Partner Support Plans
Purpose
A Collection of resources for Microsoft to support partners part of the (Microsoft Cloud Partner Program)
To contribute to the PartnerCrucible, see Contributor’s Guide.
Global Partner Services (GPS) Technical Team
The Microsoft Canada Global Partner Solutions Technical Team will provide technical enablement as part of the build-with motion for your team. This would include the following:
- Envisioning Briefing, Assessment – Technical Briefing, Roadmap Planning, Architecture Design Session (ADS), Build and Assist, Hackathon, Proof of Concept (POC), Technical Skills Enablement, Sales Skills Enablement, Sales Deal, Enablement (first 3 deals), Solution Technical Review, Deployment / Practice Review (Grow)
- Note: This team does not technical support or troubleshooting to delivery or operations team.
Support for Partners
- Partners may have a number of customer and partner support contracts in place.
- Partner support options range from those included with the Microsoft Partner Network (Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program) membership to Advanced and Premier support intended for CSP and hosters.
- The cloud support options are described here: Compare Microsoft Partner Support Offerings
| Option | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Partner Support | Create an online request for all programs supported in Partner Center. In Partner Center, we’ll provide you with a personalized experience. | |
| Technical Presales and Deployment Services | Use Technical Presales and Deployment services (TPD) for remote, personalized, one-to-one consultations to build your technical capabilities faster, so you can increase sales, deploy more effectively, and accelerate app development. | Create a Technical Presales and Deployment Services (TPD) request. |
| Advanced Support for Partners | Keep your customers satisfied and your business running smoothly with quick and elevated technical support benefits for Microsoft Azure, Microsoft365 and Dynamics365, a closer relationship with Microsoft and access to proactive cloud enablement services. | |
| Premier Support for Partners | Microsoft Premier Support for Partners offers complete, end-to-end managed support across the full Microsoft platform to meet your complex needs, expand your capabilities in the cloud, and collaborate more strategically with Microsoft. | … |
Partner Support FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Q. If the customer in on an EA, can a partner request support on behalf of the customer through ASfP? | - Yes. - The partner would have to “request a relationship” and have the proper affiliation with the customer because they likely did not purchase under CSP if they have an EA. - Nearly 100% of the time, because the ASfP tickets are “unlimited” and the EA may come with a limit or have a customer cost associated with them, the partner will encourage the EA customer to put the ticket through them (the partner). |
| Q. When should a partner use is support contract versus customer contract? | It depends on the scenario: -A partner should always want to use “their support plan” versus the customers when it is ASfP or PSfP. □ If/When the customer has an EA or their own “Unified/Premier” support, except that the customer would have hours or incidents decremented from their plan and the customer may not want their time/incidents deducted from their support plan. - ASfP has “unlimited incidents, however, PSfP may also have incidents/time deducted (again, depends on the type of plan the partner has - - i.e. ASfP has unlimited tickets). |
| Q. Can the end-customer engage with Microsoft support using the partner’s entitlement? | No. The contract is between Microsoft and the partner, not Microsoft and the partner and their hundreds of customers! |
References
| Source | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Compare Partner Support Offerings | Includes video and table with a comparison of: - Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program technical benefits - Advanced Support for Partners - Premier Support for Partners |
|
| Technical Presales and Deployment Services | Use Technical Presales and Deployment services (TPD) for remote, personalized, one-to-one consultations to build your technical capabilities faster, so you can increase sales, deploy more effectively, and accelerate app development. | Not in scope: sales pipeline planning, end-customer discussions, training delivery, licensing pricing, and price lists, Break-fix support/troubleshooting, hotfixes, on-site services, long-term consulting (over 25 hours per engagement), training delivery, direct-to-customer support, or hands-on support in a production environment, Code reviews/troubleshooting/performance tuning, application development beyond light proof-of-concepts. |
| Submit TPDS Request | To submit TPDS Request | Requires Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program membership and access to Partner Center |
| Partner Premier Support Training | Learn about Premier Support for Partners to help you increase your team’s technical capabilities and provide new service offerings to your customers. | |
| Providing Support to yourt customers under CSP | Description of support requirements under CSP | .. |
| Report problems on behalf of customers | Use the following steps to submit a service request on behalf of your customer | Scope: - Undocumented problems with services that aren’t operating according to service descriptions. -Unavailable services -Bugs and other irregularities that affect service appearance or operation -Large-scale network disruptions - Regional issues with multi-tenant impact |
| Microsoft Security Response Centre | Report a vulnerability in a Microsoft product or service to the MSRC - Microsoft Security Response Center. You can track the status of your report as we work with you to investigate and resolve the issue. | … |
| MSRC - Submit and Issue | There is a single process to report issues, supported by Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD) | … |