Ben Tappenden Partner Success Manager (PSM)

The CSP Deployment Accelerator for ME3/ME5 engagement offered via the MCI program is a great initiative, however I believe there could be confusion with partners who are seeing some customers as eligible, who in fact aren't. Because of the nature of this engagement, it must be linked to a CSP purchase within the same month as the claim and that is clearly documented in the MCI guide. However, because in theory most tenants COULD be classed as an opportunity for a purchase, partners are seeing a high number of customers appearing as eligible for this engagement both in the MCI portal and also within MPX. This allows them to claim without actually having an open opportunity, or a purchase within the last month to make the tenant qualifying. This presents a risk to the partner that they could potentially invest effort into driving work with the customer, but then not getting paid due to the customer not actually being eligible. To better define ths potential risk, the below is a direct quote received from Thomas Viertler regarding this engagement: The MCI engagement was set up so to allow a partner to select customer tenant IDs with at least 300 Entra ID seats (that have or not made an eligible transaction, as defined in the MCI customer eligibility section) - this is why partners see a large number of tenants in MCI . This does not mean that every tenant has done the required purchase and can be claimed. There are a couple of potential asks here:MCI portal, and MPX, be adjusted to show only true eligible tenants based on recent CSP purchase history. Thomas advises that the MCI team are looking into the feasibility of this - this could take many months to implement (if at all)There is a Power BI report which shows the eligible tenants for the engagement based on purchase history - FY26 ME3/5 CSP Deployment Accelerator CE Report (MCI Ops) - Power BI. This PBI is not currently open without requesting access. It would be useful if the program team could work with the report owner to have it opened up for all PSMs to access, and then perhaps pin it to the PSM Reporting Zone in the M365 G&I Reporting Center. This will allow PSMs to then provide accurate guidance to their partners on customers they have in their portfolio who are eligible, and minimise the risk of partners claiming and not getting paid for delivery due to customer non-eligibility. I attach a copy of the specific engagement as per the latest MCI Incentives Guide dated 22nd August.

Currently a user can filter the MPX data insights based on MCI eligibility being Yes or No. This is useful, however to improve targeting when partners are looking to drive a specific campaign it would be useful if they could have a more granular level of filtering on the MCI eligibility. For example, if the partner is looking to target Data Security as part of a wider AI readiness campaign, they may wish to filter the MPX data to see only customers who are eligible for the Data Security engagements. 

It would useful when looking at the Copilot tab to see if the customer is an E3, E5 or E5 Expansion opportunity as well, and their Healthy/Unhealthy status for Secure Productivity. Whilst this can be obtained from the other tabs, currently as a partner you have to flick between the Copilot and Secure Productivity tabs or you need to have two different browser tabs open to see this information at the same time. When assessing an opportunity in the Copilot tab it would really help provide additional context to the partner on the other opportunity space from a Secure Productivity perspective as that will help shape the conversation they position with the customer. For example, if a customer appears as an opportunity to drive Copilot but actually they're not completely healthy from a Secure Productivity perspective (i.e. Unhealthy or At Risk) then that may become something that is factored into the overall positioning with the customer. Having that single pain of glass view would be very useful without having to switch between tabs all the time or have multiple windows open. 

Currently in MPX a user is able to filter on MCI by selecting either 'Eligible' or ‘Ineligible’. To allow for better targeting depending on the specific campaign or motion a partner is looking to run, it would be useful if the filtering was more granular. For example, the ability to filter on Copilot eligibility, Data Security etc.