Action required: Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) in the CSP Program
Skype for Business Online to be retired on July 31, 2021
Microsoft has announced that Skype for Business Online will be retired on July 31, 2021. Between now and then, current Skype for Business Online customers will experience no change in service, and they’ll be able to continue to add new users as needed. However, starting September 1, 2019, Microsoft will onboard all new Office 365 customers directly to Teams for chat, meetings, and calling
Official announcement can be read here.
What does this announcement mean for you?
- No change in service to current Skype for Business Online customers through July 31, 2021. After that, customers will no longer be able to access the Skype for Business Online service.
- Skype for Business Online customers and those with Hybrid (online and on-premises) configurations, will have until July 31, 2021 to transition to Microsoft Teams. Partners are encouraged to continue customer dialog to start their upgrade planning and execution.
- There is no impact to our Skype for Business Server on-premises customers or the Skype Consumer service.
- Current Skype for Business Online customers (including CSP) will be able to add/remove users until the retirement of the service. For CSP customers, you can only get Skype for Business services though Office 365 plans as Skype for Business Plan 1 and Plan 2 are already retired from CSP pricelist.
Calls to action
1. While the retirement date is still 24 months in the future, you should continue to encourage your customers to adopt Teams as their primary communication and collaboration application in Office 365.
2. Utilize the communication template and the presentation.
3. Familiarize yourself with the FAQ to prepare for customer questions
4. Leverage the Skype for Business Online to Teams upgrade planning workshop materials and Teamwork Assessment resources to help your customers transition to Teams.
5. Stay up-to-date with the public Microsoft 365 roadmap
Microsoft has created multiple assets to help you and your customers move to Teams. You can assess some of them using the links below:
Others:
Microsoft 365 Partner Community post (requires yammer sign in)
Skype for Business Online Retirement Email template (requires yammer sign in)
Skype for Business Online Retirement Partner FAQ (requires yammer sign in)
Skype for Business Online Retirement Presentation (requires yammer sign in)
Marketing and sales resources:
Microsoft Teams assets collection: link
Technical resource:
Technical guidance and Planning Resource: link
Fast Track: link
Upgrade Pro: link
Training:
Instruction led training: link
Microsoft Teams end user training: link
Microsoft Teams 6 months trial to be available through CSP from August
Starting August 01, 2019, CSP partners can initiate 6-month trials for their customers. The new trial offerings enable partners to provide the full power of modern collaboration and integrated cloud workloads to their customers.
Availability:
The Microsoft Teams 6-month trial is available for customers with up to 1,000 seats. Customers who are new to Office 365, or existing customers with SKUs that do not have Teams (such as Exchange Online Plan 1/2, Office 365 Business / Proplus, Dynamics 365 etc.) will be eligible to for the Microsoft Teams trial.
Features:
Full Teams product functionality will be available, which means each user receives 2 GB of SharePoint Online storage, plus Flow for Office 365 Forms, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Whiteboard, Office Online, PowerApps for Office 365, SharePoint Online Kiosk, Stream, Sway etc.
The trial will be not be available directly through rhipe PRISM portal. To request for Microsoft Teams trial, please raise a request through our cloud support portal or email our Cloud Support team.
Additional resources
Microsoft Teams – Product page
Microsoft Teams – Technical documentation
New Microsoft Customer Agreement coming Oct 2019
During Microsoft Inspire 2019, Microsoft has announced that from 1 October the Microsoft Customer Agreement will begin to replace the Microsoft Cloud Agreement for all customers served through the Cloud Solution Provider program.
Currently, a customer will need to sign an agreement with Microsoft or partner multiple times when they purchase Microsoft products through different channels or partners. With Microsoft Customer Agreement, the agreement terms follow the customer – however the customer chooses to buy – enabling purchasing across channels without the need to resign the same terms. And for partners, they will be able to assign to Microsoft the responsibility for managing the agreement process, including accountability for customer agreement acceptance and maintaining agreement records.
Timeline:
Oct 2019 to Jan 2020: Partner attestation – rhipe CSP partners will be able to attest the signing of Microsoft Customer agreement through rhipe. Partner still needs to maintain agreement record
Dec 2019 onwards: Customer Invitation to Microsoft 365 Admin Center – Partner can invite the customer via URL to review and accept the Microsoft Customer Agreement in authenticated Microsoft Admin Center
What does a CSP reseller needs to do:
- Review Microsoft Customer Agreement here
- Communicate with your customer about the signing of new Microsoft Customer Agreement
More details will be shared with rhipe partners when we have more information.
Dynamics 365 Licensing Change coming Oct 2019
Microsoft is changing the Dynamics 365 software licensing model, allowing customers to purchase only the applications they need, when they need them. The new model will be available to all new and renewing Customer Engagement, Unified Operations, and Dynamics 365 Plan subscribers starting October 2019.
Starting October 2019, all plan SKUs removed from all price lists for all channels including CSP. And instead of purchasing user plan if a user needs features from more than one app, the user will need to purchase a Base App SKU plus new 'Attach' SKUs
In term of pricing, the price of the base App SKUs largely unchanged (price below in USD).
More details about the changes can be found using the links below:
Microsoft PartnerSource Pricing and licensing page: link
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and Unified Operations Licensing change FAQ: link
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Licensing Updates Deck: link
To Customer email: link
Administrative templates are generally available in Intune
Remember group policy? Of course you do, therefore, it’s my pleasure to update this section of the newsletter as Administrative templates which are essentially the cloud version of group policy is now generally available. Admin templates come with 2500(still growing) preconfigured settings within Intune console which can be easily assigned to the security groups within the Azure Active directory.
The minimum requirement for admin templates is windows 10 1703.
To find out more please click the link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Enterprise-Mobility-Security/Microsoft-Intune-announces-general-availability-of/ba-p/737412?_lrsc=de254cf5-8a79-46f5-94ab-918319a57d11
Windows Defender ATP is now Microsoft Defender ATP
Microsoft Defender is now capable of protecting endpoints beyond windows, such as macOS, therefore it makes sense that Microsoft had decided to rebrand Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection as as Microsoft defender ATP.
Click the link to find out more about What Microsoft Defender ATP is capable of: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/microsoft-defender-atp/microsoft-defender-advanced-threat-protection
(Reminder) Microsoft Partner Agreement is coming September 1, 2019
Effective September 1, 2019, the Microsoft Partner Agreement (the new version of the Cloud Solution Provider program partner agreement), will be available to all regions on Partner Center, replacing existing CSP partner agreements.
Additionally, as part of this new enhanced process, all CSP indirect resellers will need to accept the Microsoft Partner Agreement on Partner Center.
Upcoming timeline for Microsoft Partner Agreement:
July 31, 2019 - The Microsoft Partner Agreement will be available for partner preview on Partner Center.
September 1, 2019 - The Microsoft Partner Agreement is available for signature on Partner Center.
January 31, 2020 - All partners in the CSP program are required to accept the Microsoft Partner Agreement to transact in the CSP program.
For more info, please refer to our blog here.
This rhipe monthly CSP update is brought to you by the rhipe marketing team and our CSP Partner Enablement Specialists. If you have any question, please contact them through email, twitter or LinkedIn below.
JY Wong
Microsoft CSP Partner Enablement Specialist
Email: JY.Wong@rhipe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wongjy/
Mikki Chopra
Cloud Enablement Specialist
Email: Mikki.Chopra@rhipe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikki-chopra/
Paul Dilag
Partner Enablement Specialist
Email: Paul.Dilag@rhipe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pdilag/
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