CSP Verification Issues Continue

[SamuelRoach]

Can someone please decipher the below and tell me what the verification team is actually asking for or what they mean by "the domain provided in your submission is insufficient for the requirements of our program"?

Thank you for your Document Apologies for the inconvenience, However, the domain provided in your submission is insufficient for the requirements of our program. 

Can you send us a recent additional document that contains the domain and company name or a contact name as they appear on your account?  

we need additional document in which Domain and Entity Name or Partner Name is available, and the Documents submitted must have been issued within the previous 12 months.

The fact that they're asking for additional documents showing the domain and entity name after saying the domain is insufficient for the requirements of the program is confusing. I've provided them with endless documents containing the information they ask for. Yet, they come back with the same generic response without explaining what else could be provided.

At this stage, I'm deleting my organisation from the Microsoft Partner portal.

[#2]

I have the same issue. After submitting all the requested documentation i have been informed that the domain provided in your submission is insufficient for the requirements of our program.

How can a domain be insufficient? What is it about the domain that does not meet the requirments? Have been battling this for over a month now with no end in sight.

Have submitted support requests and just get nowhere!

[#3]

I feel your pain and wish I could tell you what to do to resolve it. The verification team is completely useless and it seems they’re isolated from the rest of Microsoft Partner support so everyone else I’ve spoken to on the Partner Support team has basically said there’s nothing they can do but try to contact the team but it has so far been fruitless.

I ended up deleting my Partner account in the end.

[#4]

@SamuelRoach  It could be that the paperwork you are submitting doesn't match your registered Microsoft account name. Make sure they match EXACTLY!! 

Not certain that is the issue, but I wanted to speak up in case it helps you pass verification! Good luck! 

[#5]

Hi @JillArmour 

Thanks for your reply. Initially i think the details were not EXACTLY correct. Since then I have corrected what i feel to be all the issues. However no matter what i do the application will not move past the rejected state. I think the application is stuck somehow but its impossible to get any relevant information from Microsoft. Just get the same old scripted line, Make sure your details are correct. Meanwhile I'm losing business by not being able to sell Microsoft subscriptions.

[#6]

@jnicholson I see, you may have to appeal a rejected partner profile. 

I know there responses are not clear and they are slow to respond. I'm sorry for your bad experience with their process. I know many partners are having issues, but I hope you can get through this quickly. -jill

[#7]

@jnicholson That’s been exactly my experience.

I’ve even gone as far as purchasing an additional domain, ensuring the invoice details are EXACT but no luck. In the event there was an issue with the initial submission that’s causing a problem on the backend, I even deleted the Partner account and tried with a completely different tenant and domain (since they’re saying “the domain isn’t eligible”) and the same thing happened. Likewise, I’ve also lost revenue with this process.

@JillArmour If so many partners are encountering this issue, this needs to be escalated to someone in Microsoft who can actually get to the bottom of it and resolve the issue, rather than potential partners going around in circles. We do not have time to run our businesses and burn hours upon hours dealing with a Microsoft process that is clearly not working. I’ve worked with Microsoft Partners and the Partner programme for over 10 years and have never experienced such nonsense.

Microsoft talks about caring about its partner community and relies heavily on its partner network to drive adoption of its products and services. Therefore, if partners are impacted, Microsoft will be impacted.

This is not good enough from Microsoft!

[#8]

Had an update on my account today.

"Hello, Please provide additional documentation dated within the past 12 months to verify your domain information. Examples of verification documents are as follows: Domain registration/invoice or renewal that lists entity/username and domain as they are stated in your Profile. Thank you."

I have provided this at least 3 times. I again sent them both documents which I have meticulously reviewed to ensure they match every detail on my profile. Even asked other people to review them just in case i am missing something stupid. I honestly think i have spent close to 20 hours now on this. When will someone at Microsoft release this process is flawed.

I would assume once the documents are uploaded the portal would display "Pending" but it just remains on "Rejected". Not sure if this is the problem, but who knows!

How would you even setup a tenant with your domain if you didn't own the domain? The process to setup a tenant insures you have access to the DNS and domain records.

How can it not be as simple as them telling me, what the issue it so I can rectify it rather than parroting the same old responses. Wouldn't this save them time too?

The incompetence is breathtaking!

[#9]

I received that exact message, word for word. I honestly think they are using some flawed AI to perform these verifications because I can’t envision that actual humans are looking at this, seeing the frustration and responding with exactly the same blurb, completely disregarding what partners are trying to explain to them.

[#10]

@jnicholson I'm sorry for your troubles here, it's frustrating I know. Does your registered partner account match your registered domain name EXACTLY? If not it will be rejected time and time again. That is the only thing I can think that woudl be causing the issue if you are sharing all the correct documents. Sorry I cannot be of more help. I am not part of the support team and I don't have access to their systems to check the status of your ticket(s).

[#11]

@JillArmour Today i got the response in the partner portal that "The domain provided in your submission is insufficient for the requirements of our program."

Could you point me towards some documentation that will tell me what the requirements are for the domain?

Has anyone reading this ever has success getting a partner application approved or am i just wasting my time?

Its sad that people have to complain to forums as they have no other recourse. 

[#12]

@jnicholson does your domain name read exactly as your Microsoft partner account name? That could be the issue? Others have successfully gotten through the process and been verified, you just have to figure out what they are rejecting and fix it. :) Hang in there! 

------------------

Here is what MSFT docs state you need to verify your business domain: 

Business verification confirms that the enrolling company is a legitimate business entity and at the stated address. 

Confirm that the company name and address in your Legal business profile have no spelling errors or abbreviations. They must match your formal company business registration records exactly. If appropriate, select the match found in external data sources (external company databases, such as Dun & Bradstreet (DUNS ID) or state registry).

Microsoft asks the primary contact (normally your Global or Account admin) to provide official documentation. Documentation could be a business registration, tax registration certificate, or a receipt from the company's home country, municipality, or questionnaires to be completed. Microsoft uses this documentation to verify that the company is authorized to do business under that name, and that it is located at the address provided. For further assistance, go to your profile page for MPN, CSP, or Developer to upload additional proofs through the interactive account verification experience.

This info can be found in the Microsoft Docs - Verify your account information when you enroll in a new Partner Center program

This may also be helpful to you as you have to be the Global admin to apply for verification (to my understanding): Microsoft Docs - Find and become the Global admin

I hope that helps? 

[#13]

@JillArmour yes everything matches 100%. Domain registered to my company under my email address. All information matches what I have entered in the partner portal. Will have to look into moving my customers to AWS as there is no end in sight. Absolute disgraceful treatment from Microsoft to there so called valued partners. It's obvious I'm not alone here. Seeing posts from desperate people on all platforms. Facebook CSP page, Reddit, and here. Not your fault I know but nobody seems to be able to help besides sprouting the same old stuff I have checked 100 times.

[#14]

Shout out to Nicole Dezen on Twitter, the Microsoft Chief Partner Officer & CVP Global Partner Solutions. I did tonight.

She may not listen one person but the more people raise an issue publicly about this and let Microsoft know we’re switching customers to the likes of GCP & AWS, maybe someone senior will actually do something about the issue.

Microsoft talks about building “stickiness”, which is ensuring customers use as many services as possible to ensure it makes little sense to move but, at the rate the Verifications team is going, prospective partners will be forced to move their customers to the likes of Google and Amazon if they feel they’ll treat them like valued partners, unlike Microsoft.

[#15 · Accepted solution]

@SamuelRoach 

Hi partners, its Edris from Cirrocloud Solutions.... I have had the same issues for domain ownership verification for a while now and i have finally solved my issue in the following steps while starting from Scratch.

1. Delete the partner accounts and clear up your partner center
2. i have also gone ahead to delete my azure active directory tenant connected to my custom domain
3. Starting from scratch, i created a microsoft developer subcription and connected my custom domain to that tenant. i verified my domain and added DNS records for emails to point to office 365. Therefore my tenant was verified with microsoft and had an azure active directory tenant.
4. I then signed into the partner website using my azure tenant email address then started the procedure for becoming a microsoft partner using that tenant.
5. after going through the procedure and adding details for my company i landed on the page for legal info and was at the stage of email verification.
6. i received the email and verified email and the verification stage verified the employment verification stage automatically as my domain was automatically detected by microsoft. please note that microsoft looks at the azure active directory therefore make sure the tenant name has your compnay name and the technical contact in azure and primary contact and security contact in the partner center match the ones in azure active directory. Copilot i think compares values in azure active directory and matches them with values in partner center to determine domain ownership after you have added domain records(MX,cNAME,TXT) into your cpanel(not so certain on this but just my thought).
7. Then all i am left with is business verification where i just share my certificate of incorporation or company registration documents and that process would be done
8. Please make sure you verify the domain and point your dns records to microsoft before signing up for the microsoft partner program (something the support team doesn't mention which smoothens the verification process because no document submitted will ever be enough for verification as i think the the azure details matching your partner account details  

You can reachout on email address removed for privacy reasons if you need any further information or direct message 

[#16]

@eddiekax96 

Thank you for the detailed steps and taking the time to put them together.

One thing I would say is that deleting the tenant is not an option as it's the tenant associated with all our identities, mailboxes, data, etc. However, I have tried pretty much this same process using a completely separate tenant and new domain name, ensuring the company and contact details in the tenant matches the information in the Partner application.

I do suspect, given the identical generic responses everyone is receiving that Microsoft is using some kind of rubbish AI to process these verifications, which would explain the inflexibility, lack of clarity and ridiculous insistence on every detail matching EXACTLY, which could be a problem, considering the different formats used by domain registrars and other providers who generate the invoices, etc used for verification.

In any case, I'll create a new dev tenant as you suggested and attempt the process against and report back so if it works, others can follow the same process.

Thanks.

[#17]

Today I tried deleting my MPN and moving my domain to a new tenant. I'm in the same position that I cant delete my tenant as I am using it for business services. When I signed back up for the partner program under the new tenant it gave me the same MPN number as before and remembered my application. Total Fail !

[#18]

Same here... even after I'd deleted my Partner account, when I retried, it assigned me the same Partner IDs, which tells me the result will be pretty much the same. I can see residual information from my previous registration.

This is so frustrating! We shouldn't be spending days upon days trying to enrol into a partner program. This is typical Microsoft fiddly products, solutions and processes. By contrast, when I joined the Google Partner Advantage program, I finished signing up at 12:40PM and got the "Thanks for applying to Google Cloud Partner Advantage" email advising they'll get back to me and at 12:42PM (yes, 2 minutes later!!!) received my Welcome email confirming that I'd joined the programme.

Time is money! If I had to charge a client for the time I've spent trying to work around Microsoft's broken process, they'd be a few thousands poorer by now.

Microsoft simply does not care and I know whose products I will be pushing mostly now. It just irritates me that most of the cloud solutions I've typically delivered for clients are on the Microsoft platform, and there's no way around dealing with the Microsoft Partner program team, otherwise I wouldn't bother with this verification debacle.

[#19]

When you delete the partner IDs, please endevour to open the MCPP program IN PRIVATE/INCOGNITO WINDOW otherwise you will have issues....also when you delete your azure tenant please update the name and technical contact information basically everything in overview in azure AD to match information in your partner center

[#20]

when you reopen everything please try to use a private/incognito window...Also make sure the azure tenant information matches the information in your partner center account
i am not from microsoft but what i wrote up there worked for me if you follow the steps...