Microsoft Online Service
Overview
The Microsoft Online Service for Atria enables customers and service desks to manage tenants, licenses, users, and Office 365 features without accessing the Microsoft 365 admin portal. This approach reduces risk while allowing effective customer management.
Atria enhances management capabilities for both direct and indirect Microsoft Cloud Service Providers.
Core Features
Tenant and Subscription Management
- Azure AD Tenant creation *
- Azure domain provisioning*
- Add, update, and suspend Microsoft subscriptions *
- Auto-resize subscriptions on renewal *
User and License Management
- Provisioning of users into Azure Active Directory
- Simultaneous user provisioning into AD and Azure AD
- Assignment of licenses to end-users
- Azure sync – periodically synchronizes users and licenses from Microsoft 365 into Atria
Advanced Administration
- Tenant Connect – for rapid onboarding of existing Office 365 tenants and subscriptions
- Provisioning of mail aliases into Exchange Online
- Delegated administration of Groups*
- Delegated administration of Exchange Online shared and resource mailboxes
Customization
- Plan templates – including add-ons and service plans
Features marked with * are available only to Microsoft Partners with a direct billing relationship due to API restrictions.
Partner Center Connections
Microsoft Partner Center for CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) is a prerequisite item to have set up prior to deploying the Microsoft Online service, this applies to both Direct and in-Direct Partners. Atria allows Service Providers to have multiple connections to Microsoft Partner Center in accordance with Microsoft security guidelines. This allows selling across regions, support for Sandbox tenants and also caters for resellers who may wish to use their own Partner Center connection.
Each Microsoft PartnerCenter account is able to provision customers and subscriptions into the Microsoft region associated with your Partner account. Each region contains a set of pre-defined countries. If you are selling into multiple regions then a Partner Center account can be configured for each Microsoft region.
When provisioning customers with the Azure AD service, the appropriate PartnerCenter Connection can be selected – this controls the Partner Center connection and the baseline settings. These can be overridden for Resellers or Customers if required.
Subscription Management
Subscription Management enables the Help Desk and End-Customers to self-manage the creation and ongoing maintenance of Microsoft Subscriptions.
Subscription Management contains a set of features that are available to Microsoft CSP partners who have a Direct Billing relationship with Microsoft (sometimes referred to as Tier 1 or Direct Reseller).
The following features are included:
- Curate and control a sub-set of Microsoft Services that are available for customers to self-serve from.
- Automatically import and display pre-existing subscriptions.
- View a history of changes made to subscriptions
- Auto-Resize - automatically assess and resize subscriptions on renewal, this service will minimise licensing spend.
- Auto-Renew - enable or disable automated renewal
- Notifications - a set of notifications are included which ensure subscription renewals and change events can notify the right people internally and within the customer.
- Dashboard - a dashboard summarizing usage and subscription renewals is available to end-customers.
Tracking and Billing Microsoft Online services
As users are added and removed from subscriptions, these will be tracked via the billing transactions at the User Plan level. Transactions are based on assignments to and from users. If you bill based on licenses assigned to customers, then this quantity may differ based on whether or not the licenses have been assigned to users.
Deployment Overview
Deploying the Microsoft Online service involves the following tasks:
| Task | Documentation |
|---|---|
| 1. Deploying the Azure AD Schema 2. Deploying the Microsoft Online (MSOL) Schema 3. Deploying the Microsoft Online (MSOL) Web Service | Microsoft Online Service Deployment |
| 4. Connecting to Microsoft Partner Center 5. Syncronize Offers from Microsoft Partner Center | Connecting Atria to Microsoft Partner Center |
| 6. Enable Catalog for Subscription Purchasing | Configuring the Microsoft Catalog (Tier 1) |
| 7. Configure User Plans | Configuring Microsoft Online User Plans |
| 8. Configure the Service 9. Provision the Service to Resellers 10. Provision the Service to Customers | Microsoft Online Service Provisioning |
Related Knowledgebase Articles
The following articles provide additional information related to the Microsoft Online Service:
| Topic | Knowledgebase Article |
|---|---|
| Allow Resellers to use their own Partner Center for their customers | Configure Resellers with their own Partner Center connection |
| Configure Microsoft Online to use ADFS for authentication | Configuring Microsoft Online with ADFS |
| Troubleshooting User and Service issues with the Microsoft Online Service | Microsoft Online - User & Service Troubleshooting |
| Synchronizing Atria with Office 365 | Synchronizing Atria with Office 365 |
| How to deprovision Microsoft Online Services from a Customer | Deprovisioning Microsoft Online Services from a Customer |