Updating Microsoft Certifications: How we keep them relevant

[Liberty Munson]

Microsoft is committed to reviewing certifications regularly to help ensure that they remain relevant and technically accurate and that they’re assessing the skills need to thrive in a cloud-based world. Our reviews help ensure that we’re evaluating the right skills for a given job role—and only what needs to be evaluated for that particular role. This is important to understand because we cannot assess everything that’s required for success, so we have to prioritize (although that’s not to say that Microsoft won’t create training for those additional skills). In other words, the learning associated with a given job role is more comprehensive than what we can measure on the exam.

Here’s how it works…Microsoft reviews the objective domain every two months for our role-based and specialty exams to make sure they stay up to date and relevant. This review typically takes the form of revising, removing, and, occasionally, adding objectives. In addition, every year, we’re committed to reviewing the job task analysis (JTA)—the basis of the certification. (As you can see with all of these reviews, we’re serious about trying to maintain the relevance, integrity, and value of our certifications!)

As some of you might know, the JTA is the process through which we define the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are critical to success in a job role. The JTA is the foundation for each of our role-based and specialty certifications and for the learning content and hands-on experiences that we build so you can practice your skills.

Often the changes in these JTA reviews (we refer to them as refreshes) are small, reflecting what I like to call evolutions of the job role—small updates that accumulate over time to become something bigger—but these are baby steps that don’t affect someone’s ability to pass the exam. With small changes like these, we’ll update the exam through an in-service update. This means that the update is seamlessly integrated in one of our regularly scheduled exam updates that happen every two months. To support your exam preparation, we provide the details of these updates on our exam details pages, with a marked-up version of the objective domain. This allows you to clearly see what’s changing and when those changes go into effect. Because we cannot proactively notify test takers of impending changes (privacy rules affect our ability to contact you), you need to be proactive about regularly checking the exam details pages to understand when updates are being made. We post these updates at least 30 days in advance of the date when they’ll appear on the exam.   

Occasionally, those changes are bigger, reflecting what I like to call a revolution in the job role. When this happens, there are several possible outcomes. Let’s talk about each of them.

 

New exams with new exam numbers

As long as the job role is still relevant and important in the industry, when the JTA reveals a significant change, we’ll create a new exam for that job role—and it will have a new exam number. This alerts the test taker that the exam has changed quite a bit and lets them know exactly what will be covered on the exam that they choose. New exams with new numbers are needed when more than one-third of the exam content has changed, meaning that the changes could affect someone’s ability to pass the exam if they didn’t realize that the exam had been updated. In other words, we change the exam number because it is the most effective way to communicate to you as a test taker that the exam content has changed significantly—so you can prepare accordingly.

Because it’s a new exam, it’s first available as a beta exam. This gives you the choice to continue preparing to take the “original” version of the exam or to take the new exam that aligns to the revised job role. The choice is yours, and we always keep the old exam in market for 90 days after the new exam is launched. This gives you time to transition to the new exam. If you’ve been preparing for the current version of the exam, you can still take it during this transition period if you want; however, that version will retire at the end of the 90-day window—no extensions and no exceptions, so plan accordingly. If you have to retake the exam, it might no longer be available.

 

Splitting or consolidating exams

Depending on the nature of the changes made during the JTA refresh, we might also decide to split an exam into two—or we might decide to consolidate two exams into one. We split an exam when the job role has expanded to such an extent that we can no longer cover the core skills and abilities in a single four-hour exam (our maximum seat time). We do everything we can to keep the certification paths straightforward, with a single exam. But, at times, it’s just not possible to do this and still provide a valid and reliable measurement of the required skills.

On the flip side, we might decide that requiring multiple exams to earn a certification is overly burdensome, doesn’t reflect market expectations, or is simply no longer needed because we can design the exam in such a way that if someone demonstrates competence in one area, we can assume competence in other areas (for example, measuring a more difficult or complex skill and assuming that the test taker has the foundational knowledge or skills needed to perform that more complex task). We rarely consolidate exams as a result of a contracted job role; it’s usually because we’ve learned something about the role that allows us to reimagine the assessment process with fewer exams.

Note that in both the consolidation or splitting of exams, new exams with new numbers will be created and will go through the beta exam process we described earlier.

 

Renaming certifications and/or exams

In rare cases, the JTA refresh might indicate that the name of the job role has changed or that we need to modify how we’re referring to it in some meaningful way. This means that we need to change the name of the certification and, usually, by extension, the name of the exam. The new name will reflect our vision for the job role and the required skills based on industry and subject matter expertise input. As an example, we renamed the Azure DevOps Engineer certification to DevOps Engineer to better reflect the future direction of that job role and to remove the confusion that this certification was based on Azure DevOps (the product) rather than on DevOps Engineer (the job role).

Name changes are generally transparent to candidates. If you’ve already earned the certification and its name changes, the new name will be reflected on your transcript. Rarely does this result in an exam number change.

 

Retiring certifications

With the rapid pace of change in cloud-based job roles, it shouldn’t be surprising that some job roles become less relevant over time or that this happens more quickly than it did in the past. Although these decisions sometimes result from the JTA refresh process, we often learn of the possible need to reimagine a certification in completely different way before the annual JTA refresh is due. In those cases, we’ll work with internal and external subject matter experts to decide what to do about the existing certification. If the job role as we originally imagined it no longer makes sense, given the direction the industry is headed, we’ll retire the certification. In most cases, we’ll replace it with a job role certification that’s more relevant and valuable to you, our partners, and organizations as they continue on their digital transformation journeys. This is what happened when we retired Teamwork Administrator and replaced it with Teams Administrator.

When we choose to retire a certification, we’ll provide at least 90 days’ notice so that you can complete the certification requirements if you so choose. But keep in mind that after the exams retire, you won’t be able to take them, so make sure you pass all the certification requirements before that date. In addition, you won’t be able to renew that certification—meaning that you won’t be able to extend the expiration date on your transcript beyond the date that it expires by default after earning it.

 

Answers to some of your questions

Based on my experience with certification and exam changes, I have an idea of some of the questions you’re likely to have. Here are some of the most commonly asked questions, along with their answers.

Does the name of the certification change when you change an exam number?

1. Typically, the name of the associated certification doesn’t change when we release a new exam with a different number. Regardless of whether you earned it with the old or new exam, you’ll have the same certification, but the skills that appear on your badge will reflect those that were part of the exam(s) you took to earn it.

I’ve noticed that you released a new exam for the job role, but I’ve been studying for the current version of the exam for that job role. What should I do—continue on this path or start on the new one?

1. Truly, this is up to you. You need to do what makes sense for your certification journey. You’ll eventually be tested on the new skills as part of our certification renewal requirements, even if you choose to take the old version now. The key consideration is whether you want to be validated on skills that Microsoft believes are more closely aligned to the job role today or to continue as you’ve planned and to update your skills through our recertification process and your own learning journey after you earn the certification with the version of the exam in market today. We offer sufficient notice of these changes so you can make the decision that best fits your journey.

If you choose to take the current version of the exam, check its retirement date and plan your exam accordingly. Note that after the exam is retired, you won’t be able to retake it if you fail your attempt.

When you make changes to an exam, will the self-paced learning content and instructor-led training be updated at the same time?

1. Yes. We’re committed to having the self-paced learning content updated within seven days of the release of the updated exam, and the instructor-led training will be updated within 30 days. If you’re planning to take an instructor-led training course, please make sure that the provided learning is for the version of the exam that you want to take. Some partners will continue to offer the training associated with the old version of the exam until the exam retires, some learning partners will provide both versions, and some will transition immediately to the new version. Be sure to confirm with the partner that’s delivering the training, so you get the training you need.

What’s a beta exam?

1. Exam questions are pilot tested in an exam-like situation known as a beta exam. This helps to ensure that only the best content is included in the live exam. Through this process, Microsoft gathers psychometric data on the quality of the questions. Based on this data and on candidate comments, we work with subject matter experts to finalize the items that will be scored and that will appear on the live exam and we set the cut score. For this reason, if candidates take the beta exam, they won’t receive a score immediately. However, they’ll have a meaningful voice in what’s included on the final exam. This is one of the few opportunities in which someone outside the exam development subject matter experts can have significant influence on the exam content.

When you update an exam number, why is the new exam released as a beta version?

1. Because many of the skills measured by these exams are new (which is why we use a new exam number), we must develop many new questions to cover those skills. These new questions make up a substantial portion of the new exam and need to be pilot tested to help ensure that they are psychometrically sound, valid, reliable, and fair. The beta process allows us to validate the quality of the items that we include on the live exam and lets us know that we’re measuring the right skills.

Through the beta process, we give candidates an active voice into the certification and exam design. Their data and comments are used to evaluate the quality of the items, identify fixes needed to improve accuracy and clarity, and flag questions that must be removed. The data and information we gather through the beta process is, perhaps, the most important part of ensuring the validity and overall quality of the exam.

When will Microsoft update certification and exam pages with changes?

1. We continuously update exam pages with upcoming and applied updates. Candidates should visit those pages frequently to stay up to date with changes to an exam and to learn when they’ll go into effect.

[rootsmusic]

Do you survey employers of different sizes about skills that they need?

[hatsikidee]

The issue with this new style of examination is that the speed of changes is so high, that there's much less learning possibilities than before these role based exams. In the past you could acquire several books on the subject, or do a online training course, and also follow the free edx courses. But nowadays the changes in the exam objectives are so often that you don't see any books on the market anymore, because when a book will be written and released for a new exam, the contents has already changed. Or the exam is retired. Also, online video courses, such as cbt nuggets, have a hard time following the speed. And the free edx courses are taken offline. Now they are superseded by the MS learning modules, but they don't cover everything you need to know. Also, I heard from a few MCTers that they struggle with the speed and sometimes complete illogical choices made by Microsoft.

So it's almost impossible to study well for an exam nowadays. The only thing you can do is through the (sometimes not so clear) MS docs pages and hope you have read enough for the exam. Or wait for an expensive course, hoping that course will be released before the exam is retired again.

So, no, I'm not happy with this new role based thing you created, especially the enormous speed in bringing out updated version of the exams, or retiring exams all together. And I believe I'm not the only one who believes this to be a step back in quality learning. So I hope you listen to your community and slow down the speed. Because I'm getting less and less excited with learning for a new topic.

[pasanp]

@hatsikidee I agree. While I appreciate the progress, I feel Microsoft is in a bubble where they see all their customers as being in a cutting edge tech environment where the users are just waiting for the latest stuff to be implemented. 

Most users just want IT to minimise downtime and stay out of the way so they can do their work. 

I mostly do beta exams to force myself to learn new stuff for the least cost to myself, because I like learning. But neither my employer nor anyone I know care about all the latest stuff in the exams. I am outside US and I do not see hiring managers or even internal IT teams here caring about much of the content in recent exams. The pace of change is too fast for anyone but specialists to know what is going on.

[Danops]

Whilst I agree that some job roles do become less relevant over time some of the MCSA and MCSEs are still very relevant and the deicision to retire them without suitable replacements was a huge misstep by Microsoft. I understand that you want a push to Azure but many companies will not be cloud only for years to come and all this did was anger the people who make your solutions serviceable - the people who understand or want to understand how to use them and want an official recognition.

[ChesterFlake]

As a provider of Microsoft training and certification - our clients are asking why training / certification for on-prem server based technologies such as Windows and SQL Server are being retired without new options.  Without doubt - Azure certainly is "the future" - however - it is not the immediate reality for many of our clients who include military, medical and other security sensitive organizations. These clients will use on-prem solutions for the foreseeable future.

I appreciate the transition of Microsoft technologies into role based certifications. Could courseware and certifications be designed for these extremely important on-prem technologies.  Microsoft continues to develop new versions of Windows & SQL Server - which would suggest there is still enough need / demand for these software services to justify the tremendous development cost.  I am completely at a loss to understand why Microsoft Learn does not feel the users of these mission critical technologies would not need training or to validate their knowledge with certifications. 

Would Microsoft open this discussion to the learning providers "in the trenches" to get their feedback on these decisions?  Candidly - I do not think I am alone in my thoughts. 

I am not sure if the idea was to think if only Azure solutions are offered - companies would just accept it and transition - or - if MIcrosoft Learn simply does not see the ROI.

[sbhagwat2712]

Also one thing that I have noticed regarding new role based certifications is , there is no expert(or professional/specialty ) level certification for most of the areas .

Eg. there are only associate level certifications for Data+AI domain (unlike what other cloud vendors offer) 

There should be some expert(or professional/specialty ) level certifications for each domain like it was earlier for MCSE 

[diodin]

I'm still wondering what happened to the .NET exams that used to exist. In the new role-based structure, their are no .NET exams and certifications anymore. Only Azure exams?! Very strange for a developer role.

[Samantha_Thompson]

Hi there -are there any current links or articles available that provides of list of all the exams and certifications that are expiring and what will replace the?

[pkaluski]

This is the Microsoft in its full glory, doing the thing in which it is best - take the good piece of software or a simple good idea and then screw it and break it in the name of new opportunities and being on a cutting edge. Although cloud is more and more popular, there are still lots of people and companies working with non-cloud tools. However, since it is not sexy and hot, Microsoft try to make people forget about it and pretends that those not-so-hyped technologies never existed. Take Oracle - although their presence in the cloud is strong, they still offer non-cloud database certifications.

Is it so difficult not to warp simple concepts such as consistent ceritifcation paths, which respect customer's needs?

[Vrushal1]

Hi,
If I am Dynamics 365 Fundamentals certified. Then please guide me how to get recertified and what is the process.

Regards,

Vrushal

[Dantheman1080]

Hi All Members:

This is an interesting article regarding " Updating Microsoft Certifications: How we KEEP them relevant"

I kinda agree with what the member on this page are saying, and the IT changes all going towards the "cloud" and train for the higher or the professional level certifications, but in order to reach this level of certification training you need either IT Industry experience or knowledge or IT Expert Certification, but what happens to those who are just starting out or making a career change into the IT industry, where does one start?  I myself started with the IT Strata Fundamentals ( Now called ITF+) and the CompTIA A+ and the Network+ Certification which is a good starting point, but happens if you need to use specific vendor products or training like Microsoft or Cisco?  Microsoft just recently ended (June 30 2022) the MTA (Microsoft Technology Associate) level certification, at first thinking that I didn't wanted to pursue this certification and just pursue the higher level professional  certifications like the MCSA or MCSE (Now Retired) but having limited experience or professional level certification like the MCSA, you need some kind of Foundational skills or knowledge in order to build that knowledge or experience, that's why I am bit upset with Microsoft as to WHY they  ENDED the MTA Certification, Yes I understand that technology or skills or job roles changes and you need to keep pace with those changes, they should of kept the MTA certifications and make changes to the MTA certifications Like Windows 10 or Windows 11 Certification or a NEW Windows Server 2019 and Networking Fundamentals should you decided to pursue a career as a System Administrator or "Hybrid" Administrator (Both on-premise or cloud) Certification training .  After doing the MTA training and passing those MTA Certifications, it gave me a new prospect or view on how the Microsoft Certification process works, believe me this didn't learned over night, it took sometime to learn some trial and error at the beginning but after learning the training objectives and how that particular technology works, it helped me learn how to plan and study for the Microsoft certification.  Now everything is about Cloud, virtualization and Automation (AI) and not so much about the in-person or on-prem work, since you can contract out this type of work and have someone who is more updated and skilled with the latest cloud training to help organization migrate to the cloud (like Azure).  

 

[ArendvanDijk]

@Samantha_Thompson

Here you can see which exams will expire, unfortunately without mentioning which ones they will be replaced by. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/certifications/retired-certification-exams