FPC Program ideas/suggestions

Team, up unitl i think the beginning of 2023, we were able to delivery PIE security everywhere engagements... we are an M365 partner with 5 badges, security being one of them.. but that doesnt seem to matter for the security everywher program as you now have to be an MSSP to delivery that engagement.

 

We find that a bit ridiculous in that we are always helping clients move to e5, EMS, etc.. and have built a team around that... we are a Professional Services company and an SI (as well as a CSP), but we are in the business of implementation and integration, not the types of services provided by an MSSP. 

 

our M365 clients rely on us to help them make decisions around upgrading, replaceing competitive products, etc.. and they dont think they should have to pay for that as they consider it microsoft presales work... but now i cant accomodate those types of engagement sfor them... 

we need to be able to!

 

we ahve been doing business with one of our clients, an over 60000 person organization, and had been their DPOR even back in the day.  Recenlty, another parnter must be doing some work in there for someone, and submitted a CPOR claim for SharePoint and Teams. 

 

Since we have been working with them since Moss 2007, we  have not been submitting new claims wevery time we got a new project with them; but, when another partner submitted a claim the client was reassigned to them... without anyone asking us or the client what their preference was...  we work directly with the collaboration team at the client, and they had no idea who else may have submitted anyhing, but likely just a dpeartment with whom they were doing some work.

 

when a partner submits a cliam and anothere parnter is already on the claim, there should be some kind of discussion between the microsoft program team and the two partners before just arbitrailiy making the siwtch

 

Have had a few partners voice their concern on qualifying for the partner of the Year Award based on the requirements set forth. Specifically addressing the Badges, since they are not a requirement stated and/or noted in the T&Cs.

There is no discernible protection for a partner after you provide the benefit. If we execute a justification exercise for SCI, or migrating to Teams or Intune, we should be able to maintain the customer association for a period of time. We are being usurped by LARs as the Partner Center criteria for picking between contested associations is a mystery and decided by uneducated, non-Microsoft employees. Partner Support is terrible, staffed by a team that has no clue what they are doing or how partners need Partner Center.

We have not seen a single referral to us that had an incentive behind it in our 2 years with the program. We have only had one non-customer referral that actually responded to our reply and despite being told by FastTrack that the educational institution was indeed eligible for partner incentive (we asked because we knew they were not), we found out after executing the benefit that no incentive would be paid. For the referrals coming from existing customers, it is obvious that Microsoft Sales teams (or CSAs in particular) just point everything to FastTrack partner for free work even when situations are clearly not FastTrack eligible. Microsoft is burdening partners since their technical teams continue to be less and less useful. The FastTrack team seems to be co-conspirators in this operation and seem to not want to protect their partners any more than the balance of the Microsoft program. 

Notifications to be sent to users when usage milestones is reached and when payment is processing -> done. Would be nice, so no need to come every week and check manually. 

This seems like a constant piece of feedback, but maybe putting it on this board will finally make a difference. "Proof of Execution" means that you have finished the project/task/assignment/etc. in 100% of the cases when those words are used, including dozens used by Microsoft. Proof of Execution is a document for ECIF as well as the MCI program and both have the customer completing and signing a document after the partner has done work. 

 

For some reason, FastTrack wants to use the term Proof of Execution for a document required of the partner prior to doing any work for the customer. This leads to confusion and the customer not understanding why "this time it is different" and not wanted to sign something that seems to indicate that the partner has completed something when no work has started. "FastTrack Engagement Form" or just about anythign would be better.

 

When this feedback was presented at various FastTrack Community Calls and other live events, the partners were told the document would only have "POE" on it and that it stood for "Proof of Engagement" - that is not what has happened. "Proof of Execution" is written right across the title bar.

 

This needs to be changed.