by Mario Yanez Partner Group Product Manager at Microsoft
Welcome to the November edition of Partner Center Technical Corner, your guide to the latest Partner Center changes for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners. This edition highlights practical ways to identify customer opportunities and increase partner profitability, alongside time-sensitive offer retirements and security updates.
New sales recommendations and margin opportunities are key to how sales teams identify and convert customer demand, while offer retirements and security updates require timely action from billing, subscription management, and security teams.
Turn insights into growth
With CSP sales recommendations, distributors and direct bill partners can uncover more revenue opportunities within their existing customer base.
These AI-powered insights have been rolling out in phases since October 5, 2026. Access recommendations through the Customer overview page, Partner Center AI assistant, or API. The insights identify opportunities to upsell, convert free Microsoft Copilot usage to paid licenses, apply promotions, transition Enterprise Agreement customers to CSP, and activate Copilot. For partners serving small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), these signals give sales teams a way to prioritize customers who are ready for their next step.
Growth margin, launched October 1, 2026, gives eligible distributors and direct bill partners a way to increase profitability by earning incremental margin above base margin. Partners can qualify through new-to-offer sales, seat expansion, or strategic product mix growth with customers in Microsoft’s Small Medium Enterprises and Channel (SME&C) segment. Eligible products include Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 E7, Microsoft Defender Suite, Microsoft Purview Suite, and Windows 365 Enterprise.
Before quoting the price, validate every transaction in Partner Center or through the eligibility API to ensure the transaction is eligible for growth margin. Then download the eligible product identifiers and minimum seat requirements from the Pricing workspace. For qualifying mid-term seat expansions, create a new subscription.
Azure consumption promotions are designed to create new sales opportunities through time-bound percentage discounts on eligible pay-as-you-go consumption, Reserved Instances, and pre-purchase plans. They are currently available in sandbox so partners can prepare discovery, eligibility, and purchasing workflows. The promotions affect Microsoft’s price to you, while you set the final customer price. Confirm production availability before quoting.
Act now on offer retirements
AI Builder capacity add-ons retired from sale on November 1, 2026. To protect customer continuity, identify affected subscriptions now, turn off auto-renew before each customer’s next renewal date, and plan a transition to Copilot Credits before existing AI Builder credits expire. Customers retain their current credits through the existing subscription term, but retirement does not automatically stop renewals. Indirect resellers should coordinate these steps with their distributor.
Microsoft is also retiring Azure Partner Shared Services (APSS), offer MS-AZR-159P, which distributors and direct bill partners use for internal Azure workloads. Microsoft is targeting January 4, 2027, to stop creation of new APSS subscriptions; existing subscriptions are no longer supported after June 30, 2027. Inventory APSS subscriptions now, select a supported Azure purchasing path, and move or shut down workloads before June 30. Review the APSS retirement announcement for migration guidance.
Strengthen security and operational readiness
Based on partner feedback, the Security workspace has been redesigned to simplify actions needed to better secure your ecosystem. This new experience is currently available in an opt-in preview that brings requirements and alerts together as Tasks, grouped by root cause.
In the preview, overall status changes from a numerical score to Complete or Incomplete. Tasks include details you need to resolve them, while due dates, lifecycle states, activity history, and automated completion checks make remediation easier to track. You can also take actions in bulk. Roles and permissions remain unchanged, and the current experience will remain available during the transition. Learn more about the new Security workspace experience.
Two tools provide additional operational visibility. For account administration, the tenant discovery API lets Account admins retrieve Partner Local Accounts and CSP tenants associated with a Partner Global Account. Separately, direct bill partners can use the Eligibility Dashboard to monitor qualification status, identify unmet requirements, and navigate to the relevant actions.
Start with three actions: review sales recommendations and growth margin eligibility for current customers; inventory subscriptions affected by AI Builder and APSS retirements; and opt in to the Security workspace preview to evaluate and track applicable tasks. Assign an owner and target date for each action, then revisit Partner Center announcements regularly for updates.
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