Views:

As part of the business, Partners are likely to migrate Azure customers from paying direct with Microsoft, or through a distributor, to their own tenant. Microsoft details this process here:

What happens then in Microsoft’s Partner Center is that two subscription ID’s will be created instead of just one ID on the customer’s Azure subscription. Partner Center will create a Subscription ID, and an Azure Subscription ID.

Work 365 handles this by creating two separate subscriptions. The subscription for the ‘subscription ID’ should automatically sync to the customer’s billing contract from Partner Center. However, the subscription for ‘Azure subscription ID’ may become an unresolved reference where Work 365 can’t automatically create the subscription. Partners can double check this by copying the ‘Azure subscription ID’ in Partner Center and opening an advanced find view for the following query:

If the subscription for that ID does not populate, then Work 365 did not automatically create that subscription and it is an unresolved reference. A subscription must manually be created or Work 365 will not sync the Microsoft Provider Invoice when it becomes available by Microsoft because it is an unresolved reference. For details see Microsoft Provider Invoices. To manually create the subscription:

  • Go to the customer’s billing contract and hit Add subscription.
  • Change the subscription form type to a usage based subscription if it is not already defaulted to this form.
  • Search and select the Microsoft Azure product in the product field. Change the subscription name and friendly name to Microsoft Azure 2 or something similar in order to differentiate it from the first Azure subscription.
  • Add the Azure Mark up %.
  • Ensure the provider listed on this subscription is a Do Nothing Provider.
  • BEFORE YOU SAVE: Copy the ‘Azure subscription ID’ from the customer’s Azure subscription in Partner Center, and paste this ID in the Subscription ID field under Billing and Provider Details.
  • Hit Save. This will resolve the reference. Ensure the Billable Status is set to yes.
  • Now that the reference on the provider invoice has been resolved, the provider invoice can be manualy synced to Work 365. Refer to the provider invoice document on how to manually download a provider invoice.

Now that both subscriptions are under the customer’s billing contract:

  • The ‘Microsoft Azure’ subscription: will populate the usage details.These details will be captured on the CSV file attachment provided on the Work 365 Invoice. Note: Usage details have no impact on the calculated costs on the invoice. The usage details only provide a break down of the customer’s consumption.
  • The “Microsoft Azure 2’ subscription: will populate the usage summary. This usage summary will be provided by the provider invoice, and will be captured as a single total cost item (including the mark up %) on the Work 365 invoice.  

Currently, there is no way to merge these two subscription entities so they become one subscription in Work 365. This is known issue of Work 365. Having these subscriptions split up like this does not impact the invoicing process, and customers will still be able to see their consumption details on the self-service portal.