From November this year (2023), they’ll be rolling out new offerings in new commerce for Public Sector clients (both new and renewing), including Academic, GCC (Government Community Cloud) and NfP organisations, that will allow access to the very latest offerings in the Microsoft portfolio.

Then, from Jan ’24, Microsoft will automatically start to migrate all renewing commercial and Public Sector customers to this new commerce platform as part of their strategy to retire the older CSP legacy commerce platform.

Since Oct ’21, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners have been working diligently to move their legacy commercial customers over to this new commerce setup.

It’s been a challenging juggling act to manage customers on two different platforms so Microsoft’s announcement will massively help simplify things.

Starting in January 2024, Microsoft will take the lead in migrating these legacy commercial subscriptions to the new commerce platform.

And the best part?

Your billing plan and seat counts will remain the same as they were in the old system.

The migration will happen at the time of subscription renewal, starting with those renewing in January 2024 and continuing throughout the year. After the migration, partners will have seven days to make any necessary changes or even cancel subscriptions if needed (and as always, we’re to help if you need us).

Top Tip: If you prefer monthly subscription terms instead of annual ones, it’s a good idea to get moved over before the legacy subscriptions expire in 2024.

A proactive approach allows you to tweak terms and conditions and let others in your partner network know about the changes.

Below is a handy timeline for the CSP legacy migration plan:

• Commercial offers (Microsoft 365, Security, Office 365, Dynamics 365): You can start migrating now.
• Public Sector (education, nonprofit, government community cloud – GCC): Migration begins in November 2023.
• Multi-year offers (e.g., six-year education SKUs): These can be migrated when they’re published in the Offer Matrix list.

Public Sector subscriptions will also be joining the new commerce party in November 2023.

Just like with commercial offers, from January 2024 onwards, Microsoft will start migrating legacy CSP Public Sector offers to an annual term in the new commerce system, keeping billing and seat counts consistent with the old system.

Anyone wanting monthly terms in new commerce should make this move before the 2024 renewal date.

But no worries, if you miss that window, you still have seven days to make changes after Microsoft’s migration – Again, give us a call if you’re unsure .

Come November of this year, you’ll be able to find the list of CSP Public Sector legacy offers available for migration in the legacy Offer Matrix in the Partner Centre pricing workspace (or we’ll talk you through the options).

So, what’s next? Here’s our recommended checklist:

• Check the Offer Matrix to see if your subscriptions are eligible for migration.
• Read up on the migration steps in the MS Resources section.
• Take action to migrate your legacy CSP subscriptions to new commerce.

*Since the publication of this article, Microsoft has received feedback from partners that making system changes at the end of the calendar year would be difficult for their clients. As a result, they have adjusted the timelines.

Microsoft will now launch CSP public sector offers in the new commerce system starting January 1, 2024. To give partners time to adjust to this change, Microsoft-led migration of public sector offers will begin starting July 1, 2024. The full launch and migration plan will be shared mid-November 2023.

Please note that Commercial legacy CSP is still operating on a January 1st deadline. This means that that any Legacy CSP renewals which occur after January 1st will be required to Migrate to NCE upon renewal.