Preview feature
This feature is currently in preview and not yet accessible to all Tackle customers. For more information, contact [email protected].
Once a private offer is created, accepted, and subscribed to, you can view progress in Tackle and receive notifications to stay updated. This includes receiving bookable artifacts to help meet your finance team’s booking requirements.
Note
Direct private offers are between you and a buyer and do not include a third-party channel partner or distributor.
Creating direct private offers is different from associating private offers. To import an offer that you already created on the marketplace to associate it to Tackle for tracking, see Import to associate a Microsoft direct private offer.
As a best practice, you should create and extend private offers only after you and your buyer have agreed on a final quote and not when quoting a price
Tackle will use Customized Plans for all Microsoft private offers going forward. Customize public plan pricing only will no longer be supported.
Create a Microsoft direct private offer
In Tackle, go to the left menu and click Offers.
Click Create offer and select Microsoft. A Create offer pop-up opens.
For Offer type, select Direct, and then select Create new offer and click Continue. The offer form opens.
When you’re done, review and submit your offer.
Tip: You can save your offer and complete the form at a later time. To save your progress, click Save draft. If you leave the page without saving or submitting your offer, all your changes will be lost.
How to use the direct offers form
Each section in the form requires you to enter specific information for your buyer and the offer. See each section to know the information you need and what you can skip for now to create your direct private offer:
Basic information
When creating a direct offer, you’ll need to enter key buyer information like billing account IDs, the buyer’s company name and full name of the contact, offer details, and also note if the offer is a renewal if applicable. All this to help ensure that the correct information is added to the marketplace once the offer is created and is included in all bookable artifacts and email notifications for the transaction.
When adding information, enter the correct formatting and details for each field:
Billing account - This is the Azure account number for the buyer. After you enter this information, Tackle will search Microsoft to verify if there are any active contracts. If you have active contracts and you want to amend one of them, see Amend Microsoft direct private offers.
Buyer details - Includes company name and full name, email address, and title of the buyer contact for the offer. Note the following:
Email address is used to send cloud marketplace-specific purchase instructions to help your buyer accept their offer
Full name appears in the Tackle private offer and order notifications
Job Title is for your reference.
Offer details - Add other key offer details like offer name and description.
Offer name - This is typically a combination of the name of your company and the offer IDs or any other general description to help you easily identify the offer, like your quote number or opportunity ID. In some circumstances, the offer name is visible to your buyer. Your entry must be unique.
Example format for Tackle.io private offer for BioPlex using account number 9876543210: 28e3e869-4fc0-49f2-9917-3935fa03f1ce
Offer description - Enter additional offer notes for your receipt keeping. The buyer does not see this information.
Renewal
Select YES if you’re renewing an existing offer and the buyer is already an existing customer that is either moving to the Microsoft commercial marketplace to purchase your product or is already using Microsoft commercial marketplace to purchase your product.
Select NO if it’s a new offer that’s not a renewal.
Renewal offers are eligible for reduced listing fees🔗.
Product and pricing
Select a Microsoft product listing and set your billing terms for the buyer, including payment model, currency, usage and a payment schedule customized for your direct offer.
When entering pricing information, enter the correct formatting and details for each field. Note the following items when setting your pricing terms for SaaS contract products:
Choose an existing plan as a template to start configuring your private offer pricing. Microsoft requires private offers to be derived from an existing public plan. Billing term and payment model options, as well as, usage dimensions will be restricted to what is available on this plan.
Plan name will be auto-populated from your existing public plan, but can be modified and uniquely customized for this private offer.
Plan description can be used to provide a unique description of this offer to your buyer.
Billing term determines the duration of the subscription. Options include 1 month, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, or 5 years if the options are configured on your public plan. Only one can be selected.
Payment model determines how your customer will pay for this subscription. Options include One-time, Per-month, and Per-Year, depending on what is configured for your selected billing term on your public plan. Additionally, a flexible billing payment schedule can be selected on flat-rate plans for any billing term that is 1 year or greater.
Enter the price per payment or use a payment schedule to set specific invoice dates for your buyer and determine the exact amount the buyer pays. For per-user priced plans, the price will be per user –– per payment.
Terms and conditions
Upload your own terms and conditions for your direct private offer. When uploading, you can:
Add up to five (5) documents.
Files must be in PDF and no larger than 3 MB total.
Note: When more than one document is uploaded, Tackle will consolidate them as one PDF file.
Offer validity period
Enter the acceptance deadline for this offer. This is the latest date that your buyer has to accept the private offer. You can enter an optional start date if the offered pricing should start on a date other than the accepted date. The start date will always be the first of the month.
Note
You must enter an end date for when the offering pricing will expire. This will always be the last day of the month.
Notify users
Add the email address of any internal stakeholders that you want to receive email updates on the status of the offer.
Tip
As a best practice, you’ll want to add the account executive (AE) and an internal revenue operations email distribution to keep the AE in the know and include the entire Rev Ops team.
Review and submit your offer
When you’re done completing the form, review and submit your offer when you’re ready:
Click Submit to cloud. While the offer is in review, you can view the offer details. If you need to make any edits, click Edit offer and make any necessary updates.
Note: Once you submit the offer to the cloud marketplace, you cannot edit the Terms Conditions, Listing details, and Offer details.
After the offer is created, click Send offer email to send purchase instructions to your buyer. The buyer will be able to use the provided link in the email notification to view and accept the offer. You can use the progress bar to track the progress of your offer.
After the offer is subscribed to, you'll receive Tackle notifications for booking and fulfillment for tracking.
Import to associate Microsoft direct private offers to Tackle
You can import a Microsoft commercial marketplace direct private offer that was created directly in the marketplace to associate it to Tackle. This lets you track the offer through Tackle notifications for booking and fulfillment after the offer is accepted.
Note
Only private offers created using Customized Plans that include a single product listing and plan can be imported into Tackle.
When to import to associate a Microsoft direct private offer
For any SaaS private offer, you can create direct private offers for Microsoft in Tackle. You'll only want to associate to track and book offers that have been created on the marketplace, but have not been accepted.
Note
It’s important to import and associate your offer before your offer is accepted in order to receive a complete bookable artifact.
Import to associate a Microsoft direct private offer
In Tackle, go to the left menu and click Offers.
Click Create offer and select Microsoft. A pop-up opens.
For Offer type, select Direct, and then select Import to associate to an existing offer and click Continue. A pop-up opens.
Enter the Company name for your buyer and the Offer ID generated by the marketplace. After you enter the information, your private offer will be imported into Tackle. To cancel importing and return to the Offers home page, click Cancel.
Once the import is complete, click Edit offer to add more details to your offer. When you edit the offer, you can include buyer and contract details to enhance your bookable artifacts from Tackle and, if necessary, you can extend the offer acceptance deadline.
Note: If your offer is good with the existing information, click Save and close to exit.
When you’re done editing, click Update offer.
If you need to send purchase instructions to your buyer, click Send offer email. The buyer will be able to use the provided link in the email notification to view and accept the offer. You can use the progress bar in Tackle to track the progress of your offer.
After the offer is subscribed to, you'll receive Tackle notifications for booking and fulfillment for tracking.
Edit Microsoft direct private offers
Note
Only offers in Draft status can be fully edited in Tackle. Offers submitted to and created in the marketplace cannot be fully edited in Tackle; only limited fields can be updated due to Microsoft API limitations. To make full edits to your offer, withdraw the private offer in the Partner Center and then edit any field. After you submit your edits in the marketplace, Tackle will sync to Partner Center for updates within an hour.
In Tackle > Offers, search the Microsoft offer you want to edit and then click the offer to open details.
In the offer details, click Edit offer.
Edit the offer form as needed.
When you’re done, click Submit to cloud.
Note: You can still save this offer as a draft until you’re ready to submit it to the cloud.
Cancel Microsoft direct private offers
In Tackle, you can cancel a private offer for the Microsoft commercial marketplace before the offer is accepted. This is useful for when you have an error in an offer and you want to void it before the buyer can accept the private offer. Once you cancel your offer, it will be withdrawn to a draft state in Partner Center where it can no longer be accepted by your buyer.
After, you can then create a new offer in Tackle to replace your canceled offer, or edit your withdrawn offer in Partner Center. If you edit the offer in Microsoft, your changes will sync to Tackle within an hour.
Before you cancel a private offer
Only offers in Offer created status can be canceled. Accepted offers cannot be canceled or voided.
Canceling an offer is different than canceling an active subscription.
Cancel a Microsoft direct private offer
In Tackle, go to the left menu and click Offers.
Find the offer you want to cancel and click the offer to open details.
Note: Accepted offers cannot be canceled, only offers in Offer created status.Click Cancel. A confirmation pop-up opens.
Click Cancel offer to cancel your offer.
Warning: Once you click Cancel offer, this action cannot be undone. You can also click Cancel and archive to cancel the offer and archive it at the same time. To cancel your request, click Cancel.Wait for the Offer canceled message in the offer details. This can take a few seconds. Once the offer is canceled, a message appears.
After the offer is canceled, it will show in Canceled status in your Offers list. At this point, you can archive your offer.