A tip to see if that information on the Microsoft Partner site is U.S. only or Worldwide

Ok, admit it. How many times have you gone to Bing, or a different, less reliable search engine, or even searched directly on the Microsoft Partner Network portal for information and found a link directly to the information you are looking for; however, it is a page on the U.S. Microsoft Partner portal? Then you say to yourself (or to me), “This is a U.S. site with U.S. information. How do I see if this is available worldwide or if it’s U.S. specific?” Well, I’m going to show you a quick tip/trick that can help you out in many of these instances.

Let’s say you searched on, “Action Pack,” because you are looking for information about one of the Microsoft Action Pack subscriptions. When you click the results link, you are taken to the page to the right and notice the “US” in the URL and the “United States” on top of the page: (click image for full size)
Here’s the tip… In the URL, change the “US” to “global” and see if the page resolves. In the example above, I did this and here is what is presented: (click image for full size) Notice that the page resolves and the information is pretty much the same. What you see on the global site is being shown worldwide and is not U.S. specific.

Now let’s look at a slightly different example where you will notice a difference based on something offered in the U.S. specifically vs. what’s available on the global site.

Let’s say you searched on, “promotions,” and you found yourself on the page showing to the right. Notice the “US” again in the URL and the “United States” listed at the top of the page. One item I want you to take notice of is the “Ready-to-Go Marketing” resource that I highlighted in the middle of the page. (click image for full size)

Now let’s use that tip again and change the “US” in the URL to “global” and take a look at what shows up. What you’ll see is, the page does resolve, meaning that the promotions information now displayed is available for the global audience; however, the information about the “Ready-to-Go Marketing” resources are gone because those were specifically added by the U.S. Team to their promotions page since this is something the U.S. Team is doing inside the U.S.

So as you are browsing and navigating through the Microsoft Partner Network portal for information, keep the tip above in mind if you happen to find yourself on a page that has a “US” in the URL and you are a partner outside of the U.S. and are wondering if the information is U.S. specific or available to the global audience. Something else to keep in mind, if you are looking for information on the Microsoft Partner Network portal, give the search function up in the upper right-hand corner a try. As you may or may not recall, we updated that search feature awhile back and have been seeing some great feedback from partners on their satisfaction with the capability.

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Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Director, Worldwide Partner Experience
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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