A Message from Matt Ontell
I hope 202
1 is off to a great start for everyone.
As the FRP team continues to focus on helping customers realize the value of the M365 investment through your amazing work, it has been exciting to see the innovation of how to help customers evolve towards a more secure and productive browser,
Edge, as Internet Explorer (IE) comes to “end of life.”
You will see a big push from the FRP team – manifesting in office hours, focus groups, and new resources (coming this month) – incorporating partner feedback and ideas earlier in the planning and design process. We will close the loop and
ensure that you know how we have addressed your feedback.
We really appreciate the constructive suggestions and specific solutions that you have recommended and will continue to do all we can to improve, simplify, and enhance the partner experience both in the FastTrack Ready Program, OSU Program,
and cloud accelerator workshops.
Matt Ontell
FRP Program Lead
PROGRAM UPDATES & RESOURCES
Live! FRP Dashboard’s Performance Requirements and Data Health Reports Have Been Updated
As described in the January Partner Success Calls (Americas, Asia, EMEA),
and the January 21, 2021 Yammer post, changes to the FRP Dashboard’s Performance Requirements
and Data Health reports are now live! To best understand the reports and impact:
We Heard You! FRP Insights and Feedback
FRP Insights/Feedback is coming this month providing the ability to:
- Share insights/feedback directly with the FRP Program Team, FastTrack and Product Groups
- Upvote ideas/insights/feedback from other partners to help emphasis importance.
Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.
New POE Template Available in Partner Center
If you were unable to attend or need a refresher on the recent OSU office hours call, access the recording for
an overview of the changes.
As outlined in the January 22, 2021 Yammer announcement, this is an existing, encouraged method
to submit POE in lieu or in support of an SOW or other documentation.
Access the new template on the Create Claims page in Partner Center.
Big thanks to the community for your input. In addition to the previously mentioned improvements, the OSU team was able to incorporate the following into the final version based on your feedback:
- Proof of Execution has been replaced with “POE”
- All instances that mention “incentive” have been removed
- Addition of a Public Sector Disclosure
The Customer Migration Experience (CME): The Default Experience
The Customer Migration Experience (CME) will be the default experience for all commercial content migrations on February 15, 2021. This includes Box, DropBox, Google Drive and File Share migrations. Existing Customers that are currently
onboarding will continue to work with their assigned MVM through velocity Migration.
All assigned MVMs will disengage from content migration customers on Friday, February 26, 2021. Note that this change does not apply to GCC/GCC-High/DOD.
Please read the Yammer announcement for the Customer Migration Experience to understand impacts and important instructions for customers.
Request of a Migration Resource (MVM) Required Only for IMAP and Content Migrations (Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and File Share)
The introduction of the new migration experience for FastTrack Migrations no longer requires delivery teams to make a request of a migration resource (MVM) for Exchange and Gmail migrations. Content migrations will soon transition to the new
migration experience and will no longer require a request for a migration resource (MVM). However, IMAP and content migrations (Box, DropBox, Google Drive, and File Share) continue to receive a migration resource to assist customers with
onboarding to the FastTrack Migration Benefit through March 1, 2021.
Impact of Change
- Content migrations (BOX, DropBox, Google Drive, and File Share) will no longer receive a migration resource (e.g., MVM) for the purposes of onboarding after March 1, 2021. Do not file a request for migration resource after March 1, 2021.
Those customers who have a migration resource will continue with the migration resource until they onboard to velocity migration. At velocity, the migration resource will disengage after one week.
- IMAP migrations will continue to receive an MVM for the purposes of onboarding. Please continue to file a request for a migration resource.
- Exchange and Gmail migrations do not receive a migration resource for onboarding. No request for migration resources should be made.
Mover to Retire the File Share Connector
Mover has decided to retire the File Share connector. The connector will be retired on March 1, 2021. If your customer is self-migrating using the Mover File Share connector, please make them aware that this connector will cease to work on
March 1, 2021. FastTrack Migrations Team uses Migration Manager to move File Shares. Please let your customers know that Migration Manager is the recommended option and that they can use FastTrack Migrations benefit to perform their File
Share migrations.
Note: FastTrack Migration benefit never used Mover File Share Connector in our processes or tools. The retirement of this connector does not impact any existing FastTrack Migration customer.
To learn more, please read:
WORKLOAD UPDATES & RESOURCES
Intune New Features, Service Changes, and Service Health
Recently the Intune support team published a blog about “Staying
up to date on Intune new features, service changes, and service health.” With the momentum of their informative post our sister teammate created a service health app using Power Apps and Power Automate to view Intune and all M365 service
status. The benefit for customers is that they will have quick access to this app right from their phone and can filter/search on service notifications and availability. Note: there is an M365 admin app that offers similar functionality, however it doesn’t offer customization like Power Platform does.
Blog post: Microsoft 365 Message Center and Service Health Power App – Mobility, Management, & Security (uem4all.com)
Video: https://www.screencast.com/t/S8tWKpcjyGdF
New Wizard Released for Azure AD
To make you more successful when integrating 3rd party application to Azure AD we have released a new wizard.
Wizard functionality
- Add an app to the admin’s tenant – Popular apps and Search are available
- Simplified experience to request an app that isn’t part of the gallery
- Simplified SSO configuration for SAML
- Support for all gallery apps even those with OpenID, Password, or linked support
- Add users and roles
- Test functionality
You will find the wizard here: https://admin.microsoft.com/adminportal/home#/azureadappintegration
If you are not familiar with all the wizards that are available today, you can find them here: https://portal.office.com/AdminPortal/Home#/SetupGuidance
Please give us feedback and start using the wizard to be more successful when driving the Azure AD App Integration Incentive.
Read the Yammer post Azure AD – we have released a new wizard to learn more.
Skype for Business Online is Retiring July 31, 2021
On February 18, 2021 at 8:00 AM PT, join Microsoft experts in a webinar designed to help you Map Your Customer’s Path from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams.
In this 1-hour webinar, you will learn how to guide customer conversations about Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams upgrades and map out a successful path forward, with a special focus on Skype for Business Server customers.
You will also learn about sales and marketing resources available to help demystify upgrade scenarios and ready customer users for deployments.
Partner Call to Action
Terms & Conditions
Please read the bolded section title for a complete explanation of the revisions in the Terms and Conditions.
Partner Eligibility has been revised to explain eligibility granted at the country level and customer location.
Incentive Eligibility has been aligned to OSU; milestone achievement is now determined on the last day of the month.
Payment Terms has been aligned with OSU; partners now have 90 days to file a dispute.
FastTrack Playbook
For a complete list of Playbook changes, please visit the Playbook Change Logs page. Key changes in January include:
- Approximately 60 outdated tasks have been deprecated
- The Partner Success Library documentation has been updated, here is the link to the current version.
- Conduct Technical Assessment, with links to localized guidance for task 4071, has been refreshed.
- Services Workshops, with links to localized Post Migration Support Process Workshop
content, has been refreshed.
Service Descriptions
The following Service Description updates have been published:
- Intune Service Description
- Intune’s Service Description has been updated to reflect the recent changes with the mobile motion. (December 2020)
- Cloud Management Gateway's Service Description has been updated to reflect the recent changes in support. (January 2021)
- Compliance (MIP, MIG and AIP) Service Description - Based on feedback, the service descriptions for MIP, MIG and AIP have been
updated to provide clarity around what is in scope and what is out of scope or is the responsibility of the customer. (December 2020)
Q3 Virtual Connections Event – Coming Soon!
Planning is underway for a Q3 Virtual Connections Event themed “Partners Learning from Partners”. This virtual event will be held in late April for all regions.
Please keep an eye out for a Save the Date email in the coming weeks!
Upcoming FRP Events
Click on the links below to register for upcoming events:
- February 9, 2021 8 AM PT: Microsoft Defender for Identity (MDI) and Microsoft 365 Defender (M365D) for FastTrack Ready Partners
- February 10, 2021 8 AM PT: Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) Refresh & Partner Guidance
- February 11, 2021 8 AM PT: Ask Me Anything: Senior Service Engineer Manny Acevedo Answers your Migrations Questions [Option 1]
- February 11, 2021 7 PM PT: Ask Me Anything: Senior Service Engineer Manny Acevedo Answers your Migrations Questions [Option 2]
- February 16, 2021 11AM PT: FY21 FastTrack Ready Partner Success Call for February [Americas]
- February 17, 2021 6 AM PT: FY21 FastTrack Ready Partner Success Call for February [EMEA]
- February 18, 2021 8 AM PT: Protecting M365 On-premise Attacks Training (SolarWinds)
- February 22, 2021 7 PM PT: FY21 FastTrack Ready Partner Success Call for February [APJ]
- February 25, 2021 8 AM PT: MCAS & MDI – Live Q&A [Option 1]
- February 25, 2021 7 PM PT: MCAS & MDI – Live Q&A [Option 2]
- February 26, 2021 8 AM PT: FY21 February LATAM FRP/FPM Office Hours en Español
On Demand FRP Webinars & Learning
Click on the links below to learn more:
