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The CRM Product catalog is intended for you to host all the product records of all the items you sell across the business. These include resale products from Microsoft, other Manufacturers, or other Distributors. They may also include other third party vendor products, your own IP solutions, and your own value added services. Anything you put in the product catalog can be created as a subscription or Non-recurring item in Work 365.

How to create Products

How to create Bundles

These are common questions Cloud resellers ask regarding the Product catalog:

  1. What do I do when Microsoft changes the price on one of their products? Is Work 365 integrated with Microsoft’s price list?
    1.  Note: Microsoft will typically only create new skus with new offer IDs and pricing. These new skus would need to be added to the product catalog (see item c.).
    2. Work 365 offers a Product Service feature which streamlines the product catalog management. Through the product service, Work 365 pulls the Microsoft Price List. 
    3. Microsoft Price List changes:
      1. Currently the best practice is to manually manage your product catalog. This means that whenever a price change is made by Microsoft, you update that product in your catalog. You update the Unit Cost Price, and the applicable Price list items associated with the product. 
        1. Following this step will ensure that any new customer purchasing this product will be paying the updated price.
        2. Customers who already have this subscription are still committed to the selling price at which they originally bought the product for the remaining 12month term. Partners can view when this commitment expires by looking at the customer’s subscription and the “Commitment End Date” field under Provider Details. Upon this commitment end date, Partners can manually update the cost and selling price on the subscription to reflect the price change.
    4. Note: if Microsoft actually changes the sku # and the pricing of an exisiting product: update the provider part number on the current product in the catalog. Do not update ths provider part part number on the subscriptions. When provisioning license changes to exisiting subscriptions, the system will take the provider part number from the subscription form, not the product form. When new subscriptions are created from this product, they will popilate the new provider part number. 
    5. Note: If Microsoft actually changes the product name of an existing product, but leaves the sku # the same: update the product name and the product ID thein the catalog to reflect the new name. Note that even though the product name will change, all subscriptions associated with this product will still have the same subscription name and friendly name. Due to customers' commitment end dates (price commitment end dates), it is recommended that the subscription name remains the same until this date arrives. At that point in time, the subscription name can be updated. Lastly, any new subscriptions created from this product will reflect the new subscription and friendly names. 

  1. I am in multiple regions. How do I set up my product catalog?
    1. Are you a Direct CSP and Indirect CSP in the different regions, or are you Indirect CSP in all regions?
      1. Yes:
        1. You will create separate products for each region. This is because distributors can have different sku IDs from Microsoft’s Offer ID for the same product. Each Region will have separate price lists. Each product will have the appropriate Provider Part Numbers based on the provider, and each product will have a price list items which aligns with the appropriate price list.
          1. Example:
            1. Exchange Online (Plan 1) – USA
              1. Price List: US Price List
                1. Monthly Price list item with US Dollar currency
                2. Annual Price list item with US Dollar currency
              2. Provider: Microsoft US Partner Center
              3. Part Number: Offer ID provided by Microsoft
            2. Exchange Online (Plan 1) – UK
              1. Price List: UK Price List
                1. Monthly Price list item with Euro currency
                2. Annual Price list item with Euro currency
              2. Provider: Manual Provider UK Distributor (Indirect CSP)
              3. Provider Part Number: Offer ID provided by the Distributor
      2. No: Only Direct CSP in all regions
        1. You will have one product, a price list for each region, and the price list items for each region. This is because there is only one offer ID for each product on the Microsoft price list.
          1. Example
            1. Exchange Online (Plan 1)
              1. Price List: US Price List
                1. Monthly Price list item with US Dollar currency
                2. Annual Price list item with US Dollar currency
                3. Provider: Microsoft US Partner Center
                4. Part Number: Offer ID provided by Microsoft
              2. Price List: UK Price List
                1. Monthly Price list item with Euro currency
                2. Annual Price list item with Euro currency
                3. Provider: Microsoft US Partner Center
                4. Part Number: Offer ID provided by Microsoft

  1. How do I handle special pricing skus or trial subscriptions in Work 365? Refer to this article on handling special pricing in Work 365.

  1. How do I manage discounts?
    1. If the discount is a global discount applied for all customers, the discount will need to be calculated into the selling price for the product on the product’s price list item(s).
    2. If the discount varies per customer, then when creating a new product as a subscription continue to search and select the product from the product catalog. Then calculate the discount into the total selling price per unit on the subscription.
      1. It is also recommended that a note be made on the subscription listing discount for internal informational purposes.
      2. If there is a time limit on the discount, add an end date to the “Commitment End Date” field listed under provider details. When the commitment end date has arrived, update the subscription sell price so the discount is removed.
    3. Discount on the Billing Contract: A global discount on customer’s billing contracts can also be applied in the discount field. This discount will be applied to all subscriptions associated with that billing contract, and will be calculated on the customer’s invoice.

  1. How should I handle write-in vs. real products as subscriptions?
    1. It is a best practice that all products and services provided by a cloud reseller have a central catalog where they can manage the list of products, prices, and bundles. If write-in subscriptions are created, these are essentially siloed subscriptions which take more time to create, and they will not be consistent with other subscriptions. This can impact revenue reporting. It can also create complications when having to deal with Accounting integrations. Watch this video for more information on write-in vs real products.