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URGENT! Important Notification for all CSP Resellers. Immediate action required.
PC this, PC that, PC the other! – the world has gone PC mad – well MS is no different. They want us all to be PC – in fact, it is now a requirement that as CSP resellers we are 100% PC Compliant. By Rob Driver – Cloud & Enterprise Lead
Welcome to the world of Partner Center – the single portal for partners to manage their relationship and dealings with MS.
Historically there was a myriad of different portals for managing MPNs, Benefits, Competencies, Action Packs, customer relationships so on and so forth. This naturally lead to confusion for partners as to where to go for what and trying to track multiple credentials. The great news is that Partner Center (PC) which has been around for a year or two is quickly becoming the portal MS has always promised it would be and will be the singular portal for virtually all partner dealings.
The most important thing to point out at this point is that the move to Partner Center is a requirement for all transacting partners and that the transition must be completed by Jan 31st 2020. Those that have not completed the full transition by this date will no longer be able to transact new CSP business or manage existing CSP subscriptions until they do. So there is still plenty of time if you have not fully transitioned – but with holiday period coming (Too early to mention?) the deadline is approaching rapidly. Therefore if you have not taken action, now is the time to do so.
There are a few key steps to consider:
- You need to ensure MS have migrated you from the old Partner Management Center (PMC) to Partner Center. (virtually all partners should have been migrated at this stage). More info here>>
- Part of the process will include you as a partner agreeing to the terms and conditions of the new Microsoft Partner Agreement (PMA). These are the rules and conditions upon which you must agree to continue to be a partner of Microsoft’s in supplying and managing MS services. This is a single Partner agreement that combines numerous separate agreements previously into one agreement. Your Indirect Reseller agreement can be found in Parner Center
- Once in Partner Center and set up correctly, you need to enrol as a CSP Indirect Reseller – you can do so here.
- After this, you need to associate to MicroWarehouse as your preferred Indirect Provider. Having completed steps 1 and 3, let us know and we will work through this with you.
We will contact you to assist with final association steps.
These are important steps and are key to your future relationship with MS, so must be agreed at a senior level within your organisation, As such, you must be a Global Admin on your tenant to complete these steps.
As a CSP Indirect reseller you are a trusted partner to your customer. The Managed Service capabilities built into CSP offer fantastic opportunities for you to create long term more profitable relationships with your customers. This trusted relationship includes high levels of access and control to your customers tenant such as Delegated Access Privileges. With this level of access, it is our responsibility to ensure we protect our customers, their information and employees. In order to provide additional security measures on their behalf, all partners must Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for all user accounts in your partner tenant. MS provide licensing and capabilities for all partners in Partner Center to do this. Click here for further details.
The process can involve a clean-up of historical MPN accounts, ensuring the correct MPN Location ID is associated to Partner Center and used for future transactions. As a partner, you may need to engage with MPN support to ensure your MPNs are aligned the way you want them to be. Should you need to raise a ticket, Partner Support is available at +353 1 706 5353
This is an important step to ensure you do not potentially lose any incentive or rebate entitlements and to ensure any existing competencies you have are associated correctly to your new Partner Center account.
Once the process is completed it will help strengthen relationships with your customers and your services and capabilities to them. You as a partner will be listed as a CSP Indirect reseller in the partner section of their portal and you will be able to raise 365 support tickets directly for them should you chose to do so.
Yes, there are several actions to take and they must all be in place by 31st Jan 2020 in order to continue being a part of the CSP Indirect Reseller Program, but the good news is it sounds worse than it is & there is still plenty of time, but you need to take action now. The other good news is, MicroWarehouse is committed to assisting our customers through this process in as much as we possibly can and have a lot of experience in assisting partners, we have committed resources internally to assisting you, however, we do have limited access to what we can or cannot see in relation to your account details. As such you may need to contact MS directly to ensure accounts are related and you do not lose any benefits from MS. You may even be missing out on benefits currently you were not aware of.
So the big question is: “Are you ready to be PC?”
If you have any queries or require support, please contact MicroWarehouse on 016160400 or email [email protected].