Identifying Customer Opportunities

There are several ways to go about proactively identifying customer opportunities and verifying customer entitlement to the Packaged Services benefit to help create your qualified customer list.

 

Joint Account Planning with Your Partner Account Manager to Create a Qualified Customer List

• Partners can contact their Partner Account Manager (PAM) and request to joint account plan to find entitled customers in the partner’s region
• Partners provide a list of current customers for whom they are the current partner of record to their PAM to have the PAM cross-check for customer benefit entitlement
• Partners can ask their PAM to coordinate working with a local Microsoft account team to help identify entitled customers in region interested in Exchange Server or Office Communications Server deployment

 

Working with LARs

Some Large Account Resellers (LAR) will share their list of entitled customers who purchased Software Assurance benefits with their license. If a partner is a System Integrators (SIs) they may be able to partner with a Large Account Reseller to identify potential EDPS customers. (For help locating a LAR, contact mailto:edpshelp@microsoft.com.)

 

Offer Deployment Planning to all Customers Regardless of Eligibility

As a best practice, Microsoft recommends offering deployment planning to all customers; Deployment increases the rate of Enterprise Agreement renewals, which promotes future systems deployment and follow-on services for the partner. Regardless of customer eligibility, you can use the EDPS structured and pre-defined materials, best practices and intellectual property developed by Microsoft Services as a supplement to your deployment planning consulting you would typically offer to your customer. 

 

Working with Customers to Determine Eligibility

If you are unable to have your PAM, a Microsoft sales or customer account contact help you determine customer entitlement, there are ways to work with your customer to do so.
EDPS is a Packaged Services Benefit available to entitled customers who have purchased Software Assurance through Microsoft Volume Licensing and who have the correct number of “points” required for a deployment planning services engagement. Customers under Enterprise Agreement, Enterprise Agreement Subscription, Select SAM (Software Assurance Membership), and Open Value or Open Value Subscription (with SA) Enrollments are eligible to receive Exchange Deployment Planning Services (EDPS) as part of their Software Assurance benefit. Once you know your customer has Software Assurance benefits, see the specifics on Calculating Customer Benefits to understand how many EDPS “days” they are entitled to.

Determining eligibility with your customer:

• Ask your customer if they are entitled. The customer can determine what SA benefit they have available by determining whether they have administrative rights to activate Packaged Services. If they don’t, they need to contact the Notices Contact or Benefits Administrator (both are within the customer organization). See instructions for Notices Contact and also for the Benefits Administrator on how to look at eligibility:  http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/software-assurance/packaged-services.aspx#tab_3.
• Ask your customer to give you “impersonation rights” to give you access to the customer’s Microsoft Volume Licensing (MVLS) account and so you can view benefit entitlements on the customer’s behalf – learn how.
• Check Appendix 6 in the Product List on the MVLS site. This document provides exact details on Packaged Services Benefit eligibility for customers based on the products they have purchased.
• For help troubleshooting a customer’s entitlement, refer to the Software Assurance Support: https://licensing.microsoft.com/eLicense/L1033/Overview.asp
• US and Canada: email mvlshelpa@msdirectservices.com or call 1-866-230-0560. 
• For all other regions, visit https://licensing.microsoft.com/eLicense/L1033/Overview.asp and select the appropriate region to find support email addresses and phone numbers.

 

Customer Resources for Software Assurance

You can direct customers to the following resources to help customers find out more about SA Benefits including EDPS.

Learn about Software Assurance, Packaged Services Benefits

• EDPS Customer Home: http://UCDeployment.com/Exchange
• Software Assurance Home: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa
• Packaged Services Home: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa/benefits/packagedservices.mspx

Software Assurance and MVLS Support and Tools

• Customer Support for MVLS (Microsoft Volume Licensing) and SA Benefits: https://licensing.microsoft.com/eLicense/L1033/Overview.asp
• Benefits activation for Notices Contact and Benefits Administrators: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/software-assurance/packaged-services.aspx#tab_3
• Training Video on Benefits Activation: Software Assurance Benefits - Assign & Create a Packaged Services Voucher
• Software Assurance FAQs: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/software-assurance/faq.aspx
• MVLS tool for Administrators (within Customer organization) to view and manage benefits: https://licensing.microsoft.com
• Enterprise Customer Care: http://www.microsoft.com/business/enterprise/ea/default.mspx