How can I accommodate payment plans where the amounts differ per term?
When selling our SaaS solution we typically have a 3 year contract with annual payments. We always use private offers. Generally the contracts have 3 equal payments. But in some cases the payment amount differ per term. At this moment I need to create multiple private offers to accommodate this. In some cases I have to wait two years to have the customer activate their last subscription. For example, a payment schedule Year 1 = 100.000 Year / Year 2 = 150.000 / Year 3 = 250.000 This would result into 3 Private Offers with different starting dates which shows to be confusing for our customers. How can I make a Private Offer with 1 plan where the amounts differ per term(year)?
Critical! SaaS App review and rating synchronized with the wrong AppSource App!
First of all. THANK YOU SO MUCH for finally making a synchronization between the SaaS App and the corresponding App in AppSource. HOWEVER! the SaaS app is synchronizing with the wrong App in AppSource. This is critical, I don't have time for support to first acknowledge it and then find time to make the fix. I need this to be done immediately. Can a responsible please take action. The problem. In AppSource I have a free version - iPlanner Free - that only offers 20% of the App that is purchased using the SaaS App - iPlanner Pro. The free version have pure ratings in compare to the Pro version. I of course don't want customer to use the free I want them to purchase the Pro with the SaaS App. In my Marketplace listening I am connecting the SaaS App to iPlanner Pro in AppSource. For that reason it is odd why you guys synchronizing with the wrong app. The problem is taking the review and rating to the SaaS app makes my subscribed based app look very bad. This is highly critical and is also very wrong. The reviews shown on the SaaS app comes from the wrong app. I would appreciate if this can be fixed asap. I am sure you guys can see that it is critical. Thank you and happy holydays to all in the community.A story about our journey on the marketplace. I hope it will inspire and help on your journey
I would like to share my experience with publishing transactable apps on the Microsoft commercial marketplace, the Microsoft 365 App Certification Program, Marketplace Rewards, and certified software designations. Starting with publishing our apps on to the marketplace: We have several apps that operate within the context of Microsoft 365, including apps for Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Copilot Agent, Office, and SharePoint. We have been in AppSource for many years and have customers worldwide. We developed an in-house license application to manage our customers' licenses. Before the commercial marketplace, we managed all invoicing and license management manually. Now, everything has become much easier. We have published monetized SaaS apps connected to the AppSource apps. Using the SaaS Fulfillment API, we integrated the purchasing process with our in-house license application. We have gained numerous benefits, including: Significant time savings in the invoicing and billing process, as purchasing, adding, removing, or cancelling licenses is automated and managed by Microsoft Customers appreciate the ability to manage licenses themselves, finding it easier Improved market awareness due to promotion in the marketplace And new customers are joining regularly. It is also important to mention Marketplace Rewards, which offer various benefits. For example, customer case stories can be published through Marketplace Rewards on Microsoft customer case stories. Here is a link to our latest story: Microsoft Customer Story - Design for Leisure improves efficiency 30% with iGlobe solutions and Microsoft Planner. Additionally, the Transact & Grow Incentive Campaign has provided us with financial incentives through marketplace sales, as well as Azure sponsorship credits to offset deployment costs. Considering these advantages, there is potential to make the apps CSP Ready as well: https://aka.ms/P2PeBook. Equally important is obtaining the Microsoft 365 App Certification. Certification confirms that an app solution is compatible with Microsoft technologies, compliant with cloud app security best practices, and supported by Microsoft. This is significant because: It provides certification from Microsoft, confirming app security and compliance It saves time in the sales process, as security and compliance are already verified It makes the app easier to find on AppSource, the Commercial Marketplace, and in the Teams App admin portal, where it will be listed in a special category Achieving sales in the marketplace, having customer case stories, and obtaining the Microsoft 365 App Certification provides the foundation to obtain Certified Software Designations, which come with additional benefits and opportunities for co-selling with Microsoft. Today two of our apps have achieved the Certified Software Designation for Modern Work. Soon iPlanner Pro for Teams that includes a Copilot Agent will follow as well. I share this story not to boast but to inspire and motivate others. There is nothing exceptional about us or our experience here – it can be completely replicated by leveraging the resources that Microsoft provides.Was it all very easy…. No. Is it doable? Yes!
Partner Opportunity to Contribute to the Copilot Roadmap
Microsoft Partners - We're sharing an opportunity with you to contribute to the Copilot roadmap. Voice your company's thoughts on what features and capabilities Microsoft should build to help ISVs build, deploy, and monitor Copilots. Complete this survey (5-10 mins) by EOD 11/22 to influence the Copilot roadmap: https://forms.office.com/r/nv6EPTfYFhMore marketplace webinars available in November
Whether you are brand new to the marketplace or focused on growing sales of your apps that are already published, our Mastering the Marketplace webinar series has a broad range of offerings available to help accelerate your marketplace success. Check out these offerings coming up soon: ▪ Using Marketplace Rewards benefits to increase your app sales (11/18): this session covers the availability and eligibility requirements for Marketplace Rewards; the tier-based model based on marketplace performance; highlights of partners' success with Marketplace Rewards and the ROI of activating benefits; advice for integrating benefits into marketing efforts; and, tips on optimizing each benefit. ▪ Billing & Payouts (11/19): Learn about the payouts process lifecycle for the Microsoft commercial marketplace, how to view and access payout reporting and what payment processes are supported within Partner Center. This session also covers how to register and the registration requirements; general payout processes from start to finish; and, how to view and access payout reporting. ▪ Supercharge your marketplace offer with the SaaS accelerator (11/20): Learn how the SaaS accelerator project can help partners go to market quicker by accelerating creating the technical implementation to publish their transactable SaaS offers on Azure Marketplace. ▪ Developing your virtual machine offer (11/26): Join for a review of the required technical configurations to make Virtual Machine apps and how to publish virtual machines offers to the Azure marketplace. Learn how to publish a VM offer and integrate the solution from the Azure Portal tool to Partner center; how to setup Tenants; how to create different plans to best suit your customers’ needs; how to use Cloud-init within the Azure Portal, and more! Find our complete schedule here: https://aka.ms/MTMwebinarsFAQ: Solutions that run on old data centers
Q: Can a solution be on the marketplace if it runs on Microsoft software but in the partner's data center? I have a number of other solutions fully on Azure and in the Marketplace but have an outlier solution that is still in my old data center. I imagine we will move it over eventually but we want to list it now. A: The solution must be primarily platformed on Azure. Refer to this documentation for the official policy: Commercial marketplace general listing and offer policies | Microsoft Learn Follow up Q: If a marketplace solution is only going to be used for transacting purposes and not for full provisioning/deployments and self-serve, is it a requirement to interact with the API's in order to be transactable? In other words, can a solution be transactable without using the API's? 100% of the solution will live in Azure but the solution would only be sold as a private offer and it needs to be deployed with a services team, as each deployment is customized. The fees are paid annually on a three year term. A:in order to be sold even as a private offer, the Fulfillment APIs need to be implemented. The customer will still need to accept the private offer and then subscribe to the offer for billing to happen. That subscription process requires the API integration. That's always been the case for a transactable SaaS offer. For Azure Managed apps (that live in the customer tenant) you don't need API integration (unless you use Custom Meters). For simple implementation of the API, we recommend the SaaS Accelerator: Azure/Commercial-Marketplace-SaaS-Accelerator: A reference example with sample code for developers interested publishing transactable, Software as a-Service offers in the Microsoft commercial marketplace. (github.com))
