Dear Partner Community,
We want to thank you once again for embracing and driving the Edge motion this year!
 
As you may be aware already - it was announced earlier that the Edge Incentive will be concluding on June 30th, 2021 (FRP Blog or Yammer). This means new registrations will no longer be accepted after this date.

To thank our partners for their commitment and support to the Edge motion this year, we are pleased to announce that incentives may be earned for eligible usage (Edge PBMAU) on registrations for an additional two months in FY22 - for growth in July and August 2021. Final payments for the incentive program will be made one month in arrears (August or September).

In May, we made a major product announcement that we expect will support our Partners for a strong finish to the year - the Internet Explorer Desktop application retirement.

We expect this announcement to drive increased demand from customers who need assistance with deploying Microsoft Edge, configuring sites to run in IE mode, testing sites, and modernizing their apps. Please consider these needs for any relevance to your existing service offerings and upcoming marketing campaigns. We see large partner opportunities as customers continue the shift to a modern browser and modern app ecosystem. Microsoft has investments supporting customers migrating from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Edge such as FastTrack App Assure.

We will explore future opportunities for partners to support Microsoft Edge.
 
As always - If you have any Edge Deployment, Product Gaps or Program feedback - please leverage the new Insights process (https://aka.ms/frp-insights) For any Partners who would like to do a 1-1, please connect with me (sachin.kini@microsoft.com) along with your FPM.
 
And THANK YOU once again for all the incredible support driving Edge Adoption!
 

In this Issue

• IE11 Retirement Announcement
• Restrict Internet Explorer by policy | new FTOP task – effective April 7, 2021
• M365 Admin Center browser usage reporting
• App Assure
• Intent, Deployment-Automation and Adoption Resources

● Edge News

Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired on Windows 10 on June 15, 2022

On May 19th, 2021, we announced that the future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge with Internet Explorer mode. Because of this, the IE11 desktop application on certain versions of Windows 10 will be retired on June 15, 2022. Please review the IE Retirement Announcement blog for details and share this announcement with any customers that may still be using IE11.

We expect this announcement to drive increased demand from customers that may need assistance with deploying Microsoft Edge, configuring sites to run in IE mode, and modernizing their apps. See the FastTrack Ready Partner Incentive for Edge program details for information on how partners can earn an incentive for helping eligible commercial and education customers use Microsoft Edge as their primary browser to connect to M365 online services.

As a reminder, Microsoft 365 web apps and services won’t be supported on Internet Explorer 11 as of August 17, 2021. Read the original announcement here: https://aka.ms/IElifecycle

Resources

• https://aka.ms/IEmodeBlog 
• https://aka.ms/MSFTAppsIE11
• https://aka.ms/IEModeGuide
• https://aka.ms/IEmodeFAQ

Restrict Internet Explorer by policy | new FTOP task – effective April 7, 2021

This guidance will support customers to restrict ongoing use of IE by the users as it implements a new policy that removes the IE entry point from the start menu and re-directs links to Edge. This change will be a key element to enable organizations to change user behavior centrally by policy and ensure they are ready for the August end of support date.
 
Impact of Change
This new task will guide customers and Partners to consider to restrict use of Internet Explorer 11 for their users. This is enforced via policy, thus once enabled they can proactively move remaining IE use to Edge. This guidance includes considerations to

• verify all sites that require IE are configured in the customer site list
• user communications to prepare the users for the change
• guidance to enable the policy.

Reference Material

• Training - http://partner-docs.microsoft.com/r/c3d1O60D1Hl
• Policy documentation - https://aka.ms/Edge/RestrictIE

M365 Admin Center browser usage reporting

The M365 Admin Center Reporting now has the latest telemetry data for Microsoft browser monthly active usage. IT Pros can now see a detailed report of all Microsoft browser usage across their organization. This information will provide valuable insight and aid in reaching their Microsoft Edge adoption goals.
 
Customers currently do not have an intelligent way to account for the success of their Microsoft Edge deployment and adoption efforts. Having the proper telemetry and reporting available to view monthly active usage of M365 Services across all Microsoft browsers used in their organization directly in the M365 Admin Center will aid in their deployment and adoption efforts.
 
Note: This report is representative of Microsoft ONLY (including Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Edge Legacy, and Internet Explorer) browsers and is specific to monthly active usage (MAU) of connected M365 services. This report does not show usage of other browsers nor is it the same PB MAU metric that the Edge motion is tracking on.
Reference material:

• Microsoft Edge ACM Workshop deck
• M365 Reports – Microsoft browser usage
• Browser Usage Report Metric video

App Assure for Edge

App Assure can help with the transition to Microsoft Edge by providing FastTrack-eligible customers with compatibility assistance for business-critical apps and sites.
 
The App Assure promise: If your web apps or sites work in Internet Explorer 11, on supported versions of Google Chrome, or in any versions of Microsoft Edge, they’ll also work in the latest Microsoft Edge. If you encounter compatibility issues, we provide remediation assistance at no additional cost.
 
Resources: App Assure service request
 
Additional resources:

• YouTube Ignite March 2021: Bring your apps to Microsoft Edge with App Assure: Hear tips and tricks
• Ask Microsoft Anything with App Assure
• Twitch Stream on Windows Insider Preview Channel

Intent, Deployment-Automation & Adoption Resources

Demos to generate customer intent: https://aka.ms/FRP-EdgeDemoVideos (PowerPoint download)
A set of automation resources in the M365 Admin Center to accelerate deployment and adoption of Edge for your customers

• https://aka.ms/setupguidance
• https://aka.ms/EdgeAdvisor
• https://aka.ms/AdminEmailTemplates
• https://aka.ms/MicrosoftSearchSetup

 
Additional assets to drive adoption

• End-user focused interactive demo. Viewers can click through this demo to learn about Edge features and see how they work https://aka.ms/EdgeWorkDemo

End User / Information Worker Adoption Kit http://aka.ms/Edge/FTAdoptionContent