Support ticket escalation

Question

I opened ticket [Moderator note: personal info removed] on the 10th of Februray regarding an issue with permissions on Exchange public folders.

To date, I am still unable to assign or remove user access, and the issue remains unresolved. This is now significantly impacting operations.

Despite multiple follow-ups and having copied the relevant managers, I have not received any concrete response or resolution. This lack of communication is concerning.

I would appreciate this being escalated to ensure it receives the attention it requires.
Can you tell me how would I do that?

Answer 1

Dear @Matteo Corbetta,

I fully understand your frustration regarding the lack of communication concerning this support ticket—particularly given that it has been pending since February 10th and is currently impacting your daily operations.

I am a community moderator on this public Q&A forum, not a member of the internal Microsoft Exchange backend support team. Consequently, I do not have direct access to internal support tickets, nor do I have the ability to open new cases or escalate existing support requests on your behalf. I sincerely apologize for this inconvenience and wish that I could assist you more directly.

However, since you currently possess the support ticket number, the most effective way for you to immediately expedite an escalation with the team currently handling your case is as follows:

If you still have an open email thread with your assigned support agent or their team, please reply directly and explicitly state the following: "I need to escalate this case to an urgent priority level." Support agents have established protocols to immediately flag a case for management attention whenever this specific phrase is used.

In your reply, clearly request that the support agent have a manager call you back within a specific timeframe.

Once again, please accept my apologies for being unable to intervene directly within the internal system to assist you. I hope that reaching out to your support agent again with this urgent request will help resolve your access issue promptly.

Answer 2

To escalate a long-running, unresolved Exchange Online public folder permissions issue, use Microsoft’s formal escalation paths rather than only replying on the existing ticket thread.

1. If working through a CSP/partner
   • Contact the Cloud Solution Provider or partner that manages the tenant.
   • Ask them explicitly to escalate the case through Commercial issue support or Technical issue support for CSP partners, depending on how the ticket was opened.
   • Partners can use:
     • Commercial issue support for billing/contract issues.
     • Technical issue support via one of the partner support plans (Premier Support for Partners, Advanced Support for Partners, Partner cloud support, or Product Support Incidents) to escalate to Microsoft engineering.
2. If the organization has a Microsoft partner support plan
   • Identify which support plan applies (for example, Premier Support for Partners (PSfP), Advanced Support for Partners (ASfP), Partner cloud support, or Product Support Incidents).
   • Open a new technical support request under that plan, referencing the existing ticket number (2602101410002453), and request escalation.
   • Clearly state that:
     • The issue is blocking assignment/removal of public folder access.
     • The original ticket has been open since 10 February with no resolution.
     • Business impact is high (describe impact briefly).
3. Provide detailed technical data to speed escalation
   • When escalating, include:
     • The affected public folder hierarchy and mailboxes.
     • Output from:
       • Get-Mailbox -Identity <affected user> | Format-List *public*
       • Get-PublicFolderClientPermission for the affected folders and mailboxes, as shown in the public folder permission troubleshooting guidance.
       • Any attempts to run Update-PublicFolderMailbox <mailbox> -InvokeSynchronizer if hierarchy/permissions replication was suspected.
     • Any error messages users see when trying to access or modify public folders.
   • For deeper analysis, support may also ask for Get-PublicFolderMailboxDiagnostics ... -IncludeHierarchyInfo output or an exported diagnostics file (Export-Clixml) as described in the public folder permission troubleshooting article.
4. If the case is already with Microsoft Support
   • Reply in the existing case and explicitly request escalation to the next support tier due to ongoing impact and lack of progress.
   • If the tenant is under a partner support plan, ask the partner’s support contact or TAM (Technical Account Manager) to push an escalation on the Microsoft side.
5. If the issue involves a potential service defect
   • When describing the problem, note if permissions are not replicating or behaving inconsistently across public folder mailboxes, as this aligns with known hierarchy/permission synchronization issues.
   • Microsoft Support may use the diagnostics and sync information to determine whether to escalate to the product group.

Using the appropriate partner or support plan channel and providing the detailed diagnostics above gives Microsoft Support the information needed to prioritize and escalate the case effectively.

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References:

• Customer service problems or report vulnerabilities to escalate to Microsoft
• How to diagnose and fix public folder permission issues