FastTrack Ready Partner Program
Heads Up!
January 25, 2021
A Message from Matt Ontell
We appreciate the excellent work done around the world by all of you. I'd like to take the chance to highlight Softline, whose accomplishments are on display on our new Partner Success Broadcast page.
In this video presentation, hear how Softline transformed their sales team and consultants’ customer conversations from a product focus scenario to a business focus scenario, and how this expanded their customer reach from IT infrastructure folks to CISOs and BDMs. Learn about four customer examples in which the Microsoft funded workshops resulted in E5 upsell and compete wins.
We want to celebrate your achievements with you, and we greatly appreciate when you share your success stories so that we can promote your accomplishments with the field, Modern Work Architects, and other stakeholders. Please submit your stories here: http://aka.ms/frpstories.
Matt Ontell
FRP Program Lead
RESOURCES TO DRIVE YOUR PRACTICE
Upcoming Changes to the FRP Dashboard’s Performance Requirements and Data Health Reports
As shared in this week’s Partner success calls (Americas, Asia, EMEA), in February you will see changes to the FRP Dashboard’s Performance Requirements and Data Health reports.
What’s Changing?
- We’re improving how we measure Partner’s Performance for FRP Program eligibility.
- The changes reflect alignment to the FY21 program.
- The updated reports will track and measure partner performance based on the customer tenant location
- This change provides clarity on where the impact was driven and aligns engineering with field & OCP.
Learn more about the impact and what to expect regarding the Performance Metrics, Data Health and Compliance in Yammer.
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Incentive Calculation Process Update: Change from Daily to Monthly Grain
Explanation of the change:
To align the FRP and OSU processes, we are transitioning our incentive calculations to be based on monthly usage data instead of daily. This means the usage data on the last day of the calendar month will be used to determine if a milestone was achieved in that month. This is a change from the previous model, where the highest usage on any day in a given month was used to determine milestone achievement.
Example:
In the previous model, with an incentive paid at 15%, if a service achieved 16% usage on the 10th of the month and then dipped back down to 13% for the rest of the month, it would have achieved the incentive milestone and be added to the incentive statement for that month.
In the new model, we only look at the usage recorded on the last day of the month. In the example above, this service does not have achieve the 15% milestone since the usage on the last day of the month was 13% despite being at 16% for a period of time during the month.
Incentive Eligibility Impact:
This change also impacts how incentive eligibility is calculated. In the daily grain model, we evaluate usage on the day the claim is received to determine whether the workload is below 10%/20% usage (depending on workload) and therefore eligible for the 15% or 40% milestone incentives.
In the monthly grain model, we will use the usage recorded on the last day of the previous month to determine milestone eligibility.
Example:
In the previous model, if a claim was submitted on January 10th and the usage was 11%, the service would not be eligible for the 15% milestone due to the minimum threshold of 10% having been exceeded. In the new model, the data from December 31st would be used to determine eligibility (the last day of the previous month) for a claim submitted on January 10th. If the usage on December 31st was 9%, it would be eligible for the milestone, regardless of the usage on the day the claim was submitted.
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New and Improved OSU/OSA FY21 Proof Of Execution (POE) Template
The existing POE Template, accessible in Partner Center, is being upgraded! This is an existing, encouraged method to submit POE in lieu, or in support of, a Statement of Work (SOW) or other documentation. In collaboration with partners and the FRP program team, the current templates (2 templates, 3 pages) have been combined into one template (4 pages) to reduce ambiguity and improve partner experience in the claim submission process.
The enhanced POE Template will be available in Partner Center in late January/early February.
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FRP Survey Q2 – Summary and Next Steps
Thank you to all who responded to our Q2 Survey! We received 118 responses and a wealth of information and perspective. While it's hard to summarize, we've assembled the key takeaways which are included in the Yammer post FRP Survey Q2 - Summary and next steps.
We are in the process of reviewing these insights and planning how we will address them. We expect to provide an update to you next month.
If you did not receive the survey and would like to ensure you are on the list, please contact Julie Martin directly to be added. Our next survey will be in Q4.
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Intune Moving to Support Android 6.x (Marshmallow) and higher in April
How this will affect your organization:
Office mobile apps for Android ended support for Android 5.x (Lollipop) on June 30, 2019. If you have devices that still run on Android version 5.x or decide to enroll any device that is running Android version 5.x, please note that these devices will either need to be upgraded to Android version 6.x (Marshmallow) or greater, or they will need to be upgraded to a device that supports Android version 6.0 or greater.
Note: Teams Android devices are not impacted by this announcement and will continue to be supported regardless of their Android OS version.
What you need to do to prepare:
Notify your helpdesk, if applicable, of this upcoming change. Starting in April, MDM enrolled devices with Android Lollipop and the Company Portal will receive a prompt to upgrade their OS or device. If you use Intune app protection policies, you can also set the “Require minimum OS version (Warning only)” conditional launch setting to help raise awareness with your end users of the upcoming change.
Please reference the Yammer post Intune will be moving to support Android 6.x (Marshmallow) and higher in April
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Service Reminder - Intune certificate updates: Action may be required for continued connectivity
Microsoft Intune has begun updating our Root certificates to comply with Azure’s new certificate policy. We anticipate updates will be completed on or around February 10, 2021. Most management scenarios will work without administrator action, however, there are a few different configurations that may require you to take action to ensure your continued connectivity to Intune.
Learn more about how this will affect your organization and what you need to do to prepare in Yammer.
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Edge January Newsletter
Catch up on the latest Edge news in the January Newsletter including:
- Edge BVD Refresh
- M365 Support Deprecation for IE11 & Legacy Edge End of Support Announcements + Campaigns
- Edge FTOP PowerBI Report Updates
- Clarification around POE submission requirements
- Customer Success Stories
- Reminder to FRPs to ensure that FTOP Notes are up to date
- Updates to Core Resources Guide
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What’s new in the Playbook and on the FRP Hub
We have a new landing page! The new FRP Hub home is designed to provide a more complete 1-stop-shop for your key FRP program resources. If you haven’t already, be sure to bookmark http://aka.ms/fasttrackready!
Under Construction! We are implementing some changes to our content management processes to provide partners the most complete and up-to-date Playbook content. Over the coming weeks, you may notice some changes to links as we migrate content to the improved structure.
We welcome and appreciate your feedback – please share your experience on Yammer!
For a complete list of Playbook changes, please visit the Playbook Change Logs page.
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Upcoming FRP Events
Click on the links below to register for upcoming events:
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On Demand FRP Webinars & Learning
Click on the links below to learn more:
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View the previous edition of Heads Up.
RESOURCES TO DRIVE YOUR PRACTICE
- Fix to Forecast Dates in FastTrack Orchestration Portal (FTOP)
- Correction to M365 Apps AU Reporting Issue
- New Whitepaper: Migrating Applications from Symantec SiteMinder to Azure Active Directory
- How to Protect Microsoft 365 from On-Premises Attacks with Azure AD
- New Automation Assistant to Configure MS Search
- Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM): Updates and Reminder to Submit Feedback
- Blog - Staying Up to Date: Intune New Features, Service Changes, and Service Health
EVENTS & RECORDINGS
- Upcoming FRP Events
- On Demand FRP Webinars & Learning
- The Global Education Partner Summit (GEPS) 2021
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