FPC Program ideas/suggestions

As the FRP program is maturing can we create a FRP of the Year award at regional and global level. Partners put a lot of store into Microsoft Partner Awards and the visibility they get from a Microsoft Award. The award will be an additional benefit for partners and also be a vehicle where we can encourage and reward behaviours, we are looking for in the ideal FastTrack partner IE: Success Stories, Wizards Usage etc.

Currently there is only one page with a single list of all the FRPs. https://cloudpartners.transform.microsoft.com/fasttrack-ready-approved-partners The request is that you Backlink that FRP list either directly to the FRP Website. Or that you provide a second page click where the FRP's Powerslides and/or Backlinks referencing the FRP's website is reference. Thereby further enhancing our relationship and backend references to one another. Also providing Customers with ease in viewing viable FRPs.

In the following article, there's a super heavy workaround for EDU tenants that's displayed when you expand the "IMPORTANT! Special Process to Earn Incentives for EDU Workloads Claimed at 100% AU" section.  This is a labor intensive process for partners and needs to be fixed.  Can we prioritize work to permanently address this and remove the need for this workaround for EDU customers?

KB-01109  · M365 Specialty Partner (powerappsportals.com)

Dear Team,

I share my feedback about the recent announcement on Yammer regarding Microsoft Viva incentives for FRP.

I believe eligilbity criteria are too restrictive for customer and thus FRP to assit their customers; In particular the 150 Viva Insights licenses requirement to be eligible to the Microsoft Connections incentive whereas Connections is the only Viva module fully included in existing Office 365 plans.

Among our 115 FastTrack customers, none (to my knowledge) purchase any of Microsoft Viva paid modules today so these new Viva FRP incentives don't create any new partner opportunity for us.
Despites, we're assisting some customers within FastTrack benefits to deploy and adopt Viva Connections module and features of Viva Learning and Viva Insights which are included in Office 365 plans and don't require to purchase the add-on license.

Alban

 

My feedback is for the Microsoft FastTrack Ready Program> Windows 11 Deployment Incentive Program.

FastTrack team has announced that a suitable Telemetry tool is coming to use to get the necessary customer background information for the Windows 11 Deployment. The tool would provide us, as Partners, a way to identify potential customers to whom we would recommend the program.

We have an example from this week.

We presented the incentive program to our eligible customer. The telemetry surveys were based on information obtained from the customer's environment. We spent a lot of time on this topic from our internal stakeholders and also from the client side.

After Claim Submission, we were notified of the rejection of our claim with the conclusion: "After reviewing the customer details, we are unable to approve your request as this customer was already over the Windows 11 MAD activation threshold for this program at the time the claim was submitted. "

If we had the telemetry tool at our disposal, we could pre-empt potential customers for whom the incentive support would be worthwhile. 
This would save everyones time in this topic.

https://m365-specialty-partner.powerappsportals.com/knowledgebase/article/KB-01262/en-us

This new incentive mentioned in this article above does not apply to CSP customers. Microsoft has been pushing partners to leverage the CSP program for customers under 1500 seats. This program assumes that customer will be provided ServiceDesk and some managed services for the M365 Platform. It does not mean the CSP partner will provide professional services for the various deployments in the M365 Suite. This is outside the scope of traditional ServiceDesk or managed services for CSP Direct/Indirect partners. These funds would help expand usage/consumption of their licensing suite. By excluding CSP customers it leaves a lot of customers out of the incentive for FRP Deployment funds. From Microsoft's view, the CSP program is seen to be a managed service. It also is a way for partners to make some money off subscriptions. Instead of them going direct to MSFT or through an EA (which the threshold for being eligible is changing). Microsoft pushes CSP for partners to do, but then if someone is on CSP they are not eligible for Workshop funding, or deployment funds. Deployment is not managed services.

Currently, the same email is sent to the user email address and FRP, but I would like you not to include the customer in the first referral email. We don't want our customers to know that we have declined support. If we decline the customer, the mail containing other FRP will be resent to the user. Customers know that we have declined. Is there a way to prevent customers from knowing their partner name?

I would like to bring up some perspective about the Deployment Voucher Offer that I think it is important to have as Microsoft work on the T&Cs as well as a definition of customer eligibility. Since the guidelines mention Commercial customers, I wanted to suggest that it should include government customers too. Let me try to explain why. We have served several customers last year with the deployment vouchers, taking them from not having the licenses to full utilization of the acquired licenses (the primary example of that would be X customer - ~7,000 seats). And we continue on engaged with this customer working on advancing them even more with Azure workloads. Now, the following opportunities are in the pipeline for E5: • Y customer (19,000 users) • Z customer l (4,000 users) • L customer (800 users) These customers are in Brazil, and they are government agencies. The challenge is that they have a long and bureaucratic process for running an RFP, they are now in the process of making the license acquisitions, but it can take them months, and in some cases years to run another RFP for services. There had been cases where they have purchased licenses and never implemented anything until the licensing contract was already expired. The Deployment Offer had allowed us to jump in right after the acquisition of the licenses and ensure that these licenses were going to be deployed and utilized. Which in turn helps to justify the ROI of the investment they have made at Microsoft and improves Microsoft’s position at renewal time. The Microsoft Account Team we are working within Brazil includes Luciano Lourenço, Fábio Gaspar, and Andre Toledo. Please, feel free to reach out to them if you would like, they will probably have a lot more customers on the radar than the ones I am sharing with you. And the Deployment offer might actually be the justification these government organizations might find to make a license acquisition sooner rather than later. We are looking forward to hearing back from you!

I think that FastTrack should include the Microsoft Viva Connections, Insights, Topics and Learning as workloads within CPOR association. Is there a forecast date when this update will be made?

Hi FT Program teams,

Good days!

 I would like to bring to your attention that through our MCAP eligibility check on the MCAP portal for workshop nomination up to today on 20 Oct 2021, all our existing EDU customers from Malaysia (53), Indonesia (3) and Philippines (7) do not have entitlement to any of the 14 MCAP workshops. 
M365 Accelerator Program (m365partneraccelerator.azurewebsites.net)

This is a great opportunity loss not only to E5/A5 upsell possibilities for Microsoft, but also a potential revenue loss for FRP like Alfa Connections (63 x 14 x $3500).

Seeking your assistance to look into this immediately as my teams ready to drive more MCAP in FY22.  Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Best Regards,
Intan Nurbaizura Binti Mohd Zulhilmi | Operations cum FastTrack Assistant