FPC Program Ideas/Suggestions

The RFA notes feedback - It would be great if carriage returns are retained in the notes as they are entered into the RFA... It comes across as a blob of text all in one paragraph and makes it challenging to read and reformat.

Please increase partner-facing technical enablement sessions—similar to the October Copilot Oversharing Guidance Community Call. Partners struggle to keep up with rapid updates in M365, especially Copilot and Security.   What’s needed More frequent partner-facing calls/webinars with: Latest feature updates and roadmap highlights Deployment/adoption best practices and security guidance   Impact Improves pre-sales confidence Accelerates M365 products adoption Strengthens competitive positioning

My idea would be for me to have a way to quicky get a preformatted report from Partner Center within 1 click.  Currently I go to the Partner Center page and gather data for my sales team. The sales team doesn't have access so I provide them with the information on existing customers that are ready for any MCI, SCI, E3, or E5 upgrades. Currently I have to select the area in Partner Center that I want to export. Then it processes into a CSV file. I then download the CSV file. I have to open Excel use Get Data and point it to the CSV. After that, I have to click on Transform Data and the screen switches to the Data Screen where I can set the values for each cell. For example, Customer Is Eligible the value may be set to 1 or ineligible may be set to 2. However on my report I want the word Eligible or Ineligible so I se that on this screen.After all that I have to close and import the data into Excel. From there I have to use the existing data to create a Pivot table to group all the like data together. This would be more efficient if that was all done on the backend and what I download is an editable Excel sheet. Just have a basic template with all the data logically sorted and let the user be able to edit it so they can change whatever they need on their time. This would be so helpful and save massive amounts of editing time.

As partners and Microsoft focus on moving customers to NCE contracts at renewal, is Microsoft considering allowing customers renewing from EA into NCE to be eligible for the MW Security Deployment Offer voucher program? We have several opportunities where we are working with Microsoft on renewals and encouraging customers to move to NCE, which disqualifies them from the voucher program. These customers are renewing from M365 E3 to M365 E5 and need assistance with deploying security products and would be a great fit for the deployment voucher.

We shared with our Fasttrack PDM the issue with FPC Referrals just wanting us to solve their problem and not interested in new projects.  We have not garnered a single new project this year from FPC referrals.   Therefore, the ROI on the FPC Referrals has been poor.  Our FPC PDM asked if we were holding firm with FPC Referrals to the 2-3 hours of free services only.  We do try, but if the customer's issue takes longer than 2-3 hours the customer still expects it will be free regardless of how long it takes.  If we try to charge them, they just complain about us. ASK - We need Microsoft to truly partner with us and help set the boundaries and expectations of what a FPC Referral should expect from a partner - for free.   There is nothing in the original communication from MSFT to the customer to set any time boundary expectations.  Given this is a MSFT program. MSFT should be setting the clear expectations to customers.  

View from Partner (CloudEdge).The problem lies in the measurement model. If a customer decides not to upgrade to E5, the partner is at risk of being paused.We believe this misses the point: we won’t nominate a customer for a workshop unless we’re certain they’re upgrading to E5, which causes missed opportunities.We have a clear example with a customer named "ISRACARD", with 5,000 users currently on E3. Many products are not deployed, so they’re not eligible for EA Security. Microsoft refuses to make any exceptions. The customer will purchase their licenses under an EA agreement—not through us.As a Security partner, we have no incentive to push them toward E5. The LAR partner cannot demonstrate the value of E5 to the customer. This is a credit card company—they absolutely need E5, and we know how to show them the risks and capabilities involved. That’s our expertise.

Subject: Critical Start sellers are hesitant to enter opportunities into MSX due to repeated instances where Microsoft sellers have undercut them with competitive offerings after referrals were submitted. This behavior has created distrust and discouraged pipeline transparency, limiting Microsoft's ability to surface actionable data and justify continued FastTrack program participation. Recommend establishing clearer referral protection protocols and seller alignment guidelines to restore partner confidence and encourage MSX usage. This also will hamper future ASPX data when MSX becomes an attribution signal. For channel heavy partners CPOR can be an additional challenge and MSX can be a great solution to the attribution challenge. Impact: Improves partner trust, increases MSX pipeline visibility, and strengthens GTM collaboration.Notes: This is a very similar challenge that BlueVoyant has voiced. However, the additional insights on MSX attribution I feel is worth calling out and being considered. 

Distribution needs to have both the Tier1 and the Teir 2 resellers information in the API feed for integration into their provisioning and billing reseller portals.