A Message from Matt Ontell
I hope everyone is staying safe and well as we head into Q4 and spring arrives in the northern hemisphere. I want to continue to thank this amazing community for the impact you're having with customers every day. The success stories that you share with us, that we then pass along to the field and our engineering leadership shows the passion and commitment you have to helping our customers with their digital transformation.
With FY22 planning in full swing, focus remains on security, compliance, and Teams as customer's adapt to hybrid work with some countries opening back up. As a reminder, the FRP only incentives (Edge, OLM-MAM, and A310) run through June 30, 2021 while the OSU-M365 related incentives continue until September 30, 2021. Continue to leverage the Cloud Accelerators and all the funding options to continue the strong momentum!
Finally, we appreciate your submissions in the FRP Insights/Feedback Forum; we are using the submissions in our planning as I write this. Thanks for all you do to empower our customers every day.
Cheers,
Matt Ontell
FRP Program Lead
In this Issue
Program News | Workload News | Documentation Updates | Events and Recordings
Program News
Workload News
Documentation Updates
Events and Recordings
The Teams Meetings 60% Incentive is globally available
The Teams Meetings 60% Incentive is now available globally. From April 1, 2021 through June 30, 2021 we are offering an alternative 60% milestone incentive for Teams Meetings. (LATAM and India eligibility remains November 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021.)
The incentive creates an opportunity for FastTrack partners to claim customers whose Teams Meetings usage is above 20%, but below 40%, and get paid for driving usage above 60%. The incentive is meant to replace the 40% milestone payment for partners who missed the opportunity to claim it. This is not an additional payment and does not apply to customers where the 15% and/or 40% milestone payouts have been issued.
FastTrack Ready partners must have an approved CPOR claim for eligible (>20% <40% Teams Meetings AU on CPOR claim date) customers to earn this incentive. Please review Terms and Conditions for information about additional eligibility requirements and incentive rates.
The announcement of the Teams Meeting 60% Incentive was posted on Yammer on March 31, 2021.
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Microsoft 365 Deployment Offer extended through the end of fiscal
The Microsoft 365 Deployment Offer Terms and Conditions have been extended through the end of the fiscal, with a new ending date of June 30, 2021.
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Edge payments included in March statements
The March FRP incentive statement is available, and where applicable will include payment for Edge. If you helped drive PBMAU growth of 150 or more across your customer portfolio since the beginning of the program, payment will be reflected in the Edge row of the "Incentive Subtotals" section of your statement.
Be sure to leverage the FRP Edge Report within the FRP Dashboard to track PBMAU growth for your registered tenants. When reviewing the report, keep in mind that partners are eligible for payment for all growth achieved after the tenant's Edge Claim Date.
Thank you again for your continued support in making the Edge program successful.
The announcement of Edge Payment in the March statement was posted on Yammer on March 26, 2021.
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Test tenant available in the FastTrack Portal/Migration Hub
If you would like to get access to a test tenant to familiarize yourself with the FastTrack Migration Experience before engaging you customer about the benefit, please email Manny Acevedo (manny.acevedo@microsoft.com).
Once visible, you can create Project cards and consume the Learning Center. We hope this will help you prepare for your customer engagements when it comes to using the Migration Benefit. This tenant is for learning purposes only.
For more information, please refer to the March 24, 2021 Yammer announcement Test Tenant available for Partner education in the FastTrack Portal/Migration Hub.
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Reminder about Public Sector and POE requirement
Please review the following policy as a reminder on POE requirements for public sector customers. The public sector disclosure rules supersede all other POE policy exceptions and review standards.
In order to approve incentive claims for public sector customers in the US and Puerto Rico, the Proof of Execution (POE) submitted to Microsoft must include an acknowledged notice to the customer, informing the customer of the potential fees, commission or compensation that partner may receive from Microsoft, if any, in connection with the products or services being procured. This is referred to as the public sector disclosure, or PSD. This can be provided in the form of a .msg or .eml file containing a message from the customer, a signed document, or any other document which contains proof that the customer is aware of the potential monetary compensation involved.
PSD is a compliance/legal mandated requirement for transactions involving public sector customers that has been in place since the inception of the Azure, OSA, and OSU incentives programs. This policy is applicable to all incentive programs, including when full POE is not required.
Example of acceptable public sector disclosure verbiage:
"[CUSTOMER] acknowledges that [PARTNER] may receive monetary fees, commission or compensation from Microsoft in connection with the services provided to [CUSTOMER]."
Additional Resources on public sector requirements:
Passwordless Authentication general availability
Passwordless authentication methods besides Windows hello for business will now be in scope for FastTrack.
The following tasks are to be completed by Fasttrack Engineers for customers with no AADP licensing and by an EMS SME for customers with that licensing.
- Task 3720 – Updated guidance around passwordless as well as adding the passwordless wizard.
- Task 4075 – Updated remediation checklist and task guidance around passwordless.
- New Task 4128 “Deploy Passwordless Features” created.
The Security and Compliance Service Description has been modified in alignment with this scope change.
Be sure to download the refreshed EMS Remediation Checklist.
Training will be offered at the end of April 2021.
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Updated Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) Business Value Deck (BVD)
On September 22, 2020, we adopted new brand names for the Defender product suite and have updated and separated business value decks: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (formerly Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection) and Microsoft Defender for Office (formerly Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection).
Effective March 24, 2021, you should use the new Microsoft Defender for Endpoint BVD when engaging with your customers. The updated deck not only includes the name change, but also refreshes the way we talk about MDE and its features. Note: Enterprise documentation may continue to have both names in specific locations for a period of time.
Reference material
Please reference the March 24, 2021 Yammer announcement Updated Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) business value deck (BVD) to be released on 3/24 for more information.
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Defender for Endpoint (MDE), Defender for Office 365 (MDO), and Microsoft 365 Defender (M365D) merged into the Microsoft 365 Security Center
At the end of March 2021, Defender for Endpoint (MDE), Defender for Office 365 (MDO), and Microsoft 365 Defender (M365D) merged into the Microsoft 365 Security Center for a more robust and comprehensive portal. Enterprise security teams can use the new portal experience to:
- View, sort, and triage alerts from your endpoints
- Search for more information on observed indicators, such as files and IP Addresses
- Change Microsoft Defender for Endpoint settings, including time zone, and review licensing information
Impact of Change: FastTrack Ready Partners should be aware of the portals being combined into one and review the training below for updated guidance.
For training and reference materials, see the Yammer post Defender for Endpoint (MDE), Defender for Office 365 (MDO), and Microsoft 365 Defender (M365D) merging into the Microsoft 365 security center.
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Blog: Deploying Microsoft 365 Apps for Mac with MEM – A Deep Dive
Our engineering released this new blog - Deploying Microsoft 365 Apps for Mac with Microsoft Endpoint Manager - A Deep Dive which details the 3 ways you can deploy (and update) via Intune:
- Mac App Store (VPP)
- Microsoft Content Delivery Network
- Intune Scripting Agent for Mac
Reference the March 30, 2021 Yammer announcement [Blog] Deploying Microsoft 365 Apps for Mac with MEM - A Deep Dive.
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Early Access: Intune for Education on Partner University
We are in the process of launching a Partner University course on Intune for Education and want to give you early access.
By having at least one member of your organization pass the assessment, your organization will be promoted in our re-vamped EDU Partner Finder Tool. More to come in May 2021.
Reference the March 29, 2021 Yammer announcement Early Access: Intune for Education on Partner University.
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Blog: Work/personal visual improvements in Outlook Mobile
Check out this blog post to learn about the visual improvements in Outlook Mobile and how Intune APP will impact some of these changes, Work/personal visual improvements in Outlook mobile - Microsoft Tech Community.
Terms and Conditions
The Terms and Conditions have been revised to reflect the Teams Meeting 60% Incentive Offer is extended to all eligible customers globally, April 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021. (This expansion does not change the previously stated LATAM + India eligibility dates, November 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021.) Please review the Terms and Conditions for the exact guidance.
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FastTrack Playbook
Visit the March 2021 Playbook change log for a complete list of Playbook changes.
Key changes from March include MSDE & MSDO BVD Rebrand, Feature Extension for FastTrack – Passwordless, DLP Compete Knowledge - Symantec and Crowdstrike and more!
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Service Descriptions
March updates to the Service Description include:
- Insider Risk Management has been split out from Microsoft Information Governance.
- Discover & Respond has been split out from Microsoft Information Governance.
- MDATP and OATP have been updated with their new brand names Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (MDO)
Upcoming FRP Events
Click on the links below to register for upcoming events:
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Curated Webinars
Click on the links below to register for upcoming events:
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On Demand FRP Webinars and Learning
Click on the links below to learn more:
