Solutions Partner - frequently asked questions

We're simplifying our partner programs to focus on differentiating services solution capabilities in order to meet customer's needs. We're introducing the Solutions Partner designation, anchored on the Microsoft Cloud in six solution areas. These areas are aligned to how Microsoft goes to market: Data & AI (Azure), Digital & App Innovation (Azure), Infrastructure (Azure), Business Applications, Modern Work and Security.

This new model provides two qualifying levels: Solutions Partner and specialist or expert.

From September 30, 2022, onward, legacy competencies and associated badging will no longer be valid. If you have a competency by that date, you'll retain your benefits.

Solutions Partner designations will be available for partners to attain starting on October 3, 2022.

We're introducing the Solutions Partner designations, anchored on the Microsoft Cloud in six solution areas aligned to how Microsoft goes to market. By attaining Solutions Partner designations, you can demonstrate your organization's capabilities in delivering customer success in the solution areas.

This is valuable for you because it's where we see customer demand and where opportunity exists for partners to scale and meet customer needs.

The six designations will be Solutions Partner for Data & AI (Azure), Digital & App Innovation (Azure), Infrastructure (Azure), Business Applications, Modern Work, and Security.

A Solutions Partner designation helps to identify partners with experience in high demand Microsoft Cloud solution areas and those who have delivered successful customer outcomes. Success is measured by customer success, skilling, and performance.

Yes. September 30, 2022, is the last day for partners to renew competencies. Effective October 2022, competencies will no longer be valid. This means that badges will go away and competencies won't be promoted by Microsoft. Partners will retain their benefits.

If you have competencies, you'll have time to learn more and assess how the Solutions Partner designation fits into the strategic plan for your business. September 30, 2022, is the last day to renew legacy competencies. Once Solutions Partner designations are available on October 3, you'll have the option to retain legacy benefits.

You should assess the new designations and benefits to determine how they align with your business plan. You can work with your global or Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program partner admin to sign into Partner Center to check your progress towards attaining the Solutions Partner designation.

If you choose to renew your legacy competency before September 30, 2022, you'll be provided your legacy benefits through to your next anniversary date and can renew them at that time.

If, after October 3, 2022, you attain 70 points for the Solutions Partner designation, you'll immediately receive the new customer-facing badge and no extra fee is paid. On your next anniversary date, you'll be able to choose whether to retain your legacy competency benefits or move to the updated Solutions Partner designation benefits. You'll pay the appropriate fee and receive the benefits.

However, you might choose not to renew your legacy competency and instead focus on attaining the Solutions Partner designation. In this instance, once you attain the Solutions Partner designation, since you don't have legacy benefits, you can immediately pay the fee and move to the new Solutions Partner benefits. However, you won't have the opportunity to select your prior legacy competency benefits as part of your Solutions Partner membership.

No, you can't renew your legacy competency before your anniversary date. If your anniversary date is after September 30, you'll have options.

If you meet the requirements, you immediately attain a Solutions Partner designation and the new customer-facing badging. Legacy competencies and associated badges will no longer be valid after September 30, 2022.

However, you'll retain your legacy benefits (benefits you received based on the competency you held on September 30, 2022), until your next anniversary date. On our anniversary date, if you don't meet the requirements for the Solutions Partner designation, you'll have the option to pay the fee and retain your legacy benefits (benefits you received based on the competency you held on September 30, 2022), until your next anniversary date.

No; however, you don't pay another fee until your next anniversary date. If you've renewed your legacy competency before September 30, 2022, and you attain the Solutions Partner designation from October 3, 2022, onward, you'll immediately receive the new customer-facing badge and no extra fee is paid.

On your next anniversary date, you'll be able to choose whether to retain your legacy competency benefits or move to the updated Solutions Partner designation benefits. You'll pay the appropriate fee and receive the benefits.

Starting October 3, 2022, Solutions Partner designations will be available for partners to attain. If you meet the requirements and earn the required partner capability score, you immediately attain a Solutions Partner designation and the new customer-facing badging.

Legacy competencies and associated badges will no longer be valid after September 30, 2022. However, you'll retain your legacy benefits (benefits you received based on the competency you held on September 30, 2022), until your next anniversary date.

On your next anniversary date after October 3, 2022, you'll have the following options:

Qualifications for designation at the time of anniversary:

• Maintain a Solutions Partner designation if you've attained one. Partner will have two options relating to benefits, they can only pick one option. A partner must choose option #1 or #2 in order to retain access to the benefits.
  • Option #1: To receive the Solutions Partner designation benefits, you'll pay the annual fee. Annual fees for Solutions Partner designation will be aligned to the legacy gold competency fees. OR
  • Option #2: Retain your legacy silver or gold competency benefits and pay an annual fee. Annual fees for legacy silver or gold competency benefits will be aligned to the legacy silver and gold competency fees.

Doesn't qualify for designation at the time of anniversary:

• Retain your legacy silver or gold competency benefits and pay an annual fee. Annual fees for legacy silver or gold competency benefits will be aligned to the legacy silver and gold competency fees.

Competencies and associated badges are no longer valid after September 30, 2022. You'll continue to receive legacy benefits (benefits you received based on the competency you held on September 30, 2022), for legacy competencies until your next anniversary date. After that time there is an option to continue to purchase legacy benefits.

Example: If a partner previously held only silver or gold, the partner can purchase legacy silver or legacy gold (according with the previously held enrollment) and receive the core and competency benefits provisioned prior to 30th September 2022.

No. A partner that held both silver and gold competencies can renew only legacy gold benefits. The benefits previously held and purchased with the gold enrollment is provisioned to the new legacy gold membership. Competency benefits attained with a previous silver enrollment are not connected to the gold membership and are not provisioned upon gold legacy renewal.

The PCI (Partner Contribution Indicator) score has seven key indicators used to assess your progress toward attaining or retaining a legacy Cloud Business Applications competency only. With the introduction of Solutions Partner designations, PCI will no longer be used, and we're moving to a new holistic measurement called the partner capability score which measures performance, skilling, and customer success categories aligned with each solution area. A minimum of 70 points (with points in each category and sub-category) out of the possible 100 points that are available, is needed to attain a Solutions Partner designation.

A Solutions Partner designation has a holistic measurement framework, the partner capability score, which measures performance, skilling, and customer success. This holistic measurement provides you flexibility to demonstrate your knowledge, skills, and experience.

To attain a Solutions Partner designation, you need to earn a minimum of 70 points (with points in each category and subcategory) out of the possible 100 points that are available.

Admins can sign in to the Solutions Partner page in Partner Center to see how their organization is progressing towards the Solutions Partner designation.

Performance and Customer Success subcategories are typically refreshed by the 20th of every month. However, there might be extra minor data refreshes throughout the month.

Skilling subcategories are typically refreshed within 10 days after certification is completed.

Log a ticket with Support at Microsoft support.

Yes, you can earn partial points in whole increments. For example, if a metric requires three customer adds with a total of 30 total points and you obtain one customer add you'll earn 10 of the 30 total points.

If your organization doesn't have the 70 points required to meet the Solutions Partner designation, you can sign into the Solutions Partner page in Partner Center for guidance on how you can improve your score in each of the categories: performance, skilling, and customer success.

70 points is the minimum requirement to attain a Solutions Partner designation. It's 70 points out of a possible 100 points, and partners need to have points in all subcategories. The associated Solutions Partner designation will become the prerequisite for specializations and expert programs. For example, to earn the Calling for Microsoft Teams specialization, a partner would first need to attain the Solutions Partner for Modern Work designation, then meet the specialization requirements, which are otherwise unchanged.

For more information on the requirements, visit the specialization pages on the Microsoft partner website.

No. Specializations and expert programs will continue to be a way to further differentiate your organization's deep technical expertise.

Solutions Partner designations are the first opportunity to differentiate your organization's capabilities in delivering customer success. 70 points is the minimum requirement to attain a Solutions Partner designation. It's 70 points out of a possible 100 points, and partners need to have points in all subcategories. The associated Solutions Partner designation will become the prerequisite for specializations and expert programs.

For example, to earn the Calling for Microsoft Teams specialization, a partner would first need to attain the Solutions Partner for Modern Work designation, then meet the specialization requirements, which are otherwise unchanged. For more information on the requirements, visit the specialization pages on the Microsoft partner website.

At any time after October 3, 2022, if your organization meets requirements for the Solutions Partner designation, you'll immediately receive the corresponding customer-facing badge.

On your anniversary date, not beforehand, we'll check if you still meet the requirements. If you do, you'll retain the Solutions Partner designation and corresponding badge after paying the annual fee.

We recognize that Solutions Partner designations are primarily for partners providing services, but all partners are welcome to participate in Solutions Partner designations and our broader partner program that offers extra benefits.

For example, new features and functionality are now available to help independent software vendors (ISVs) sell more with Microsoft through our commercial marketplace.

Microsoft continues to make commitments to make the commercial marketplace the most partner-focused business platform with flat agency fees of 3%, the opportunity to motivate partners in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program to sell an ISV's offer with margin sharing and unlock enterprise customers with enhancements in private offers for customized deals.

For services partners who focus on SMB, there's a path within the Solutions Partner for Modern Work.

The Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program is designed for all partners, including you and your resellers.

For your resellers

Resellers can join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program and attain the various designations within it as they align to their organizational goals and priorities. Resellers should refer to all materials and resources in the Training Gallery and Partner Center to learn more about what the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program means for them. Resellers with competencies on September 30, 2022, won't lose their benefits, and will have the option to renew their legacy benefits at their next anniversary date whether they qualify for a Solutions Partner designation or not at that time.

For your work directly with customers

If in addition to your work as an indirect provider, you have a direct-to-customer business for your services, software solutions, or devices, you can attain the various designations within the partner program as they align to your organizational goals and priorities. Refer to Partner Center and the Training Gallery to learn more about what the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program means for your customer-facing business.

For your work as an indirect provider

To better recognize and support your work within your business model as an indirect provider, we're prioritizing planning for a designation that recognizes the skill, capabilities, resources, and support provided by indirect providers to the resellers in your channel. We're also exploring avenues for making your reseller scores available to you to help your support and grow your resellers. In your work with your resellers regarding the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, refer to the materials in the Training Gallery as your primary source of detail, and use Partner Center to review your resellers' scores with them.

The Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program is designed for all partners. Whether you build and sell services, software solutions, or devices, our partner-focused business platform opens the door to the Microsoft ecosystem of resources, tools, and opportunities to support your success on the Microsoft Cloud. To better support any ISV that wants to work with us, we're investing in programs, resources, and initiatives that meet you where you are. At Microsoft Inspire in July, we announced ISV Success within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. Currently within preview and moving to public preview later this year, ISV Success will be open to all ISV partners to help them access benefits to build and publish apps faster, accelerate innovation, and reach more customers.

We also announced that we're adding industry designations to differentiate solutions based on partners' demonstrated performance with customers, technical maturity, and customer success. We'll be prioritizing industry designations anchored on the Microsoft Industry Clouds and aligning across the Solutions Partner and ISV programs to help partners further differentiate their organization's capabilities and marketplace offers.

For more information, see ISV growth.

Customers want to work with partners who have the right skills and capabilities to meet their needs, along with demonstrated ability to deliver customer success. The Solutions Partner designations clearly differentiate you from your competition. By attaining a Solutions Partner designation, you demonstrate your commitment to skilling and training and highlight the innovations and successful solutions you're building and delivering that contribute to customers' success.

By attaining Solutions Partner designation, you'll demonstrate your organization's breadth of capabilities in delivering customer success in the solution area aligned to how Microsoft goes to market. That is valuable for you, because it's where we see customer demand, and where the opportunity is for partners to scale to meet customer needs.

To learn more about the Solutions Partner designations, visit the Microsoft partner website.

You can track your progress towards earning a Solutions Partner designation by signing into Partner Center and navigating to the Solutions Partner page.

The Solutions Partner designations benefits include internal use licenses (IUR) and other familiar benefits such as go-to-market services and resources, support and more. All Solutions Partner designations include benefits such as marketing, support, and advisory benefits. Each designation also has specific incremental benefits.

To learn more about Solutions Partner benefits, visit the benefits guide on the Microsoft partner website.

Designation badges and benefits are attained on the partner global account ("PGA") level, badges and benefits can be distributed to the partner location account(s) ("PLA") that are associated to the PGA. It is at the discretion of the PGA regarding how to distribute benefits to PLA(s).

To learn more about the relations between PGA and PLA, see Two levels of MPN partner accounts.

If a partner has multiple PGAs, they can choose to consolidate by following the steps in Merge accounts.

New customer-facing badges for the Solutions Partner designations will be available from October 3, 2022. There's one badge per solution area, which represents the Solutions Partner designation. There's also a Solutions Partner for Microsoft Cloud badge, for partners who attain all six Solutions Partner designations.

Color and black and white versions of the badging will be available for download from Logo Builder in Partner Center once partners have attained the designations from October onwards. Badge use guidelines will be available from October in Logo Builder and on the Microsoft partner website.

The annual fee to attain a Solutions Partner designation is $4,730 USD (or equivalent, local fees vary). This is aligned to the existing fees to attain a legacy gold competency.

For partners with a legacy competency by September 30, 2022, who attain a Solutions Partner designation, the required annual fee is based on the benefits selected and is due at your existing anniversary date (as listed in membership page in Partner Center).

For example, if you choose the Solutions Partner designation benefits, you will pay an annual fee of $4,730 USD (or equivalent, local fees vary) aligned to the legacy gold competency fee. If you choose to retain the legacy benefits (benefits you received based on the legacy competency you held on September 30, 2022), you'll pay a fee aligned to your legacy silver or gold competency fee (local fees vary).

You can choose to attain one Solutions Partner designation, or more, if applicable to your business. Once you attain a Solutions Partner designation, subsequent Solutions Partner designations can be attained, after requirements are met, with no extra fee.

The annual fee for the Solutions Partner designation, regardless of how many designations, will be $4,730 USD (or equivalent, local fees vary), aligned to the legacy gold competency fee. As it works with competencies today, if a partner earns subsequent designations, they don't need to pay the fee again.

If you earn a subsequent designation in between anniversary dates, you'll be able to access the subsequent benefits immediately, you don't have to wait until your upcoming anniversary date.

The designation is valid until the anniversary date of when the first designation was attained. For example, if a Solutions Partner for Modern Work designation is attained November 2022, and then Business Applications is attained January 2023 and Security in February 2023, all three designations will have the same anniversary date of November 2023.

If you attain a Solutions Partner designation, specializations further validate and differentiate your deep technical experience and expertise.

Specializations demonstrate your ability to deliver project-based services related to specific technical scenarios aligned to the solutions areas, and with how we go to market. Earning a specialization strengthens and differentiates you from your competition in areas with high customer demand. We're also introducing new badges and benefits.

To learn more about specialization benefits, see the specialization guide.

At that time, legacy gold competencies will no longer be valid, and Solutions Partner designations will become prerequisites to earn specializations. You'll have until the anniversary date of your specialization to attain the required Solutions Partner designation along with the other specialization requirements. You won't be allowed to renew your specialization if you haven't attained a Solutions Partner designation.

The Solutions Partner designation becomes the first opportunity for you to demonstrate your breadth of skills, knowledge and set yourself apart from the competition. Once you attain a Solutions Partner designation, you can further differentiate your deep technical expertise and experience with specializations (formerly called advanced specializations) and through the Microsoft Azure Expert Managed Service Provider (MSP) program.

The benefits of the Solutions Partner designation include many of the same benefits that today's competency program partners are accustomed to:

• product benefits (formerly known as IUR), composed of Azure credits
• cloud service subscriptions
• On-premises licenses
• marketing (or go-to-market) benefits
• support and advisory benefits composed of technical pre-sales and deployment services and technical support

Each of six solution partner designations also has specific incremental benefits. Download the license table to understand the distribution of benefits across each solution area.

Starting on October 3, 2022, Solutions Partner designations will be available for partners to attain and will become a prerequisite to earn, maintain, and renew a specialization.

If you have an active specialization on October 3, 2022, it will automatically transition to a specialization. At that time, legacy gold competencies will no longer be valid and Solutions Partner designations will become prerequisites to earn specializations. You'll have until the anniversary date of your specialization to attain the required Solutions Partner designation along with the other specialization requirements. You won't be allowed to renew your specialization if you haven't attained a Solutions Partner designation.

• September 30, 2022, is the last day to renew your existing Gold or Silver competency.
• Beginning October 3, 2022, your Silver or Gold competencies and associated badging will no longer be valid.
• From October 3, 2022, to your anniversary date:

  • If you meet the requirements for the Solutions Partner designations, you'll automatically earn the designation and the associated customer-facing badge. You'll retain your Gold or Silver benefits.

  • If you don't meet the requirements for the Solutions Partner designations, you won't earn the designation or the customer-facing badge. You'll still retain your Gold or Silver benefits.

• On your first anniversary date after October 3, 2022:
  • If you meet the requirements for the Solutions Partner designations, you can choose to purchase Solutions Partner benefits or retain your prior Silver or Gold benefits by paying the required fee.
  • If you don't meet the requirements for the Solutions Partner designations, you can still choose to retain your Silver or Gold benefits by paying the required fee.

Beginning October 3, 2022, Solutions Partner designations will be a prerequisite to earn, maintain, and renew a specialization. We're also introducing new badges and benefits. If you have an active specialization on October 3, 2022, it will automatically transition to specialization. At that time, legacy gold competencies will no longer be valid, and Solutions Partner designations will become prerequisites to earn specializations. You'll have until the anniversary date of your specialization to attain the required Solutions Partner designation along with the other specialization requirements. You won't be allowed to renew your specialization if you haven't attained a Solutions Partner designation.

Eligibility for specializations is based on the Solutions Partner designation you've attained. For specializations aligned to more than one Solutions Partner designation, partners need only attain one of the required Solutions Partner designations. See table below for mapping: