Recent Discussions
Request for guidance/contact – pro bono AZ-900 training for students
Hello, I’m reaching out with a question related to Microsoft Partners and possible ways to support an educational, non-profit initiative. I run my own IT company and work with cloud solutions professionally. In addition, I teach/lecture in education out of passion (at a university and a higher-education school). I’m also a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) and currently hold 9 active Microsoft certifications. Separately, I am the president of the Horyzont Wiedzy Association (https://horyzontwiedzy.edu.pl), a non-profit organization whose statutory mission is to promote IT knowledge. As part of our association, we would like to organize pro bono “AZ-900 – Microsoft Azure Fundamentals” classes for high-school students (IT-focused classes) in our city, including students from multiple schools where I’m not formally employed. The goal is to help students get familiar with real-world technologies used in companies and give them an accessible entry point into cloud computing. We originally planned a 2-day format rather than a 1-day session so students could spend more time working hands-on and actually experience the cloud in practice (not only through theory). For this approach, access to affordable or free lab environments would be essential. Unfortunately, purchasing labs for a non-profit association is a significant expense for us. I previously asked about using Microsoft Learn for Educators (MSLE) resources for this initiative, but I was informed that MSLE benefits/lab environments are exclusive to accredited academic institutions—so, as an association (not a registered school), we cannot rely on MSLE for these sessions. Could you please advise whether there is any Microsoft Partner-related program/pathway that could support this kind of non-profit educational activity (e.g., lab access, Azure credits, vouchers, community/education enablement options)? Our intention is strictly non-commercial and non-profit, and we would be happy to align with any required guidelines or reporting expectations. Thank you in advance for your direction and any contact you can share.
Customer CUSTOMER_NAME notified of anomalous activity in Azure subscription
How do others feel about the alerts showing up in the Partner Center? We’ve detected suspicious or malicious activity in this Azure subscription. The customer of this subscription has been notified. What suspicious or malicious activity did microsoft detect you ask? An important security update is available for your Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) resource(s). That's right, there is no suspicious or malicious activity. Microsoft wants people to install an out of band security update and thought sending a notification to all azure customers was the best way to ensure that happened. Half the clients that received this alert aren't even running windows servers! Those that are running windows servers do not have the WSUS role installed. All the clients Microsoft alerted us about to suspicious activity in their subscriptions... Don't use WSUS We did have the pleasure of manually closing every single alert as "ignore" and I'm delighted to know that these alerts didn't count towards the security requirement to have an avg response time of less than 24h. I thought the partner security alerts were to notify us of critical issues microsoft detected in azure subscriptions. This, does not appear to be that. Am I missing something? thoughts?Boosting cloud and AI ROI: The power of Microsoft Marketplace
Maximizing return on investment in cloud and AI requires more than technology—it demands smarter procurement and streamlined deployment. This article explains how Microsoft Marketplace helps organizations accelerate adoption, reduce costs, and unlock innovation. Learn how Marketplace simplifies purchasing, enables flexible billing, and provides access to thousands of solutions that drive measurable business outcomes. Read the full article hereKey AI announcements for software developers from Microsoft Ignite 2025
At Microsoft Ignite 2025, Microsoft unveiled a series of AI innovations that signal a significant evolution in how software developers build, deploy, and scale intelligent solutions. Central to these announcements is Microsoft Foundry, a unified platform designed to simplify the development, orchestration, and governance of AI agents across Microsoft’s cloud and application ecosystem. The announcements also introduced Foundry IQ, enabling secure, compliant access to enterprise data for AI agents, along with a new Foundry Control Plane that provides centralized visibility and operational control. Together, these capabilities help reduce complexity while supporting enterprise-grade security, compliance, and scalability requirements. Additional highlights include expanded model choice and flexibility through enhanced Model Router support and deeper integration of third-party models, as well as new capabilities that allow developers to publish and distribute AI agents directly into Microsoft 365 and Teams, creating powerful new go-to-market opportunities. Read the full article to learn more about these Microsoft Ignite announcements, what they mean for software developers, and how to take advantage of Microsoft’s rapidly evolving AI and Marketplace ecosystem.
Print/export private offer & terms to a PDF for customer's offline processes?
Hi all, We have a situation where a customer is asking for a 'private offer' to be published to them - which is fine, we have done that. However, their procurement processes don't appears quite up to speed with using 'digital marketplaces' and so their procurement person is asking if we can send them a PDF hardcopy of the 'private offer', so they can send it onwards internally for approvals, before clicking the 'accept and then 'purchase' buttons in Marketplace. It seems that the authority within the customer that needs to approve it, is not actually a person that uses or will log onto the Azure Portal to view and accept the offer... and that a person who will logon to the Azure Portal to 'accept' it, first needs to send a PDF/hardcopy to someone to approve it. Is there a way that we as the ISV can export the 'private offer' to PDF for them, or a way for them to view the private offer in their Azure Portal and to export that to a PDF, so they can use internally for their approval processes?
TSP Stautus
DanDonohue Our company, AQ Services LLC, has completed legal business verification and enrolled in the MACPP. We would like to confirm our status as a Microsoft Training Services Partner. We have completed all mandatory requirements outlined in your Onboarding checklist: Join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Review the Training Services Partner Guidelines Complete the Training Services Partner Onboarding Form Use Only Qualified Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs) for Course Delivery Use Official Microsoft Courseware, Labs, and Exams Distribute Achievement Codes to Learners via Microsoft Learn Register for Metrics that Matter (MTM) We would like to confirm that: 1. Whether or not our organization is authorized to deliver Microsoft training? 2. If we are authorized, then where can I access the necessary course outlines, request the necessary vouchers, etc? Thank you for your assistance.Using GDAP with Purview Roles for Search and Purge
I'm facing an issue that I believe may be related to how my current employer has set up GDAP, but I am struggling to get a solid answer on the solution to the issue as it's not clear if the problem is simply a limitation through GDAP or something not configured correctly. Scenario: We have a GDAP relationship set up with 20+ clients that provides us with Entra roles such as Security Operator, User Administrator, etc. Various Entra roles to perform common tasks as an MSP We are currently unable to perform email purges using Explorer in Defender or Purview, as the role required appears to be only assignable to a user account or group that exists in the tenant in question, and as we are acting through GDAP, there is no account or group to give that role to. On the back of this, I have several questions/requests: Should a GDAP relationship also create some group or guest/external user that roles of this nature can be assigned to? Is there something specific we need to do through our GDAP configuration to allow us to search and purge emails?
Request to Connect with Microsoft Partner Manager in UAE for Co-sell Collaboration
Hello Microsoft Partner Community, We are a partner currently engaged with multiple Dubai Government entities, where we are building their Enterprise Data Lakehouse and enabling operations, analytics, and compliance through Agentic AI. Given the growing collaboration in the region, we are looking to align with Microsoft on co-sell motions and partnership pathways. Could anyone assist in connecting us with the appropriate Microsoft Partner Manager in the UAE for a potential meeting? We do not have an assigned Partner Development Manager (PDM) at this time and would appreciate any guidance on how to proceed. Thank you for your support!
PL-400 - Need access to Power Apps
Hello people, I am currently doing the self taught learning path for the PL-400 certification. However, to complete the practical exercises I need access to Power Apps and a Microsoft Dataverse etc. I am using a personal email and not a school or work one - hence I am trying to create a Microsoft 365 Developer Program account to allow me to have access to Power Apps etc. But I am stuck when trying access the dashboard as it is stuck on a infinite loop of "Loading your data" and I am not sure what to do and what is causing this. Has anyone else had this issue and what can I do to get around this? I think it is super important for me to get access to power apps in order to complete the training as it will impact my understand and ability to complete the course. I am sure there is enough people who take the course that are no in school or work. I hope someone can help me Regards, Mark
Unable to pass Employment Verifcation step in Partner Center
Hello everyone, I am stuck at the Employment Verification step while trying to enroll in the Microsoft Partner Center. I have already submitted the required documents, including the domain invoice and the assignment letter, but Microsoft responded with: "Based on the information you have provided to date, we have determined that your organization does not currently meet the requirements to pass verification." This leaves me very confused, as the reply does not explain what exactly is missing or what additional documents are required. I have carefully checked the documentation, but there is no clear guidance. As a company focusing on IT security, this is extremely frustrating. We recently shifted from Linux to Windows development, and without a Microsoft Partner account we are unable to proceed with building kernel-level antivirus solutions for our users. This has a devastating impact on our business. Could anyone please share their experience or advise on what specific documents or requirements Microsoft usually expects in order to pass Employment Verification? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!Applied Skills Missing in Training Report
As a Microsoft Solutions Partner (approx 400 employees) we are working on creating a dashboard for managers to see how we are faring from a skilling perspective. This also helps us in the tracking and working towards retaining our specializations and designations. So far we have used the Trainings Report derived from the downloads hub to feed our database with applicable certifications that are held by our employees. That database we then used to also report on our skilling requirements for the solution area's and the specializations. Recently Microsoft introduced new specializations (Copilot) and those specializations require Applied Skills to be held by employees. These applied skills do not show in the trainings report offered by Microsoft. (E.g. APL-4002: Prepare security and compliance to support Microsoft 365 Copilot,APL-7008: Create agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio or DW-101: Copilot for Microsoft 365 Deployment Workshop ) As such we're wondering whether Microsoft is working on including these applied skills in the trainings reporting?HELP!!!! I am so fustrasted with Microsoft Vetting Process
I NEED SERIOUS HELP, I PROVIDED EVERYTHING SINGLE DOCUMENTATION THAT IS NEEDED TO FINISH THE MICROSOFT AI PARTNER PROGRAM. I WAS WORKING WITH SWETA S. THATS THE SUPPORT PERSON AND AFTER PROVIDING ALL DOCUMENTS AND WEBSITE, OVER A MONTH (DELAY RESPONSES) THIS PERSON SWETA JUST CLOSES THE CASES WITH NO REASON WHY. I AM SOOOO FURIOUS RIGHT NOW. I FEEL LIKE I WANT TO GO TO WASHINGTON.Getting Started with OpenAI Whisper on Azure
In March of 2024 OpenAI Whisper for Azure became generally available, you can read the announcement here. From the documentation, “The Whisper model is a speech to text model from OpenAI that you can use to transcribe(and translate) audio files. The model is trained on a large dataset of English audio and text. The model is optimized for transcribing audio files that contain speech in English. The model can also be used to transcribe audio files that contain speech in other languages. The output of the model is English text.” At this time, translation from 57 Languages is supported. I wanted to spend this time to cover a few topics to help you make sense of the two flavors that will be available to you, Azure AI Speech Service, and Azure OpenAI Service. To get started, there is a table in the documentation referenced above to give you the use cases for Whisper for Azure vs. Azure AI Speech Model. There is a matrix at the following link to provide a recommended supportability matrix to give you an idea when to choose each service. I will call out from the documentation that there are limitations to the Azure Open AI Whisper model; Whisper Model via Azure OpenAI Service might be best for: Quickly transcribing audio files one at a time Translate audio from other languages into English Provide a prompt to the model to guide the output Supported file formats: mp3, mp4, mpweg, mpga, m4a, wav, and webm Whisper Model via Azure AI Speech might be best for: Transcribing files larger than 25MB (up to 1GB). The file size limit for the Azure OpenAI Whisper model is 25 MB. Transcribing large batches of audio files Diarization to distinguish between the different speakers participating in the conversation. The Speech service provides information about which speaker was speaking a particular part of transcribed speech. The Whisper model via Azure OpenAI doesn't support diarization. Word-level timestamps Supported file formats: mp3, wav, and ogg Customization of the Whisper base model to improve accuracy for your scenario (coming soon) Getting started with a Python Sample for OpenAI Whisper on Azure We do have a sample doc for this, however as many data scientist know, packages move fast and change often. As of this writing, the following code sample works with the OpenAI package > 1. Also, the api_version is correct as of this writing, I will keep this blog updated with any necessary changes for future versions. I will collect some samples and publish them to a GitHub repository and link them here in the near future. In the meantime, read the prerequisites here and get started. You will need an Azure subscription, access to the Azure OpenAI Service in your subscription, and add a Whisper model deployment. I will not comment on the region availability as it is constantly expanding, but you can keep an eye on this page to keep up with region availability. Once you have your deployment created, you will need to copy the URL endpoint and one of the two Open AI Keys from Azure OpenAI under the resource management section of your Azure OpenAI resource. This code sample will read in an audio file from local disk. A variety of audio samples can be found here in the Azure Speech SDK github repo. The result you get from one of the samples will look something like this; Translation(text='As soon as the test is completed, which is displayed successfully by the status change, you will receive a VIN number for both models in your test. Click on the test name to show the page with the test details. This detail page lists all statements in your data set and shows the recognition results of the two models next to the transcription from the transmitted data set. For a simpler examination of the opposite, you can activate or deactivate various error types such as additions, deletions and substitutions.') Using Azure AI Services Speech The alternative option is to use Azure OpenAI Whisper model in the Azure AI Speech Service. The Azure AI Speech Service offers a lot of capability, captioning, audio content creation, transcription, as well as real-time speech to text and text to speech. If you have been using the Azure AI Speech Service, you likely have much of the code written to take advantage of the Azure OpenAI Whisper model. There is a migration guide to move you from REST API v3.1 to Version 3.2 which supports the Whisper model. You should provide multiple files per request or point to an Azure Blob Storage container with the audio files to transcribe. The batch transcription service can handle a large number of submitted transcriptions. The service transcribes the files concurrently, which reduces the turnaround time. If you are using this as part of a batch transcription process, you can find the documentation here. The most important note about making sure you are using the Whisper model is to make sure you set the model version to 3.2, but keep in mind region availability which is linked here. I hope this article has helped you determine which service is right for you. Keep in mind, all Azure AI services are fast moving, so keep an eye on the docs linked in this post as well as the constantly expanding Microsoft learn site.Azure monthly newsletters are now on the Partner News blog!
Go to our Partner news blog and click the tag "Azure News" to catch up on all our past monthly Azure newsletters. You can click the follow button in the top right corner to receive notifications of when the next newsletter is released. This ensures you will never miss out on updates again! Come on in and join the conversation! -jill
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