More add-on licenses can be purchased at any point of the subscription's term, and licenses can be reduced or the subscription canceled within 168 hours following the subscription's initial purchase.

Upgrades

Partners who convert a Product/SKU to a higher Product/SKU that already has the add-on services can file a service request with support to turn an add-on off. Let's consider a scenario that Microsoft Teams Phone Standard license added on to an eligible prerequisite license of Office 365 E3. If the customer wanted to upgrade the Office 365 E3 license to Office 365 E5—which includes the Microsoft Teams Phone Standard capability, then after the upgrade, the partner should raise a support ticket to remove the Add-on license and to receive any refunds due. This support ticket should be raised within the first two billing cycles from when the upgraded license was invoiced.

Renewals

Base offers and add-ons are renewed separately since they're separate Product/SKUs. Partners should manage their subscription renewals for base offers and add-ons.

Partners should avoid situations where a base Product/SKU term might end leaving behind dependent add-ons that expire later. Active management and alignment of add-on term end dates to their base subscriptions ensures their customers aren't paying for add-ons whose base offer has expired.

Coterminosity and add-ons

If a single partner sold both the underlying license and Add-on license to the same customer, then it's possible for the partner to make these subscriptions coterminous. Also, existing subscriptions can be co-terminated with any add-on subscription.