Monish Sood, senior marketing manager within the Microsoft One Commercial Partner organization in the US subsidiary, recently hosted a partner community call on the best ways to stay plugged into the Microsoft community and resources—particularly amidst Microsoft’s constant innovation, evolution, and improvements to make partners’ and customers’ experiences even better.
Below is an easy, simple guide to find the information you need to stay connected and informed, when you need it.
- Support: get answers to your questions
Many questions have already been asked and answered in the top partner questions library or community discussion forums, great resources for frequently asked questions. If your question hasn’t been answered in the library, you can chat with somebody in real time through our live chat feature. To speak with someone right away, visit partner.microsoft.com/support. You can also get to support through the upper right-hand corner from anywhere on the partner website.
- Microsoft events: find local and virtual events
Of course, events are a great way to keep up with the latest information, network, and develop business opportunities—but it’s important to know where to find all the events going on. Find and filter events in your area by topic, by product or solution area, or by role type at events.microsoft.com. Check out the Hot Sheet for US-specific events schedule, updated weekly with local events ranging from technical community calls, to boot camps and workshops.
- Partner marketing: customizable tools and marketing training
Recently we’ve done several website and content updates to help you market your Microsoft solutions better—regardless of the size of your marketing team. Resources focus on guidance, advice, and recommendations—including syndicated content, marketing assets, customizable tools, go-to-market services like search engine optimization and search engine marketing, and more.
- Build your practice: guidance to help your business develop key capabilities
If you’re trying to understand where to begin building your cloud practice, or need help along the digital transformation journey, we have guides for you across solution areas—Modern Workplace, Apps & Infrastructure, Data & AI, and Business Applications, with more are being added.
- Partner training: enablement and training resources and opportunities
You can go to The Learning Portal for the latest trainings, tailored for your role, which are continuously refreshed and updated. Microsoft Learn offers step-by-step tutorials designed for specific technical roles and skill levels. Get immediate feedback and earn achievements at partner.microsoft.com/training. Find in-person or virtual training events on the Hot Sheet at aka.ms/hotsheetnews.
- Dashboard: track performance and manage your relationship with Microsoft
Manage customer referrals, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) participation, and your membership all from within the dashboard, found in the top righthand corner of the partner website. Check out a great Microsoft Inspire presentation explains all the work and updates Microsoft is doing to the dashboard in less than 20 minutes. Watch it here.
- Microsoft Partner website: your one stop for all partner resources
The goal of ongoing updates to the partner website experience is to bring together the various places partners have to visit to find information or log in to manage accounts into one URL and a single identity. So far, we’ve connected about 20 sites at Microsoft through the partner website, all of it organized according to one principle: helping you get access to markets and customers.
- Partner community: collaborate and network with other partners
Join a thriving partner community on our Yammer network at aka.ms/uspyammer, made up of more than 19,000 partners who are also experts in their respective areas. Channels are organized by solution area and programs, with leads that specialize in those areas and answer questions within the community. Also, ask questions of the global partner community within Microsoft Partner Community (microsoftpartnercommunity.com).
- Social engagement: stay up to date on the latest news, events, and information
Our mass communications channels are meant for not only sharing information, but also building connections with you, our partners. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yammer, and the US OCP blog to stay informed and connected with whatever is important in the US partner world.
- aka.ms/uspartner
It’s our goal to create a personal, relevant, single digital experience for our partners across all the sites you engage with as a Microsoft partner. Aka.ms/uspartner hosts local content contextualized for you, building on the broader needs you have as a partner to find information more easily.
We hope you found this information useful. Watch the full call recording, review the slide deck, and share it with others in your organization!