Four steps to a CSP's Onboarding Process
Over the past few months, I have been helping several partners go through the onboarding journey to become a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) Partner. In this post, I will attempt to summarize the key things that Partners need to consider when they are getting ready to transact through CSP and share the best resources to allow you to do this self-guided, at your own pace.
Note regarding Indirect: the majority of this content will be applicable to how the direct partners get setup. Each CSP Distributor has a slightly different approach and it is best to work with your primary contact at your distributor to get setup with them. In many cases, the distributors will have a faster onboarding process with more guided support from CSP experts. If you work with a Distribution Partner and want to get started on CSP, reach out to them today!
- Complete Enrollment
- Get Familiar with Partner Center
- Review Pricing, Billing and Invoicing
- Create your Customer Agreement
First, read through the Onboarding Walk-Thru
CSP Onboarding Walk-Thru (PowerPoint)
This guide takes you through every step of the process from receiving the invitation email to signing the Cloud Reseller Agreement and being able to transact.
Next, get familiar with Partner Center and the functionality of this portal
Partner Center Overview (Video)
Partner Center is the portal that CSP Direct partners use to transact, manage support, and managing their billing with Microsoft. Watch the video above, or download this guide to gain a better understanding of how to use the portal.
You can also find more instructions on how to manage your profile within Partner center and how to set user permissions here: Configuring Partner Center
Third, review and understand pricing, and billing
Approved partners can retrieve the latest price list in the Sales section, once logged into Partner Center.
For details on the Billing & Invoicing Process, watch this video and download this guide
Fourth, create your customer agreement
Partners are responsible for ensuring that customers understand and accept Microsoft’s terms and conditions, including acceptable use of the Microsoft products and services. What some partners have done is built the Microsoft Cloud Agreement (MCA) into their own customer contract (as a clear separate agreement), so that there is one signing event. Before you can order services on behalf of a customer, the customer must have accepted the MCA.
You can access a copy of the Microsoft Cloud Agreement here: Customer agreement template
I would also highly recommend reviewing the FAQ page on Contracts: Contracts FAQ
Other Key Resources
Be sure to check out the How-To section in Partner Center. There are many more articles and guides to help you with everything from providing support to your customers, understanding risk, and using the APIs to automate customer management.
I would also recommend bookmarking the CSP Page within the MPN site. This page is home to the extensive FAQ library, product availability & training, details on support options for partners, and more.
Hopefully, by following the steps above you can get setup and running with CSP fairly quickly. The only element of onboarding that has not been covered here is developing packaged offers to lead with. We will cover ideas and best practices on this in another post.