As your value-added distributor, we would like to thank you for your ongoing partnership and Microsoft business. The Microsoft CSP world is ever changing, and we would like to inform you of the most recent updates and announcements in this September edition of our newsletter:
MICROSOFT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Microsoft has announced new tools and feature updates for the developer community on day one of its three-day (May 24-26) annual Build 2022 conference. Most of the features are aimed at making it easier for developers to create native apps for multiple platforms, migrate to the Azure cloud, build collaborative experiences in Teams, and improve the discoverability of apps on the Microsoft store.
Dear valued First Distribution Partner
Please be aware that we have a range of Microsoft products that are reaching the end of support shortly.
Upon retirement or end of support, there will be no new security updates, non-security updates, free or paid assisted support options or online technical content updates.
We strongly suggest that, if possible, all end customers are to avoid using unsupported versions due to the security risks that using an unsupported version will attract.
This will not attract a compliance risk with Microsoft, but we rather want to highlight the security risk that it will pose.
Some of these products include:
Dynamics AX 2009
Dynamics AX 2012
Dynamics AX 2012 R2
Microsoft SQL Server 2012
Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
Microsoft System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager
Microsoft System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection
Microsoft System Center 2012 Operations Manager
Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Endpoint Protection
SQL Server 2016, Service Pack 2
Contact your account manager to discuss the options that are available to with regards to upgrading to a supported version.
1. Support Practice Enablement
What is the Support Practice Enablement?
The Support Practice Enablement service is designed to help partners evaluate and enhance support capabilities and empower the team to better support customers. It includes a review of your current support organization and customer support offering through a self-paced assessment, guidance around areas of improvement, and access to best practices documentation!
How should a partner take advantage of this benefit – Support Practice Enablement?
It is delivered in 4 easy steps, the first step is to reach out to your Partner Success Account Manager, who will work with you to schedule the Support Practice Assessment with the members of your partner organization.
Next Step:
- Contact your PSAM to work together and schedule the assessment!
2. Cloud Optimization Report
What is the Cloud Optimization Report in Power BI?
We are replacing the current Excel version of the COR report with a new Power BI version! With this new report, you will see:
1) Data refresh cycle!
Maximizing the value of the Cloud Optimization Report with a Power BI format allows the PSAM team the ability to deliver data to you that is current!
2) Data Accuracy
3) Improved Performance and Flexibility
Customized Reports
Modernized Format
The Power BI format is more equipped for customizations and does not have the size limitation as the previous format
- Changing term of subscriptions with promotions now supported
Partners can now change the term duration of a CSP subscription with a promotion midterm.
- August 2022 update: Online Services and Software Channel Authorization guide
Microsoft is hereby notifying you that the Online Services and Software Channel Authorization guide is being updated.
- New criteria for the Top Tier of Azure IP co-sell
Microsoft is announcing changes to the Top Tier of Azure IP co-sell, which includes new criteria to qualify, and updates to deal valuation to encourage partner-to-partner selling.
- Transition to Microsoft 365 Defender portal to be completed in July 2022
The transition of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to the Microsoft 365 Defender portal will be completed in July 2022.
- Contact validation now available for Marketplace leads in Partner center
Partners can now see the validity of email addresses and phone numbers in Marketplace leads.
- Important actions partners need to take to secure the partner ecosystem
Partners need to take these important steps to help secure their customers and their own systems.
- Solution Workspace being decommissioned Sept 1
From September 1, 2022, Solution Workspace will no longer be available. Complete your solution(s) before August 31, 2022.
- Change to July 11 blocking of legacy CSP renewals
Microsoft has extended indefinitely the previously announced July 11 end of auto-renewals of legacy CSP subscriptions.
- Important actions partners need to take to secure the partner ecosystem
Starting July 25, Microsoft will provide a tool that allows partners with existing delegated admin privileges (DAP) relationships to create a GDAP relationship with Azure AD roles—without customer consent. This tool will only be available until October 31, 2022, after which customers will need to resume approving all GDAP relationship requests. More information on the tool will be available on July 11
- Upcoming training session for the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program and Q&A
We’re evolving Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) programs and are committed to our partnership and helping you grow your business. This includes simplifying our partner programs and aligning how we go to market, validating partner capabilities to deliver successful customer outcomes, and investing in your growth and profitability.
- Licensing updates for Teams Phone with Calling Plan
In January 2022, we announced plans to consolidate Microsoft 365 Business Voice and Teams Calling Essentials bundles into a new offering named Teams Phone with Calling Plan. Teams Phone with Calling Plan is now available for purchase anywhere Microsoft Teams Calling Plans are available.
- Change to software subscription cancellation in CSP new commerce
To implement consistency in the cancellation policy for CSP subscriptions across product types, Microsoft will change the cancellation window duration for new purchases or renewals of software subscriptions (which currently include Windows Server, SQL Server, and Azure SQL Edge) in CSP new commerce effective July 11, 2022.
- Introducing the new Teams Rooms SMB partner playbook
We have created the new Teams Rooms Small and Medium Business (SMB) partner playbook to help you build a profitable practice in the SMB segment with Microsoft Teams Rooms.
Azure StorSimple 8000/1200 series will no longer be supported starting 31st December 2022
Microsoft has been expanding the portfolio of Azure Hybrid storage capabilities with new services for data tiering and cloud ingestion, providing more options to customers for storing data in Azure in native formats.
- Enforcement mode of machine configuration (previously guest configuration)
Set the configuration of your Azure Virtual Machine or Azure Arc-enabled server using the enforcement mode of machine configuration (formerly guest configuration)
- Azure Firewall Premium is now ICSA labs certified
Azure Firewall Premium Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) certification from ICSA Labs is now generally available.
- Enable VM insights using Azure Monitor agent
Public preview for a version of VM insights that makes use of the new Azure Monitor agent and would replace the existing Log Analytics agent.
- Policy blocking the deployment of vulnerable images
Use an Azure Policy to block the deployment of vulnerable images on AKS.
- Migration tool feature with Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server
Use the new migration tool to migrate workloads from Single to Flexible Server on Azure Database for PostgreSQL, a managed service running the open-source Postgres database on Azure.
- Azure SQL—Public preview updates for early August 2022
Public preview enhancements and updates released for Azure SQL in early August 2022
- Azure Active Directory authentication for Application Insights
Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication for Azure Monitor Application Insights is now fully released. By using Azure AD, you can now ensure that only authenticated telemetry is ingested in your Application Insights resources.
- Update management center in Azure
Update management center is the next iteration of the Azure Automation Update Management solution. It works out of the box, with zero onboarding steps and has no dependency on Azure Automation and Log Analytics.
- Upgrade VMware VMs protected by Site Recovery to modernized experience
Introducing the migration capability to move existing replications from classic to modernized experience for disaster recovery of VMware virtual machines, enabled using Azure Site Recovery.
- Azure Backup multi-user authorization for recovery services vaults
Multi-user authorization (MUA) for Backup adds an additional layer of protection for critical operations on your recovery services vaults, providing greater security for your backups. To provide multi-user authorization, Backup uses a resource guard to ensure critical operations are performed with proper authorization. With this, Azure Backup provides improved protection against operations that could lead to potential loss of backup data.
- HTTP proxy support for AKS clusters
This feature, now generally available, adds HTTP proxy support for AKS clusters, exposing a straightforward interface that cluster operators can use to secure AKS-required network traffic in proxy-dependent environments.
- LDAP signing
This functionality enables secure LDAP lookups between the Azure NetApp Files service and the user-specified Active Directory Domain Services domain controllers.
- Azure WAF policy and DDoS management in Azure Firewall Manager
Azure Firewall Manager now supports managing DDoS Protection Plans for virtual networks and Azure Web Application Firewall (Azure WAF) policies for application delivery platforms: Azure Front Door and Azure Application Gateway.
- Bluware And Microsoft Azure Develop OSDU-Enabled Interactive AI Seismic Interpretation Solution for Energy Super Major
Bluware, which develops cloud-native solutions to help oil and gas operators to increase exploration and production workflow productivity through deep learning by enabling geoscientists to deliver faster and smarter decisions about the subsurface and today announced its collaboration with Microsoft for its next-generation automated interpretation solution, InteractivAI™, which is built on the Azure implementation of the OSDU™ Data Platform.
- 3 Ways Azure Speech Transforms Game Development with AI
With Azure Cognitive Services for Speech, customers can build voice-enabled apps confidently and quickly with the Speech SDK. We make it easy for customers to transcribe speech to text (STT) with high accuracy, produce natural-sounding text-to-speech (TTS) voices, and translate spoken audio.
Microsoft Is A Leader In 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant For Cloud AI Developer Services
Gartner has recognized Microsoft as a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud AI Developer Services, with Microsoft placed furthest in “Completeness of Vision”.
- Resize rows in Azure IoT Central device raw data view
With this update, you can now analyze more of your data at once in Azure IoT Central by changing the height of a row when viewing a device’s raw data. To resize a row, drag the resize icon in the bottom left corner to increase or decrease the height. This change makes it easier to view more data points in a single pane of glass without having to switch to a separate text viewer.
- Export device data under an organization in Azure IoT Central
You can now apply a filter to limit exporting device data including telemetry, property changes, and device events from devices under an organization in your Azure IoT Central data exports.
- MLflow enhancements in Azure Machine Learning
MLflow is probably one of the open-source projects that has made its way further in the machine learning space; which is why we have invested heavily to ensure Azure Machine Learning provides best class support. We are expanding our commitment by bringing to life a more mature integration, including support for a broader set of APIs, no code deployment for MLflow models in real-time/batch managed inference, curated environments with MLflow, and integrations with our CLI v2.
- Azure Advisor support for Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server
Azure Advisor provides a personalized list of best practices for optimizing your Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server instance. The feature analyzes your resource configuration and usage telemetry and then recommends solutions that can help you improve the cost effectiveness, performance, reliability, and security of your Azure resources. With Azure Advisor, you can find recommendations based on TLS configuration, CPU, and storage usage to prevent resource exhaustion.
- Microcontroller-based device security platform
Microsoft and STMicroelectronics have jointly developed a security platform to enable ST’s ultra-low-power STM32U5 microcontrollers (MCUs) to connect securely to Azure IoT cloud services.
The solution uses the STM32U5’s state-of-the-art security hardware, ARM TrustZone®, along with Trusted Firmware-M (TF-M) and an STSAFE-A110 Secure Element. The solution is powered by Microsoft Azure RTOS and Azure IoT Middleware, leveraging services including Microsoft Defender for IoT, Azure IoT Device Provisioning Service, and Device Update for IoT Hub.
- 2022 Release Wave 2 Plans
These new capabilities are planned to be released between October 2022 and March 2023, but starting August 1, 2022, customers and partners will be able to validate the latest features in a non-production environment.
- Power Automate PAYG (Public Preview)
Here is the announcement of the “Pay as you go” Public Preview for Power Automate, like Power Apps this new licensing model will allow our customers to pay for what they use, giving them more flexibility to start with Power Automate at low risk and then scale their investments over time based on usage patterns. In this video Priya Kodukula, Senior Program Manager for Power Automate, provides an overview on the Power Automate Pay-as-you-go plan and details on how to get started.
- New Enhancements to ISV Connect
The Business Applications ISV Connect program has new enhancements presented in Microsoft Inspire.
Key enhancements are:
- e-commerce through our popular commercial marketplace.
- new Power Automate Pay-As-You-Go licensing model
- alignment of ISV Connect and the ISV Success Program with consolidated benefits delivery through the Marketplace Rewards engine.
Also, very interesting for ISVs, we have a new way to perform Power BI visual transactions through AppSource
- Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform
At Inspire, we launched the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform. The platform equips contact centers with modern digital tools to engage customers across voice, video, and other digital engagement channels—powered by Dynamics 365, Teams, Power Platform, Azure and the newest member of the Microsoft family, Nuance.
- Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty
Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty was announced in Microsoft Inspire, a new solution that will enable public sector customers to digitally create and transform workloads in the Microsoft Cloud while meeting their compliance, security and policy requirements. Be sure to check out the article, it is a very interesting read both to have an insight into this solution and how it can help our customers to improve.
- VIVA Sales
Today we’re introducing Viva Sales, a new seller experience application that brings together any customer relationship management technology (CRM), Microsoft 365 and Teams to provide a more streamlined and AI-powered selling experience.
Viva Sales is a new modern way of selling. By enhancing the CRM system with customer engagement data from Microsoft 365 and Teams along with the power of artificial intelligence (AI), Viva Sales empowers sellers to be more connected with their customers, resulting in more personalized customer engagements and closed deals faster. This happens through a simple customer tagging feature, which automates the data capture, saves the seller time, and provides their organization with a more complete picture of deal and customer status. With AI embedded throughout, Viva Sales is like a sales coach to move deals along with recommendations and reminders. This intelligence layer provides sellers the information they need to help them be more productive.
- Seamless Commerce Experience with Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management helps organizations achieve end-to-end order visibility through its fulfilment optimization engine that uses real-time inventory visibility and AI.
Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management also extends its intelligent fulfilment optimization capabilities with out-of-the-box, pre-built connectors to an ecosystem of specialized partners for e-commerce, delivery, transportation, warehouse management, tax compliance, price calculation, and other logistics services.
Dynamics 365 unlocks composability and helps organizations achieve a unified commerce experience. It seamlessly integrates with existing ERP and customer relationship management (CRM) systems so that retailers can respond faster to customers’ needs by extending their business capabilities through out-of-the-box connectors to an ecosystem of specialized logistics services. This intelligent and modern platform provides a single view of orders across channels. Our fulfilment optimization engine uses a rules-based system, real-time inventory visibility, and AI to determine the most cost-efficient order fulfilment.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Power of the Cloud
Moving to the cloud should be a business priority. Like any large project, it should not happen overnight. Build a plan, prepare your organization, and take manageable steps.
Start by understanding the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Power of the Cloud and the benefits it offers. Challenge the legacy thinking and misconceptions within your organization on whether your on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) or customer relationship management (CRM) can deliver on future needs and expectations.
- Microsoft and Nuance
Since Microsoft and Nuance joined forces earlier this year, both teams have been clear about our commitment to putting our customers first. Microsoft and Nuance are dedicated to ensuring our products complement each other, accelerate better business outcomes, and continue to deliver value well into the future.
We are investing in Nuance’s proven customer engagement solutions that combine advanced conversational AI with a full spectrum of technologies to achieve market-leading accuracy and containment rates. Nuance has the unique capabilities to enable organizations to automate, personalize, and secure customer interactions, only now with the power of Microsoft behind it. This spans Nuance products and services inclusive of:
– Nuance Digital Engagement Platform (NDEP)
– Nuance Conversational Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
– Nuance security and biometrics
– Nuance Mix
- Dynamics 365 Customer Service
With automatic assignment, unified routing helps improve CSAT while lowering the total cost of ownership, removing the need for constant queue supervision. Precise automated assignment directly impacts key KPIs like first call resolution, customer satisfaction, and agent satisfaction. On the management side, the system can determine the best agent to assign to a case, removing the need for supervisors to constantly monitor queues.
- AI Builder
In preview, extraction from unstructured documents like contracts, statements of work, financial or medical reports, publications, and other types of free form documents, where there is no set structure and information are usually in paragraphs. AI Builder form processing is now AI Builder document processing.
- From enabling hybrid work to creating collaborative experiences—here’s what’s new in Microsoft 365
Now that hybrid work is just work, the challenge for organizations is to balance employee demands for flexibility with business needs. More than ever, today’s shifting macroeconomic environment requires maximizing productivity while reducing costs. The digital imperative for every organization is to deliver integrated technology solutions powered by data and AI to help employees work better and smarter.
- What’s New in Microsoft Teams | July 2022
This month, we are sharing the ways that Microsoft Teams updates and enhancements can make your meetings more collaborative. We are announcing new ways you can connect with anyone on your team and in their language. Also, have you heard about the new Teams Rooms on Windows updates? We have seven new additions for you.
Announcing Microsoft Teams optimized for Apple silicon
Today we’re excited to announce the arrival of a native Microsoft Teams app optimized for the Mac lineup with Apple silicon.
- SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: July 2022
July 2022 brought a load of new tech to Microsoft 365 – lots of SharePoint and related tech goodness: Record a new video from Stream start page, Video collections page, One-time passcodes from no-reply@notify.microsoft.com, AAD memberOf “Nested” Groups, Power Automate flows in Lists templates, Microsoft Lists: Calendar view conditional formatting, Review mode for Word documents, news from Microsoft Inspire 2022, and more.
- What’s new in Microsoft Intune
Learn what’s new each week in Microsoft Intune. You can also find important notices, past releases, and information about how Intune service updates are released.
- Introducing the Microsoft 365 Health dashboard: an easy way to view key health information
If you are responsible for IT in a small or medium-sized organization, you’re charged with keeping many apps and services running smoothly with limited time to spend on each one. Your feedback to us was that it’s difficult to understand the complete health of your Microsoft 365 environment because the information you need is spread out across many pages in the Microsoft 365 admin center. We heard you! So, we created a new dashboard that pulls this information together, giving you an at-a-glance view of key health information.
New Device Health Reporting for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is now in Public Preview
Your security team now has a comprehensive view of the health and security of your endpoints. We are excited to announce new additions and improvements to the Device health dashboard (previously named Device health and compliance). We’ve redesigned the dashboard so that you can view sensor health and antivirus protection status across platforms and easily access detailed Microsoft Defender for Endpoint information.
- Managing browser security easily with Microsoft 365 Lighthouse and Microsoft Edge
With Lighthouse, MSPs can get recommended security configuration baselines tailored to SMB customers, quickly find and investigate risks, and proactively take action to get their customers to a healthy and secure state. The addition of the Microsoft Edge policy to the default baseline will make it easier for MSPs to consistently deploy Microsoft Edge security settings to users across SMB customers, saving them time and giving customers peace of mind that their users and their data are protected.
- Check out new Azure AD Certificate-Based Authentication (CBA) enhancements
In February 2022, we made an announcement of the public preview of Azure AD Certificate-Based Authentication as a part of Microsoft’s commitment to Executive Order 14028, Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity .
The public preview process gives us the opportunity to get great feedback from folks who weren’t in the private preview. In this case, we got some great feedback and have added several important features to our existing public preview
- Cross-tenant access settings for secure collaboration now generally available
We wanted to share that cross-tenant access settings for external collaboration is now generally available! I’m proud of the work the team has done to bring secure collaboration policies to life, and excited to share what we’ve learned from those who’ve implemented the public preview.
- Introducing Preview of Experience insights for Microsoft 365
Ensuring that all users have the best experience is imperative for any IT department. You’ve told us that in large organizations, it’s often challenging to measure and manage employees’ end user experience with cloud services like Microsoft 365, because data such as utilization and technical support queries live in different places or previously was not even available. This in turn can make it difficult to identify areas where users may need assistance.
- Microsoft Entra Verified ID now generally available
Customers rely on Azure AD to secure access to corporate resources. However, enabling use of credentials for utility beyond the company (e.g. prove employment for bank loan) is complex and comes with compliance risk. In contrast, identity documents from our everyday lives, like a driver’s license or passport, are well suited for utility beyond travel.
- What’s New in Microsoft Teams – June 2022
Welcome to the June edition of “What’s New in Microsoft Teams”. We continue to move into the world of hybrid. Meetings, chats, and collaborative experiences need to be as inclusive and connected as possible. This month, we focus on the meeting “co-organizer role” and the positive impact this role brings to your meetings. Also, the new, enhanced language transcription and meeting invites will allow more people to feel more comfortable participating in discussions.
- Microsoft and Apple Working Together to Improve Exchange Online Security
Today we’re delighted to take the next step along that journey by sharing the work we’ve been doing with Apple to help users of their Mail app switch from Basic auth to Modern auth. To leverage this work and help users make the switch, the Microsoft 365 tenant admin may need to take action to make this transition, so please read carefully.
- Secure authentication method provisioning with Temporary Access Pass (TAP)
To help security teams keep on top of monitoring where these configurations are, we are happy to report that we are adding a new identity-based security assessment called “Unsecure domain configurations” to the growing list of Microsoft Defender for Identity posture assessments.
- New identity security posture assessment: Unsecure domain configurations
To help security teams keep on top of monitoring where these configurations are, we are happy to report that we are adding a new identity-based security assessment called “Unsecure domain configurations” to the growing list of Microsoft Defender for Identity posture assessments.
- Strengthen the security posture of your SaaS apps with Defender for Cloud Apps
Over the last few years, organizations have increasingly adopted cloud-native SaaS applications to meet changing agility and productivity needs. While the growth of SaaS apps has enabled cost savings and other gains for organizations, it has also raised a significant challenge for security teams. Ensuring a secure way to use essential productivity-enhancing tools has become a critical strategic priority for security teams. Today, we are thrilled to announce the public preview of SaaS Security Posture Management capabilities in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that will enable you to view, identify, and remediate misconfigurations across your applications to improve your organizational security.
- Announcing the preview of the software updates page in the Microsoft 365 admin centre
Introducing a quick and simple page where you can see the update status for the devices in your organization. The initial launch of the software updates page in the Microsoft 365 admin centre will focus on Windows and Office updates.
- Announcing the general availability of idle session timeout for Microsoft 365 web apps
As remote work is becoming an ingrained part of the new work culture, employees of large, medium, and small organizations need to be able to access company data from anywhere on any device. In fact, a common theme we have heard from our customers is that access to corporate resources from unmanaged or shared devices is on the rise. One of the ways users accomplish tasks, such as checking email, collaborating with others in a Word document, or replying to a chat, is by using Microsoft 365 web apps on their personal devices or on public kiosk devices.
- Prevent compromised unmanaged devices from moving laterally in your organization with “Contain”
71% of human operated ransomware cases are initiated by an unmanaged device, usually internet facing, that is compromised and is then used to move laterally and compromise more devices. Starting today, when a device that is not enrolled in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is suspected of being compromised, as a SOC analyst, you will be able to “Contain” it. As a result, any device enrolled in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint will now block any incoming/outgoing communication with the suspected device.
- Azure
- Business Applications
- Modern Workplace
- Marketplace Preparation
There are many updates related to licensing and the new commerce experience. Stay current and gain valuable insight into Microsoft licensing through our various licensing readiness options available to the partner community!
Please see a listing of webinar options and self-serve learning resources:
The Cloud Solution Provider program can help you sell Cloud solutions quickly and seamlessly. Partners are successfully packaging and bundling services for higher profitability. The increasing customer demand for Cloud solutions has created a unique window of opportunity. Customers in the mid-market, corporate and Small/Medium business segments are looking for access to solutions and trusted partners to help them with services, support and change management.
Hear Nick Parker, President of Industry & Partner Sales, talk about the opportunity we have to help customers in every industry transform with technology solutions. He’ll share Microsoft’s approach to selling and the critical role partners play in bringing solutions to market.
Interested in the new Solutions partner designation? Learn how this program can help you stand out from the crowd and start attracting new leads. We will unpack the value of the Microsoft Cloud Partner program across Action Pack, Solutions Partner, Specializations, and coming investments related to the Microsoft clouds for industry. Now is the time to make choices to unlock the right resources that will help your business grow.
The world and workplace are undergoing a massive digital transformation and hybrid work is here to stay. Companies are increasing their investments in their people and Microsoft Viva is a core solution. Partners will be able to build new revenue streams by expanding existing solutions and services and creating new ones. This session will present the market and partner opportunity, partner business model, readiness opportunities, programs, incentives, and offers available for Microsoft Viva.
With over 270 million active monthly users, Microsoft Teams, continues to enable customers to be successful in a hybrid workplace. Discover new ways to realize greater value with Teams and learn more about how we make hybrid work work, modernize communications, enable frontline workers, and delight with rich collaborative apps.
We are excited to share that as of, July 15, 2022, partners delivering a Modern Work (MCI) Build Intent Workshop can now request for a product trial SKU for specific workshops with extended seat/timelines. These trials are available for any Completed or currently Approved MCI Modern Work Build Intent workshops.
Product trials can be one of the most effective tools to move your sales opportunities forward during and/or after an (MCI) Build Intent Workshop. They can help you move from workshop delivery to realizing opportunity in an accelerated way. Leverage trials to align with your customers on post workshop actions, scope, success criteria and timelines by offering customer trials as part of a well scoped POC/Pilot to achieve your customer’s business and technical evaluation needs.
MCI WORKSHOP | SOLUTION PLAY | AVAILABLE TRIAL(S) | TERMS |
M365 Digital Workforce | Digital Workforce | M365 E3 | Seats: 50 / Length: 60 days |
Microsoft Viva Insights | Employee Experience | Viva Insights | Seats: 50 / Length: 60 days |
Microsoft Viva | Employee Experience | Viva Learning | Seats: 50 / Length: 60 days |
Enable Frontline | Frontline Workers | M365 F3 | Seats: 500 / Length: 90 days |
NextGen Windows | NextGen Windows Experiences | W365 Enterprise / 2 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB Storage | Seats: 5 / Length: 60 days |
Modernize Communications | Converged Communications | Teams Phone Standard | Seats: 50 / Length: 90 days |
Hybrid Meetings & Rooms | Converged Communications | Teams Room Standard | Seats: 50 / Length: 90 days |
Eligibility criteria
- Customer eligibility: Partners can refer to the workshop eligibility within each Build Intent Workshop to determine which customers are eligible to offer trials to as part of post workshop execution.
- Workshops that have been completed or approved in FY22 would also be eligible.
How Partners get the trial
- Partner to confirm that their Modern Work (MCI) Build Intent Workshop is approved or completed.
- Partner to review the Partner Led Customer Trial Guide for Modern Work which outlines the following:
- Steps for requesting the trial
- List of trials available per workshop
- Process for activation
- Deployment resources
Trials can be used for
- Product evaluation purposes for customers. Allow the customer to experience the product within their own environment as Business/ Technical Trial or, Proof of Concept (POC) purposes.
Trials can NOT be used for
- Addressing licensing gaps of paid subscriptions, Employee Personal use, Resell or transfer to any third party, or direct revenue-generating activities such as hosting a customer’s applications or development of custom solutions for a specific
Security is the defining challenge of now and the future. Together we must help our customers get stronger protection, with more simplified solutions. Join us to learn how you can be a trusted advisor to your customers by leveraging Microsoft’s comprehensive security solutions and helping them improve their security posture while lowering their costs and their complexity.
Want to help defend the world against cyber attacks? We want you to influence our designs, plans, and guidance so we can have a global impact together. That’s why we need your participation in our security community.
Product, Sales and Technical Enablement
30 August | 10h00
Set the foundation of your cloud adoption journey: Understand the Azure Basics
9 September | 15h00
Unlock the value of cloud and improve business efficiency with migration to Azure
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