Change O365 CSP Partner From Telstra to Uptake Digital

Did you know that Microsoft is giving every Telstra Office 365 customer the choice of cloud provider by the end of the year?

What does this mean for you? Well you can now decide who you want to be your first point of contact for all your Office 365 billing and support needs. This article sets out to explain the history and steps to take if you want to change Office 365 Partners.

History

When Office 365 launched in Australia, the only way you could purchase it was through one partner, Telstra. Not only that, but the servers were run out of singapore and it wasn't the single version of Office 365 the rest of the world was on.

All of the old Telstra Office 365 Tenants from this time were under the syndicated program. Putting it simply, Telstra customers run a different version of Office 365 to the rest of the world.

Microsoft eventually opened up Office 365 as CSP to partners like Rhipe and Ingram Micro in Australia. This allowed service providers like Uptake Digital to come in and manage Billing and support for their office 365 subscriptions. 

Long story short, Microsoft has officially the Syndication Program (June 30th, 2017) and has forced Telstra to migrate every one of its customers to the universal version of Office 365 - CSP.

Whats in it for me?

In a word, Choice. Instead of having to spend $1000's of dollars doing a complicated migration, we can switch you over for Free.

This allows customers who want a better customer experience to switch their subscription over to us quickly and easily.

You can find out more about our CSP offering here. https://uptakedigital.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004417108

How Do I get started?

Getting Started is easy. Just follow these 3 easy steps.

1. Open a request through our service desk and we will contact you within 24 hours to walk you through the process. https://uptakedigital.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
   
   
2. Connect us to your Office 365 account
   https://uptakedigital.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001535147-How-to-Link-our-Partner-Account-to-your-Office-365-Account-
   
   
3. Connect us to your Telstra Marketplace Account
   https://uptakedigital.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003652788-Link-us-to-your-Telstra-Marketplace-Account
   

Once this is done, we will contact you to confirm your licensing requirements and set up billing. If you are still on the old Syndicated Tenant, we may have to put in a request to fasttrack you to CSP.

Fast Tracking Migration (Prioritisation)

If you aren't on CSP, we can make a request for prioritisation.

requested prioritisation have had their migration was completed in as little as two weeks.

To request for prioritisation, we will need to raise a request with Telstra asking them to prioritise the tenant migration from Syndication to CSP with a valid reason. A 'valid reason' could be that they wish to procure products or add-ons currently not in the Syndication program, such as:

• Office 365 Extra File Storage
• Exchange Online Archive for Exchange Online
• Microsoft Azure

It could also be that you want a service that is not in Syndication such as Dynamics 365.

If the prioritisation request is accepted, the Syndication partner can then put the customer into to next batch of Syndication to CSP Migrations.

How to check whether the tenant has been moved from Syndication to CSP?

There is a quick check to see if the tenant has been moved to the standard CSP platform.

Go to your Office 365 Admin Center, click on the "Settings" icon and go to "Partner Relationships",

Once the syndication partner is listed as a "Cloud Solution Provider" then the tenancy has been moved out of the syndication platform. At this stage you're ready to transition them to your 2-Tier CSP of choice.

If the syndication partner is not listed at all in the Partner Relationships area this means that they are still on the syndication platform.