rss.livelink.threads-in-node

Carta de validación TSP

mrcarruyo — Fri, 08 May 2026 19:54:14 GMT

Saludos, y antes que nada, muchas gracias por ser siempre tan atentos y responder a todas nuestras preguntas.

Escribo para preguntar si es posible obtener una carta que indique que mi organización forma parte del programa TSP, ya que necesito pruebas de ello para ciertos procedimientos en mi país.

(aka.ms/TSP_Achievement_Code_Enroll...) restricted across all accounts unable to enroll Class Admin

CertTulenAdmin-2812 — Fri, 08 May 2026 18:25:34 GMT

The enrollment form at aka.ms/TSP_Achievement_Code_Enrollment returns 'restricted access' for me. I have tried signing in with all three of the following:

1. email address removed for privacy reasons (work / Entra tenant, Partner Center account)

2. email address removed for privacy reasons (consumer MSA with Learn profile)

3. email address removed for privacy reasons (new outlook.com alias, per the Account Enrollment Guide)

Same restriction on all three, so this looks like a tenant or program-level block rather than an account issue.

I also have an open support case (#715-123160) regarding an earlier fraud-detection block on our tenant, which may be related. Microsoft Support has twice advised me to post here.

Could someone please:

Escalate for a manual unblock if there is a tenant-level restriction.

This is the only thing blocking us from issuing Achievement Codes for our May 2026 intake. Happy to share more details via DM.

Thank you,

Abirami Seeni (Abie)

Build observability for scalable AI apps and agents selling through Microsoft Marketplace

Dinah_N — Fri, 08 May 2026 18:15:45 GMT

Discover how to design observability for AI apps and agents selling through Microsoft Marketplace. This Marketplace Community article explains why visibility into execution behavior is essential for operating AI systems confidently at scale—not just keeping them running.

As AI apps and agents reason, branch, retry, and exit dynamically at runtime, traditional infrastructure metrics fall short. Behavioral signals such as execution flow, token usage, latency, and failure patterns help explain what systems are doing, why outcomes occur, and how limits and safeguards shape behavior across tenants and environments.

Learn how observability turns runtime telemetry into clarity that supports customer trust, usage‑based billing, and scalable operations.
Read more: Design observability for AI apps and agents selling through Microsoft Marketplace

Course Retirement Announcement: AI-3022

anbordianu — Fri, 08 May 2026 15:46:31 GMT

The following instructor‑led course is scheduled to retire. You can find all past and upcoming retirements here: Course retirement | Microsoft Learn. Please note that it may take some time for newly announced courses to appear on the page.

AI-3022: Implement knowledge mining with Azure AI Search

https://learn.microsoft.com/training/paths/implement-knowledge-mining-azure-cognitive-search/

Credential: Applied Skills Assessment

Retirement date: May 29, 2026

Replacement course: N/A

AI-3022 is being retired to reflect the evolution of Azure AI, as the focus shifts toward generative AI, multimodal experiences, and more integrated application patterns that better represent how solutions are built today.

Kindly note: This blog is intended solely for informational purposes. For assistance or inquiries, please use the appropriate support channels.

Title Plan Update - May 8, 2026

anbordianu — Fri, 08 May 2026 15:37:12 GMT

📁May 8, 2026 - Title Plan Now Available

Access the latest Instructor-Led Training (ILT) updates anytime at http://aka.ms/Courseware_Title_Plan to ensure you're always working from the most current version.

📌 Reminder: To help you stay informed more quickly and consistently, we’ve moved to a weekly publishing cadence for the title plan. This means each update may include fewer changes but ensures you’re always up to date.

Partner Blog | Unlock the cloud benefits in your partner benefits package with a streamlined activation experience

JillArmourMicrosoft — Fri, 08 May 2026 00:30:20 GMT

Your Microsoft partner benefits are not just resources. They are the tools that let you build capability inside your own organization first. When you use Azure credits, Copilot seats, security suites, and other cloud benefits internally, you gain real operational experience you can apply to customer conversations. You move from describing value to showing outcomes.

Microsoft is continuing to modernize how you activate and manage these benefits in Partner Center, with a more secure, guided redemption experience aligned to your offer anniversary date and the billing account used for purchase. This update is designed to make benefits redemption clearer and easier to manage at scale, especially for organizations working across multiple tenants.

Additionally, we’ve aligned the expiration date for each benefit to the date your offer was purchased—not the date a benefit was first redeemed. Benefit expiration dates now align to your package membership end date, providing a more consistent renewal experience between offer membership and benefits availability.

What’s changing in benefits redemption

Seat-based cloud benefits move to a guided, keyless $0 checkout

If you previously redeemed seat-based cloud benefits using manual 5×5 product keys, that experience is changing. In the modernized flow, redemption starts in Partner Center and finishes with an integrated $0 checkout in the Microsoft 365 admin center. There is no copying, pasting, or storing license keys.

At a high level, the updated flow looks like this:

In Partner Center, select the cloud benefit and choose Redeem.
Follow the guided experience into the Microsoft 365 admin center checkout.
Complete the $0 purchase to provision the benefit into the billing account used to purchase your Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program offering.

Because the redemption is keyless, you no longer need to track keys for future use. The benefit is activated through the connected flow, and then you can assign licenses to users as needed.

Azure credits move to direct deposit into your Billing Profile

Redemption of Azure bulk credits, including credits for GitHub Enterprise and GitHub Copilot Enterprise, is also being modernized. The legacy experience required assigning a user in Partner Center and sharing an activation link, which then created a new Azure subscription for that user. In the modernized experience, partners redeem credits through a direct deposit into an eligible Billing Profile from within Partner Center. No user assignment is required.

When credits are deposited to a Billing Profile, existing and new subscriptions under that profile can use the credits. Plan for more readiness requirements, including the appropriate Partner Center role and access to the Billing Profile selected for deposit, by reviewing Microsoft Learn.

This shift is operational in nature—it is not a change to the Azure benefits you currently have as part of your benefits offerings. This modernization is designed to streamline benefits redemption and simplify how you manage these offerings at scale.

Benefits are tied to the MCA billing account used for purchase

In the modernized experience, benefits are bound to the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) billing account used to purchase the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program offering. That creates clearer tenant guardrails and streamlines administration because redemption is to tenants associated with the same MCA billing account.

If you manage multiple tenants, the organizing principle becomes the billing account boundary. To use benefits across multiple tenants, associate those tenants with the same MCA billing account using “associated billing tenants” in Azure. We highly recommend you review the Microsoft Learn documentation which provides more details regarding the changes.

Expiration aligns to your offer anniversary date

Benefit expiration is being aligned to the membership offer end date, rather than varying based on when a specific benefit was redeemed. This creates a more consistent renewal experience between offer membership and benefits availability, and reduces the number of expiration dates you need to track.

Example: If you purchase a partner benefits package on June 1, 2026, and redeem a benefit later in the year (for instance, on September 1, 2026), that benefit will still expire on June 1, 2027, aligned to the anniversary of your purchase.

For detailed guidance on managing billing, review the Microsoft Learn articles for Azure and the Microsoft 365 admin center.

The best way to avoid disruption of cloud benefit availability is to renew your benefits offer within the renewal window.

Continue reading here

Turn your Azure commitments into smarter cloud investments with Microsoft Marketplace

j_weller_nv — Thu, 07 May 2026 23:23:33 GMT

Discover how organizations are using Microsoft Marketplace as a strategic procurement engine to optimize Azure spend, streamline purchasing, and accelerate time to value. Learn how aligning software purchases with Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) can unlock cost savings, improve visibility, and ensure every dollar of cloud investment is fully optimized—helping teams make more informed, outcomes-driven decisions.

Read the full article: Optimizing Azure spend with Microsoft Marketplace | Microsoft Community Hub

Watch the recorded conversation: Using Microsoft Marketplace to optimize Azure spend - Microsoft Marketplace Community

Missing nonprofit SKUs

rbuffalo — Thu, 07 May 2026 23:22:44 GMT

Our team is unable to find the Entra products or the Intune products at the nonprofit pricing since the beginning of May. This includes Entra Suite or the standalone Entra P1 or P2 products, Intune or Mobility and Security E3 or E5. Were these removed from the price sheet?

Drive stronger Microsoft alignment and unlock co-sell growth at Ultimate Partner LIVE

j_weller_nv — Thu, 07 May 2026 23:01:29 GMT

Join Microsoft and leading ecosystem experts May 11–13 at Ultimate Partner LIVE in Bellevue, WA to learn how to better engage with Microsoft and unlock new co-sell opportunities. This event brings together experienced practitioners to share what works when it comes to aligning with Microsoft priorities, building stronger seller relationships, and increasing visibility within the Marketplace ecosystem.

Attendees will hear insights first-hand from practitioner lead sessions and gain practical strategies to improve partner-to-Microsoft engagement, refine go-to-market execution, and accelerate growth through more effective collaboration. Whether you’re looking to strengthen your Marketplace presence or scale co-sell success, this session delivers actionable insights you can apply immediately.

Learn more and see which sessions you should attend How to get heard by Microsoft and win more together | Microsoft Community Hub

RECAP: Microsoft Elevate Partner Community Monthly Call - May 2026

Latrice_Barnett — Thu, 07 May 2026 22:43:31 GMT

Be sure to catch the replay of this month's Microsoft Elevate Partner Community call. Thanks to all of our fantastic speakers as well!

What we covered:

Videos from Partner Day are now online
2026 Microsoft Partner of the Year Award is coming soon
Education Security and Value Optimization Assessment
ASPX Updates (AI Business Solutions & Security Partner Experience)
Microsoft Elevate for Educators
Microsoft Elevate for Changemakers
Nonprofit Data Solutions in Microsoft Fabric
Study & Learn
New 3 year SKU for Nonprofits
Featured Webinar: Teach & Study
New eBook: The Academic Researcher's Guide to Generative AI

Feel free to review the deck and watch the replay:

Link to the deck: FY26 Microsoft Elevate Partner Community Call - May 2026 - PDF
Link to the recording: Monthly Microsoft Elevate Partner Community Call - May 2026

To get the Microsoft Elevate Partner Community Monthly Call on your calendar, sign up here.

Firm AI for professional services: governed, agentic workflows built on Microsoft Azure

justinroyal — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:51:17 GMT

In this installment of our Partner Spotlight series, we’re highlighting partners building industry-focused AI solutions and bringing them to customers through Microsoft Marketplace. I connected with Richard Baskerville from Intapp to learn how the company is delivering Firm AI—governed, agentic capabilities designed specifically for professional and financial services firms—while aligning with Microsoft Azure for security, scale, and enterprise procurement. Intapp’s approach shows what it looks like to pair deep vertical workflow expertise with a trusted cloud platform so customers can adopt AI in a way that is both practical and accountable.

About Richard Baskerville

Richard Baskerville is a Senior Director at Intapp, where he helps shape strategic AI alliances across the Microsoft ecosystem and beyond.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[JR] Tell us about Intapp. What inspired the founding of the company, and what problems do your solutions help customers solve?

[RB] Intapp was founded on a durable observation: professional firms—law firms, accounting practices, private capital firms, and investment banks—operate differently than general enterprises. Their workflows are shaped by client relationships, professional obligations, and regulatory requirements that generic software was never designed to handle. Our founders saw that these firms were either building bespoke systems at enormous cost or forcing themselves into enterprise tools that didn’t fit.

Today, Intapp delivers Firm AI—governed AI purpose-built for professional services. Our solutions span the full firm lifecycle: business development through Intapp DealCloud, time capture and billing through Intapp Time, and risk and compliance management across Intapp Conflicts, Intake, Terms, Walls, and Employee Compliance. Underpinning it all is Intapp Celeste, our agentic AI platform, which puts AI to work on the specific workflows that drive firm performance—while keeping humans accountable and in control. For firms where every engagement carries professional liability, that governance layer isn’t a feature; it’s the foundation.

[JR] What industries or types of organizations do you primarily serve today?

[RB] Intapp serves professional and financial services firms exclusively. That focus is intentional—and it’s what makes us different. Our customers are law firms, accounting and consulting practices, investment banks and advisory firms, private capital managers, and real assets firms. Many are among the largest in their categories globally.

These firms share characteristics that set them apart from general enterprises: partnership structures, billable-hour economics, client conflict management, regulatory oversight, and relationship networks spanning decades. Generic CRM or ERP tools aren’t built for these dynamics. Intapp is. That vertical depth—built over more than 20 years—is what Firm AI means in practice: AI that understands the context of a law firm partner’s client obligations or a dealmaker’s fund-level requirements, not just the general shape of business software.

[JR] What were your initial expectations for Microsoft Marketplace when you first started your journey?

[RB] Our initial expectation was straightforward: Marketplace would give us a cleaner path to transact with customers already operating inside the Microsoft ecosystem. Many of our customers—large law firms and financial services firms—had already committed significant Azure spend through enterprise agreements. Marketplace offered a way to meet them commercially where they already were.

What we underestimated was how much Marketplace would shape the broader partnership. We went in expecting a distribution channel. What we found was a framework that connected co-sell, Azure consumption alignment, and joint go-to-market in ways that changed how our teams engaged. The commercial mechanics—particularly MACC drawdown eligibility—became a real conversation-opener with procurement and finance stakeholders, not just a contract path.

[JR] What applications do you have available in Microsoft Marketplace, and how do they help customers?

[RB] Intapp has 12 SaaS solutions available in Microsoft Marketplace today, transacted via private offers. They span the full professional services firm lifecycle—from relationship intelligence and deal management with Intapp DealCloud, to time capture with Intapp Time, to risk and compliance management across Intapp Conflicts, Intake, Terms, Walls, and Employee Compliance.

Because we focus exclusively on professional and financial services, customers aren’t buying horizontal software adapted for their industry; they’re buying solutions designed for their workflows, compliance obligations, and client structures.

Looking ahead, Intapp Celeste—our agentic AI platform—will be available in Marketplace via a consumption-based, metered model. That structure matches how agentic AI gets used: variably, tied to real firm activity, and governed end-to-end.

[JR] What were the biggest lessons you learned early on when selling through Marketplace?

[RB] Three lessons stood out early:

Listing is the beginning, not the end. Initial traction required deliberate investment in co-sell enablement—ensuring Microsoft field teams could position Intapp clearly, not just point to a catalog entry.
Specificity wins. Our customers are sophisticated buyers. What worked was leading with vertical relevance—speaking directly to the compliance requirements of a law firm or the relationship-data challenges of a private capital manager.
Private offers require commercial fluency. Helping customers understand how Intapp maps to Azure commitments—and helping Microsoft sellers tell that story—made a material difference in deal velocity.

[JR] How has your business changed with a transactable offer on the Marketplace?

[RB] Transactable offers have changed how deals close. Customers with existing Azure commitments can apply Intapp spend against their MACC, removing a procurement obstacle that previously added months to cycles. Finance and procurement can work within familiar Microsoft frameworks rather than running separate vendor onboarding.

Marketplace has also expanded our reach. Microsoft’s field organization has relationships we can’t replicate at scale, and co-sell has helped translate that reach into qualified pipeline—especially in segments where we previously had limited coverage. And the signal matters: being transactable in Marketplace reinforces that Intapp is an enterprise-grade partner, not a niche point solution.

[JR] How has collaborating with Microsoft sellers impacted your Marketplace growth?

[RB] Microsoft sellers are the activation mechanism for our Marketplace offers. Without field alignment, a listing is a catalog entry. With it, it becomes a joint pipeline motion. We’ve invested in enablement—giving sellers the vertical context to position Intapp credibly in front of legal and financial services CIOs, and making it easy to bring us into deals where Azure capabilities are already in the conversation.

That alignment shows up in specific segments. In private capital and investment banking, Microsoft enterprise relationships often predate ours—co-sell provides warm introductions backed by a trusted infrastructure partner. In legal, where Microsoft 365 is near-universal, that adjacency and deep interoperability creates natural entry points. Co-sell turns those adjacencies into active pipeline rather than theoretical opportunity.

[JR] What has made the co-sell relationship with Microsoft particularly valuable for Intapp?

[RB] Co-sell works because it’s structurally aligned, not just commercially convenient. Microsoft’s investment in these verticals—through industry clouds, compliance frameworks, and dedicated field teams—maps directly onto Intapp’s customer base. We’re selling into the same firms, with the same platform expectations underpinning both offerings.

What makes it particularly valuable is the mutual trust transfer. Firms hold Microsoft to a high standard for security, data governance, and regulatory compliance. When Microsoft sellers bring Intapp into the conversation, that credibility extends to us and compresses the trust-building phase of an enterprise cycle—especially in regulated industries.

[JR] How does Microsoft Marketplace fit into Intapp’s long-term growth strategy?

[RB] Marketplace is central to how we scale Firm AI globally. Our ambition is to be the governed AI platform of record for professional firms across legal, private capital, accounting, and advisory. Helping customers decrement MACC through Marketplace purchases is a clear win-win because it aligns platform investment with workflow outcomes.

The upcoming Marketplace availability of Intapp Celeste which will offer different commercial models for customers (e.g. consumption based) marks the next phase. As Celeste deepens integration with Microsoft 365, Teams, and Azure AI services, the commercial and technical stories converge—customers can both buy and operate within an architecture where Firm AI and Microsoft’s platform reinforce each other.

[JR] What advice would you give other SDCs who are just starting their Microsoft Marketplace journey?

[RB] Three things matter most early on:

Earn the co-sell relationship before you need it. Invest in enablement early so Microsoft sellers have enough vertical context to represent your value clearly.
Get your commercial model right for the channel. Understand how private offers interact with Azure commitments, and plan for consumption-based pricing where it fits AI usage.
Lead with a sharp point of view. The partners who gain traction fastest are the obvious choice for a specific industry workflow or problem—know what that is and communicate it consistently.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Closing reflection

Intapp’s Marketplace journey shows that industry-specific, governed AI wins when it’s paired with an enterprise platform customers already trust. By making solutions transactable—especially through private offers that align to customer’s existing Azure commitments—Intapp reduces procurement friction and accelerates adoption. And like many successful partners, their growth ultimately comes down to enablement: clear vertical messaging and tight co-sell alignment that turns Marketplace presence into a real, qualified pipeline.

Design observability for AI apps and agents selling through Microsoft Marketplace

Julio_Colon — Thu, 07 May 2026 19:30:56 GMT

In the last post, API resilience and reliability patterns for AI apps and agents, we focused on what happens when AI systems encounter failure—and how resilient execution paths keep that failure contained. Timeouts fire with intent. Retries stay bounded. Circuit breakers provide overload protection. When resilience is designed well, your system continues to function even as conditions change.

You can always get curated step-by-step guidance through building, publishing and selling apps for Marketplace through App Advisor.

This post is part of a series on building and publishing well-architected AI apps and agents in Microsoft Marketplace. The series focuses on AI apps and agents that are architected, hosted, and operated on Azure, with guidance aligned to building and selling solutions through Microsoft Marketplace.

Observability for AI systems

AI apps and agents are shifting traditional observability, which was designed for systems based on simple assumptions, where requests followed linear paths and workloads behaved predictably. Execution in AI systems consumes tokens at a highly variable rate rather than fixed compute units. Requests unfold across multiple reasoning steps. Agents perform work that spans APIs, models, retrieval layers, and applications. A single interaction may pause, branch, retry, or exit early depending on inferred intent, context, and constraints.

Instead of asking whether services are running, observability for AI systems asks: what is the system doing right now—and why? Is an agent spending its time reasoning, waiting on dependencies, retrying tool calls, or exiting early due to enforced limits? Is cost increasing because value is increasing, or because execution paths are expanding without progress?

AI observability requirements shift the focus in the following subtle, but critical ways:

From resource availability to workflow state
From performance metrics to signals
From incidents to patterns

Core observability dimensions for AI apps and agents

Once observability shifts toward understanding behavior, clarity comes from tracking state across the agents in the workflow. For AI apps and agents, observable indicators, such as those detailed below, show how work unfolds and changes during real usage—especially in trials and early adoption:

Execution flow shows how a request moves through agents, tools, and workflows. This highlights where execution progresses smoothly, where it slows, and where it concludes early. This makes agent outcomes explainable and keeps behavior consistent across tenants.
Cost and token behavior reveals how execution translates into consumption. Token usage per request, per agent step, and per retry shows where value is being delivered and where execution paths expand without proportional benefit. This insight connects runtime behavior directly to Marketplace billing expectations and evaluations.
Latency and wait states distinguish active processing from time spent waiting on dependencies. Seeing where time is consumed helps explain slow experiences and guides decisions about optimization, caching, or resilience improvements.
Failure classification provides structure when systems degrade. Separating tool failures from planning failures, and transient issues from terminal exits, keeps investigations focused and prevents protective behavior from being misread as instability.
Tenant‑level patterns surface how behavior repeats at scale. Uneven load, and recurring degradation often appear first during trials and shape the customer's perception.

Together, these dimensions turn telemetry into understanding—supporting clearer conversations, faster triage, and predictable execution as usage grows.

Why observability matters

By this point in the journey, your AI app or agent has implemented bounded execution paths, cost controls, and quality of service safeguards. As a result, failure degrades gracefully instead of spreading. These resilience techniques determine how your solution behaves under pressure. The data gathered from observability platforms like Application Insights and Azure Monitor explains why it behaves that way.

For AI and agentic systems, infrastructure health alone rarely answers the questions that matter. Services can be up, CPUs can be idle, and queues can look healthy while agents loop inefficiently, retries quietly expand cost, or workflows exit early without delivering value. From the customer’s perspective, the experience feels inconsistent even though the platform appears stable.

Observability closes this gap by revealing system behavior rather than system status. It shows how requests move, where work concentrates, and how constraints shape outcomes. At Marketplace scale, these patterns repeat across tenants and trials. What appears once during an evaluation often appears again as adoption grows. Observability connects runtime behavior back to the design choices introduced in earlier posts:

Usage‑based billing introduced variability in consumption
Performance optimization introduced tradeoffs among latency, quality, and cost
Resilience patterns introduced controlled failure and bounded execution

Observability allows you to explain outcomes during trials, validate assumptions as usage grows, and operate with confidence across customers and environments. Without this visibility, teams react to symptoms. With it, they recognize patterns.

From execution paths to behavioral signals

Observability begins at the same place resilience begins—API boundaries. These boundaries define where responsibility shifts and where behavior becomes visible. Observability focuses on signals that explain decisions made by the system as it executes instead of relying on raw logs that describe isolated events.

Every resilience mechanism emits behavioral signals. Viewed together, these signals provide far more value than logs alone. Logs answer whether something happened. Behavioral signals explain why it happened and how the system responded. Circuit breakers change state as load builds and recedes. Retry loops show whether failures resolve quickly or exhaust their limits. Timeout enforcement reveals where dependencies slow execution. Fallback paths and early terminations show how the system protects itself while preserving outcomes for customers.

This perspective matters most for agents. Agent execution unfolds as a series of choices—plan, call a tool, retry, exit early—rather than a single request‑response cycle. Observability that tracks these decisions makes agent behavior understandable, consistent, and defensible as usage grows across customer tenants.

Observability at the agent layer

As AI systems become more agent‑driven, observability needs to move closer to where decisions are made. Agents introduce variability by design. They plan, adapt, and choose workflow paths dynamically. Without first‑class visibility into that behavior, execution can appear unpredictable even when the underlying system is healthy.

Observability at the agent layer acts as the feedback loop that keeps execution safely bounded. It shows how agents use the freedom you give them—and where that freedom begins to stretch into inefficiency. Observability follows how the agent did its job instead of treating the agent’s interaction as a single outcome.

Several indicators help make agent behavior understandable.

Step count per request reveals how much reasoning effort a prompt requires.
Planning iterations show whether an agent converges quickly or cycles through alternatives.
Tool invocation frequency highlights when agents rely heavily on external systems.
Early exits compared to full completion explain whether limits and fallbacks activate as designed.

Taken together, these indicators help distinguish healthy exploration from inefficient reasoning and degraded execution. An agent exploring briefly before converging adds value. An agent looping through tools without progress signals pressure, uncertainty, or dependency issues.

This distinction reinforces a core principle of agentic systems: models reason probabilistically, adapting to context as it changes. Your system observes deterministically—measuring execution, enforcing boundaries, and clarifying outcomes. When those roles stay separate and well‑instrumented, agent behavior becomes transparent, predictable, and ready for Marketplace scale.

Observability across environments

The type of Marketplace offer you choose shapes what observability customers expect and how responsibility is shared. For SaaS offers, publishers typically own end‑to‑end execution. Observability centers on agent behavior, workflow completion, token usage, latency, and dependency impact across tenants. Publishers rely on consistent signals—often surfaced through tools like Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and Microsoft AI Foundry—to explain how requests behave as scale and load increase.

For container‑based offers and Azure Managed Applications, observability expectations are more distributed. Publishers expose clear execution outcomes, limits, and failure signals at application boundaries. Customers, in turn, observe infrastructure health, scaling behavior, and downstream systems within their own environments. This separation ensures each party has visibility into what they control without creating ambiguity. Learn more about Choosing your marketplace offer type for AI Apps and agents.

Execution behavior differs across environments for predictable reasons. Scale increases, tenant mix broadens, and external dependencies behave differently under real load. What must stay consistent is how behavior is interpreted. Signal definitions, thresholds, and failure classification should mean the same thing in Dev, Stage, and Prod. Learn more about designing a reliable environment strategy for Microsoft Marketplace AI apps and agents.

Staging environments are where this consistency is validated. Observing retries, timeouts, and graceful degradation before production prepares you for Marketplace evaluations, which often resemble production conditions. Observability gaps tend to appear first during customer evaluation—when clarity matters most.

Publisher and customer visibility boundaries

Purpose: Parallel Post #13 responsibility clarity, now for observability

As observability matures across environments, clarity around responsibility becomes essential. For Marketplace solutions, trust grows when publishers and customers each see what they own—and understand where that visibility ends.

Publishers are responsible for instrumenting execution paths end to end. That means making workflows traceable, limits visible, and failure modes explainable. Observability should surface behavior—how requests progressed, where execution concluded, and why—rather than exposing raw internal errors that require insider knowledge to interpret.
Customers focus their observability on what they control. This includes monitoring downstream systems, infrastructure behavior, and environment‑level alerts within their own estate. When visibility aligns with ownership, teams can act quickly and decisively.

Exposing too much internal detail can overwhelm customers and blur accountability. Observing too little behavior creates friction, especially when issues cross boundaries and lack context. Clear visibility enables faster triage, sharper ownership boundaries, and fewer escalations rooted in ambiguity.

Observability as an enabler for scale, billing, and trust

From a customer’s perspective, observability answers two fundamental questions: Can I understand what happened? and Can I trust this at scale? When the answer to both is clear, observability becomes part of the value your Marketplace offering delivers. When system behavior is visible and explainable, customers gain confidence that adoption and growth will remain predictable.

Observability directly supports usage‑based billing by tying execution behavior to measured consumption. Clear visibility into token usage, retries, and execution paths helps validate how usage is calculated and supports transparent billing conversations. It also enables ongoing performance tuning and caching strategies by showing where latency accumulates, where work repeats, and where optimization delivers measurable impact. Observability reinforces confidence in resilience mechanisms, confirming that limits, fallbacks, and degradation paths activate as designed under real‑world conditions.

Beyond validation, observability creates a continuous feedback loop. Execution data informs pricing adjustments, guides changes to limits, and helps refine default configurations as customer behavior evolves.

What’s next in the journey

With execution behavior observable and explainable, the focus shifts to how AI systems are operated safely as change accelerates. The upcoming posts will discuss deployment strategies, CI/CD pipelines for agents, and progressive rollouts build on this foundation—ensuring AI apps evolve confidently as usage and expectations grow.

Key Resources

See curated, step-by-step guidance to help you build, publish, or sell your app or agent (no matter where you start) in App Advisor

Quick-Start Development Toolkit can connect you with code templates for AI solution patterns

Microsoft AI Envisioning Day Events

How to build and publish AI apps and agents for Microsoft Marketplace

Get over $126K USD in benefits and technical consultations to help you replicate and publish your app with ISV Success

How to get heard by Microsoft and win more together

susantommy — Thu, 07 May 2026 13:00:00 GMT

At Ultimate Partner LIVE Bellevue, May 11-13, some of the sharpest practitioners in the Microsoft ecosystem are coming together to share what works. These are candid, practitioner-led sessions built for senior leaders who need to walk away with something they can use, not a framework to revisit in six months.

🏛️ Sessions Worth Your Time

💰 Marketplace Meets AI: The New Route to Partner Revenue

Cyril Belikoff, VP Microsoft Azure · Jon Yoo, CEO Suger

Cyril Belikoff helped architect the unified Microsoft Marketplace and launched the resale enabled offer, which lets channel partners bundle software development company solutions and transact against Azure commit. Within the 1st week of GA, partners were already processing deals at scale. Cyril joins Vince Menzione and Jon Yoo, CEO of Suger, on Day 1 to cover where the AI-driven marketplace motion is heading and what partners need to do now to capture their share of the revenue flowing through it. Cyril’s advice for the partner still on the sideline is direct: do not try to boil the ocean. Get listed. Create offerings. Figure out 1 or 2 deals, transact them, and see the opportunity. This session gives you the map.

🎯 From Attention to Trust: The New Rules of Hyperscaler Go-To-Market

Ashleigh Vogstad, CEO Transcends · Leigh Ann Campbell, Principal REV Alliances

We are no longer in an attention economy. You are not competing to be seen. You are competing to be trusted, and the shift has a specific mechanism. AI agents are already making procurement decisions using verified signals: co-sell track records, Partner Center data, marketplace history, certifications. The partners building that record now are building an advantage that compounds quickly and is difficult to replicate later. Leigh Ann Campbell has driven over $200 million in influenced and net-new revenue through the Microsoft partner ecosystem. She knows what happens to a referral the moment it lands in Partner Center and what you need to do to make sure it does not die there. Ashleigh Vogstad, CEO of Transcends, brings the broader GTM lens on how the trust economy is changing what buyers respond to and where most partner marketing misses the mark.

🚀 Partner to Pipeline: Activating your GTM Strategy

Reis Barrie, CEO Carve Partners · Greg Goldkamp, Sr. Director Microsoft

This is the rare combination of a partner who has built real pipeline through Microsoft’s co-sell motion and a Microsoft leader who can tell you directly what gets field attention and what gets ignored. Most software companies approach co-sell as a relationship exercise. The ones generating real pipeline treat it as a system. They know which solution plays are active in the current fiscal year. They show up in seller conversations before a deal is open. They make it easy for a Microsoft seller to bring them in because the pitch is already mapped to what that seller is measured on. This session covers how to build that system, from first registration in Partner Center through closed pipeline.

🔗 From Connector to Catalyst: Today’s Alliance Manager

Erin Figer, Founder CORE Consulting · Christine Bongard, CEO The WIT Network · Steven Karachinsky, CEO ZIRO

Erin Figer helped build the co-sell practices at Microsoft, AWS, and Google Cloud when those programs were still being designed. She brings a reframe that changes how the best alliance teams operate: before you can market with a hyperscaler, you have to market to them. Treat Microsoft like a customer. Understand their priorities, their fiscal calendar, their field incentives. Build the internal credibility that gets you pulled into deals instead of chasing them. Joined by Christine Bongard and Steven Karachinsky, this session covers what the transition from connector to catalyst looks like in practice and what separates the alliance managers who generate revenue from those who manage relationships.

💡 Why the practitioner track matters

These are not panel discussions with safe answers. This audience asks direct questions, and the speakers in these sessions are prepared to give direct answers. These sessions run across both days alongside 2 full tracks of mainstage content covering marketplace, distribution, AI strategy, and Microsoft’s channel priorities heading into FY27.

📅 UP LIVE Bellevue · May 11–13, 2026

InterContinental Hotel, Bellevue, WA

🌟 Exclusive discount for Microsoft partners

Use code ULTIMATEVIP50 at checkout for a special discount reserved for Microsoft partners.

👉 Register for UP LIVE Bellevue

Ultimate Partner® is the premier independent platform for technology partnership leaders, uniting the hyperscaler ecosystem to achieve their greatest results through partnering. An official Microsoft GPS recognized community.

New in Microsoft Marketplace: May 7, 2026

Nikhil_Viswanathan — Thu, 07 May 2026 13:00:00 GMT

Learn about 133 new offers that went live in Microsoft Marketplace, a single destination to find, try, and buy cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents to meet your business needs.

Get it now in our marketplace
	AI Assistant: Abe is an AI assistant for Microsoft Teams that creates message-linked reminders, converts time zones, and supports natural-language queries via Microsoft 365 Copilot. It helps teams stay organized, avoid missed follow-ups, and collaborate efficiently by integrating smart automation directly into everyday Teams conversations.
	ALIANDO Cloud Control: ALIANDO Cloud Control is a FinOps tool that optimizes cloud spending by providing detailed analytics and management features. It helps Cloud Ops teams and IT analysts track budgets, forecasts, and expenses with transparency, improving financial control, governance, and visibility across Microsoft Azure subscriptions for better operational efficiency and cost savings.
	Amnify Security: Amnify is a multicloud security and infrastructure management platform supporting Azure and Microsoft 365. It offers more than 900 security checks, compliance with over 40 frameworks, infrastructure deployment via Terraform, AI-driven remediation guidance, automated scanning, and reporting for streamlined cloud security and operations.
	Aquilahm ValueMiner: ValueMiner on Azure offers drilling contractors operational visibility to reduce NPT. It includes managed application deployment, specific features, and metered usage billing. The plan requires an Azure subscription, deployment permissions, and customer-controlled data.
	Architecture Analyzer Agent - Application and Infrastructure Design Insights: Opsera Architecture Analyzer Agent offers deep insights into application and cloud architectures, identifying risks and optimizing performance. It integrates with CI/CD pipelines for continuous validation, enforces governance, and enhances visibility. This tool improves scalability, reduces technical debt, and ensures alignment with best practices for efficient, resilient systems.
	Azure Databricks - DevOps and Data Pipeline Automation: Opsera for Azure Databricks automates and secures data engineering and ML workflows with end-to-end CI/CD, pipeline orchestration, and DevSecOps integration. It enhances delivery speed, reliability, governance, and compliance while reducing manual effort.
	Bidgely UtilityAI Pro: UtilityAI Pro deploys advanced machine learning models within Azure, analyzing AMI, customer, and grid data securely on premises. It provides detailed appliance-level insights and detects inefficiencies, revenue loss, and DERs, enhancing utility programs, grid reliability, and customer experience with AI-driven analytics and Microsoft-native integration.
	BMS AI \| Bot Management System Versions AI: BMS AI is an Italian chatbot platform offering automated user support via webchat, mobile app, and messaging apps. Hosted on Azure with certified data security, it features customizable AI modules for precise or autonomous responses, usage analytics, and integration with external systems, ensuring privacy and versatile communication management.
	Calendar Popup Visual: Calendar Popup Visual for Microsoft Power BI replaces the default date slicer with a popup calendar. Features include one-click presets, fiscal year support, custom ranges, full visual customization, and optional auto-apply. It’s lightweight, private, and overlays other visuals, keeping dashboards uncluttered while enhancing date filtering.
	CodeHive - AI DevOps Assistant for Microsoft Teams: CodeHive AI DevOps Assistant streamlines DevOps workflows with AI-powered automation, task management, and real-time collaboration. It helps developers and IT teams optimize deployment, manage infrastructure, and improve communication, resulting in faster delivery, enhanced system reliability, and reduced operational complexity for more efficient software development.
	Codex Bullet Chart: Codex Bullet Chart is a horizontal bar chart for performance-vs-target reporting. It shows actual values, target markers, and qualitative zones for clear comparison. Features include configurable colors, sorting, tooltips, and cross-filtering, making the visual ideal for dashboards tracking sales, KPIs, and team performance efficiently.
	Codex KPI Card: Codex KPI Card enhances Power BI with customizable KPI tiles showing values, subtitles, change indicators, and color-coded borders based on data. Ideal for executive dashboards and operational monitoring, it offers dynamic colors, directional change pills, tooltips, and cross-filtering, ensuring clear, consistent, and brand-aligned KPI visualization.
	Codex KPI Sparkline Card: Codex KPI Sparkline Card combines a KPI value, target marker, and trend sparkline in one compact visual. Ideal for performance scorecards, financial dashboards, and sales reports, it features customizable typography, variance display, and interactive sparkline with tooltips and cross-filtering, enhancing data insights without extra charts.
	Codex Progress Bar Card: Codex Progress Bar Card displays horizontal progress bars per category, showing current value versus maximum with color-coded thresholds for capacity, task completion, or utilization monitoring. Features include configurable warnings, value labels, sorting, tooltips, and cross-filtering, helping users instantly assess progress and limits visually.
	Codex Sparkline Table: Codex Sparkline Table displays multi-column scorecards with inline sparklines showing trends over time. Ideal for team scorecards, product KPIs, and regional comparisons, it combines current values with historical patterns in one row. Features include customizable sparklines, auto-adjusting columns, tooltips, and cross-filtering for enhanced data insights.
	Codex Time Breakdown: Codex Time Breakdown visualizes total durations as horizontal stacked bars with up to three customizable segments, making it ideal for analyzing event times, project phases, customer journeys, or budgets. Features include independent segment colors, labels, sorting, tooltips, legends, and cross-filtering, enabling clear, detailed time or additive measure breakdowns.
	Codex Variance Waterfall: Codex Variance Waterfall is a bridge chart visualizing variances from baseline to final results, making it ideal for budget versus actual, revenue, headcount, or inventory analysis. Features include automatic totals, color-coded bars, connectors, sorting, labels, tooltips, and cross-filtering, enabling clear insights into what drives differences.
	Codex Zone Gauge: Codex Zone Gauge is a semicircular, color-coded gauge displaying red, amber, and green zones with an animated needle and optional target marker. Ideal for dashboards and KPIs, it features dynamic thresholds, configurable ranges, tooltips, and smooth transitions, helping users quickly assess metric health and status at a glance.
	Compliance Audit Agent - Automated Governance and Continuous Compliance Monitoring: Opsera Compliance Audit Agent automates continuous compliance monitoring across software pipelines and cloud environments. It enforces policies, validates configurations, integrates with CI/CD tools, and generates audit-ready reports for standards like SOC2 and GDPR. This reduces manual audits, enhances governance, and ensures secure, compliant software delivery at scale.
	Darwinbox: Global HCM for Enterprises: Darwinbox is a mobile-first, AI-powered HCM platform streamlining recruitment, onboarding, performance, payroll, and analytics. It offers a secure, scalable, integrated solution with rapid implementation. Recognized by Gartner, it enhances employee lifecycle management and engagement globally.
	DataMarg - Migration Manager: DataMarg - Migration Manager streamlines large-scale ERP/CRM data migration with a centralized, secure platform. It offers standardized templates, real-time tracking, and automated data transfer within customers' Azure tenants. Supporting tools ensure data quality and validation, reducing manual effort, errors, and risks for enterprises and implementation partners during complex migrations.
	DataMasque Sensitive Data Protection Platform: DataMasque automatically discovers, classifies, and masks sensitive data in structured and unstructured sources. It creates synthetically identical masked datasets for safe use in development, testing, and AI, preserving data relationships while protecting privacy, accelerating workflows, and reducing exposure risks.
	Engeni Civil Basic: This solution enhances construction workflows by documenting field instructions, maintaining site diaries, and streamlining communication. Utilize integrated forms, data galleries, and automated email notifications for comprehensive project oversight, documentation, and reporting, ensuring smooth and organized construction management.
	Galtea Platform: Galtea is an AI evaluation platform designed for enterprise teams to ensure reliable AI system deployment. It addresses a key challenge by providing high-quality, use-case-specific test data, enabling thorough AI evaluation before production and helping overcome common project delays caused by insufficient testing resources.
	Gixo Business: Gixo Business transforms source documents into structured briefs, decks, and recommendations, streamlining strategic document creation for executives and teams. It ensures accuracy, saves time by eliminating rewrites, and offers export to PDF, Word, and PowerPoint, enabling seamless production of professional, board-ready summaries and decision materials.
	ICOM Independent E-commerce Platform: Independent E-commerce Platform is a versatile solution for small to midsize businesses, offering tools for inventory management, order processing, and customer engagement. It provides intuitive, customizable features to streamline operations, enhance scalability, and improve customer experiences, helping businesses grow and increase profitability.
	IntelliCoach: IntelliCoach is an AI-powered tool aiding human services professionals with real-time transcription, translation, and policy-aligned prompts during client interactions. It enhances engagement, ensures compliance, reduces documentation burden, and supports accurate, consistent practice across settings, preserving the human connection while improving quality and reducing burnout.
	Lifesify: Lifesify is a digital platform promoting holistic health through personalized guidance, expert insights, and interactive tools. It supports stress management, energy boosting, and overall wellness. Effective in community and corporate programs, Lifesify enhances well-being and productivity, making it a trusted partner for lasting lifestyle improvements.
	LiteLLM Enterprise AI Gateway: LiteLLM AI Gateway enables enterprises to securely access and manage more than 2,500 LLMs via a unified OpenAI-compatible API. It offers centralized control, budget enforcement, usage monitoring, virtual key management, and governance, helping large organizations reduce vendor lock-in, simplify multi-model adoption, and scale AI across teams efficiently.
	Mailmaister - The Smart AI Assistant for Outlook: Mailmaister is a GDPR-compliant AI assistant integrated into Microsoft Outlook that speeds up email replies, optimizes language, schedules meetings, and manages contacts automatically. It enhances productivity and keeps contact data updated, supporting seamless, secure email workflow management.
	MRV Operations for Carbon Removal, Carbon Storage, and Low Carbon Fuels: Mangrove is an enterprise-grade MRV operations platform for carbon removal, capture, and low-carbon fuels. It automates data collection, tracks carbon flows, and ensures compliance with markets and tax credits. Trusted by major projects, it accelerates credit issuance, supports audits, and adapts to evolving regulations for transparent, scalable carbon accounting.
	P6 Resource Histogram: The P6 Resource Histogram is a Power BI custom visual for Primavera P6 users, converting Excel exports into interactive resource loading charts. It supports dynamic filtering, smart column detection, customizable visuals, and accessibility features, displaying budgeted, actual, and remaining units across various timeframes for efficient project control analysis.
	P6 XER Portfolio Analyzer: P6 XER Portfolio Analyzer integrates Primavera P6 XER files directly into Power BI without conversion. It supports local and cloud storage, offering four analysis panels: Executive Dashboard, Project Overview, Interactive Gantt Chart, and automated DCMA 14-Point Schedule Assessment. Data is securely processed within Power BI, ensuring privacy and efficiency.
	PhishIQPlus: PhishIQPlus is a cloud-native cybersecurity platform for detecting, investigating, and responding to phishing threats. It offers advanced analysis, threat prioritization, and integrates with Microsoft Sentinel. Plans vary by request volume, include endpoint and mobile protection, browser extensions, and API access, and have no per-user limits.
	Power Insight Platform: Power Insight centralizes and secures Power BI and Microsoft Fabric reports, reducing licensing costs with Power BI Embedded. It offers a unified analytics portal, robust data governance, and AI-driven natural language queries, enabling scalable, cost-effective, and secure data access for enterprises to make faster, data-driven decisions.
	Power Sales: Power Sales streamlines sales by managing activities, offers, customer relationships, and product catalogs in one system. It enables efficient offer creation, tracks customer interactions, and provides transparent workflows. Dashboards support decision-making, unifying sales processes and improving management across the company for better sales performance.
	Sched4Cloud - Azure Resource Scheduling and Cost Automation: Sched4Cloud automates Azure resource scheduling, stopping non-production VMs and services outside business hours to cut costs up to 70 percent. It offers a visual, multi-subscription dashboard with real-time savings tracking, no scripts or agents needed.
	Scogo AI - Agentic IT Operations Platform: Scogo AI is an autonomous IT operations platform for enterprises, automating support, asset management, compliance, and infrastructure with AI-driven workflows. It offers multi-domain orchestration, real-time telemetry, and multi-channel access, supporting on-premises or cloud deployment.
	SDM Smart Line Chart: The SDM Smart Line Chart is a Power BI custom visual offering advanced trend analysis with multiple curve types, end-of-line labels, data-driven colors, series logos, customizable markers, smart labels, analytics overlays, and full formatting control. Ideal for enterprise dashboards, it enhances readability, branding, and time series visualization.
	Security Scan Agent - Automated DevSecOps and Continuous Vulnerability Management: Opsera Security Scan Agent integrates automated security scanning into CI/CD pipelines, covering source code, open-source dependencies, containers, and infrastructure as code. It supports platforms like Azure DevOps and GitHub, enabling early vulnerability detection, policy enforcement, and continuous monitoring to enhance security, compliance, and developer productivity throughout development.
	Shopper AI: ShopperAI uses AI and computer vision to analyze in-store camera footage, providing real-time insights on shelf availability, planogram compliance, and customer behavior. It offers operational alerts and analytics to optimize merchandising and improve store performance, helping retailers proactively address issues and enhance the shopping experience.
	SLB OptiFlow: OptiFlow offers real-time production optimization using AI, advanced simulators, and digital twins. It integrates multi-domain data and expert workflows, providing operators with a unified system view for continuous monitoring, proactive optimization, and better decisions. The scalable, modular solution adapts dynamically to changing production conditions.
	SLB OptiSite: Optimize oil and gas facilities with modular solutions that enhance performance, reduce footprint, and increase efficiency. Utilizing evergreen data, physics-driven models, and advanced AI—including physics-informed AI and the Tela agentic-AI assistant—these configurable tools boost asset uptime, improve integrity, and ensure operational safety and profitability.
	SQL Security Scan Agent - Database Vulnerability and Compliance Automation: Opsera SQL Security Scan Agent automates detection of SQL vulnerabilities, enforces compliance, and integrates with CI/CD pipelines. It scans scripts, configurations, and schema changes, ensuring early risk detection. Features include policy enforcement, centralized monitoring, and reporting, helping organizations reduce breaches, maintain compliance, and accelerate secure database development.
	TriSignatop for Dynamics 365 Business Central: TriSignatop for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central simplifies sales by enabling quick electronic signatures. It sends documents with one click, manages the signing process, and sends automatic reminders if needed. A dedicated dashboard helps monitor progress and trigger follow-ups, enhancing efficiency and customer engagement.
	USPA - Unified Single Picking Application: USPA's Drone API integrates multiple sales channels like Amazon, food delivery services, and enterprise systems into one scalable platform. It offers a unified picking and dispatch app, real-time synchronization, workflow automation, full order lifecycle management, and webhook notifications, enabling efficient multi-channel retail operations and seamless scalability.
	Wingman: Wingman is an Outlook add-in that integrates SharePoint, enabling users to upload emails and attachments directly to SharePoint and attach files from SharePoint within Outlook. It streamlines Microsoft 365 workflows, reduces manual file handling, ensures consistent document storage, and improves efficiency and compliance across teams.
	Xperts Repo: Xperts Repo is a cloud-based tool for visualizing, monitoring, and documenting system integrations. It offers end-to-end tracking, troubleshooting, alerts, and customizable dashboards. Supporting multiple platforms and hybrid environments, it enhances integration quality and control, with API/SDK for extended integration and monitoring of various services and systems.
Easily deploy virtual machine images
	Cloudtrio Flutter with Windows Server 2019 Cloudtrio Flutter with Windows Server 2025
Go further with workshops, proofs of concept, and implementations
	AI Transformation Accelerator: From Strategy to Scalable GenAI: MailbornWolff's AI transformation service offers a phased approach: identifying high-impact use cases, establishing an AI Center of Excellence with governance and security, and optionally building a generative AI factory for scalable AI solutions. It accelerates value, ensures responsible scaling, and empowers teams for independent AI operation in diverse organizations.
	Concierge Agent by TTEC Digital: TTEC's Concierge Agent, powered by Microsoft Copilot Studio, offers personalized digital customer support triggered by specific interactions. Ideal for industries like retail and healthcare, it enhances engagement, drives revenue through cross-selling, reduces service costs, and scales consistent brand experiences, improving customer loyalty and business outcomes.
	Microsoft Copilot Executive Exploration Workshop: Jasco Consulting's executive experience offers tailored onboarding for senior leaders to confidently adopt Microsoft Copilot AI. It covers strategy, governance, and practical workflows, ensuring measurable value, risk compliance, and faster decision-making. Gain clear AI direction, improved productivity, and empowered change leaders for scalable, efficient enterprise AI adoption.
	Enterprise AI Transformation at Scale: Delphi Consulting offers Enterprise AI Transformation at Scale, enabling organizations to build, deploy, and scale AI solutions rapidly with governance and measurable value. Their AI Factory model combines Microsoft technology, automation, and responsible AI practices, delivering repeatable, secure, and scalable AI capabilities for sustainable business advantage.
	Sensitive Data Protection and Governance with Microsoft 365: Available in Spanish, DATCO's Sensitive Data Protection and Governance with Microsoft 365 is a professional consulting service designed to help organizations protect their critical information, reduce compliance risks, and establish a robust data governance model on top of the Microsoft 365 environment.
	Implementation and Configuration of Microsoft Intune: DATCO's professional service enables organizations to deploy and operate Microsoft Intune to manage devices and applications centrally, securely, and in compliance with corporate policies. The service is geared toward midsize businesses and large organizations looking to improve security, reduce risk, and streamline device management within their Microsoft 365 environment. This offer is available in Spanish.
	Microsoft Fabric Technical Session by Eunoia: Eunoia’s Microsoft Fabric session offers SMEs a clear, practical overview of the unified data platform. The engagement covers architecture, data integration, engineering, warehousing, AI, and BI with live demos, Q&A, and best practices, enabling informed adoption decisions without implementation or configuration commitments.
	MII's Azure Landing Zone Implementation: MII’s Azure Landing Zone Implementation service builds a secure, scalable cloud foundation on Azure. It covers governance, identity, networking, and security using Azure best practices. Experts ensure a well-architected environment for compliance, efficient operations, and accelerated cloud adoption, enabling confident deployment and scaling of applications.
	MII's Power BI Development: MII’s Power BI Development service transforms raw data into interactive dashboards and reports, enabling faster decisions. It offers end-to-end solutions including data integration, modeling, and visualization, using Azure for real-time analytics and scalable reporting. Experts ensure enhanced data visibility, operational efficiency, and secure, cost-effective analytics tailored to business needs.
	Nerdio 365 Management Service - Microsoft 365 Optimization: Zenzero’s Nerdio 365 Management Service automates Microsoft 365 provisioning, security, license optimization, and user lifecycle management. Ideal for MSPs and IT teams, it reduces manual effort, lowers costs, enforces consistent security policies, and provides centralized multi-tenant dashboards, enhancing operational efficiency, compliance, and visibility across Microsoft 365 environments.
	Microsoft Purview Information Protection: 4-Day Implementation: Bytes Software Services' engagement guides organizations through Microsoft Purview Information Protection, including discovery, configuring sensitive data types, implementing protection labels, and deploying automated labeling policies. It ensures consistent, scalable data security and concludes with a handover and documentation for ongoing management and operational use of information protection capabilities.
	SECURE from Infinity Group: SECURE from Infinity Group offers tiered Microsoft-based managed security services, providing scalable protection for identities, devices, and data. Ideal for Microsoft 365 users, it ensures proactive threat monitoring, compliance, and expert management, adapting as businesses grow without complexity or overbuying.
	WarrantyAssist: First Technology's WarrantyAssist AI automates warranty claim intake via a webchat using Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Search. It validates claims against product data, reduces processing costs, and ensures complete submissions. Deployed in under five days, it keeps data secure within your Azure tenant, making it ideal for manufacturers and retailers.
	XNet - Accelerate Modernization of Legacy .NET Applications: Coforge’s XNet Modernization Accelerator automates legacy .NET app upgrades to the latest cloud-ready platforms using AI-driven refactoring. It enhances security, performance, and developer efficiency while reducing technical debt and costs. The tool offers comprehensive assessments, dependency optimization, and seamless migration, accelerating modernization for enterprises.

Contact our partners

3Gi Technology

Advania LS Central Addons

Adzcut - Cybersecurity KPI and Benchmarking Platform

AIVALS AI Coach

Anyscale Operator

AQL Image Gallery

AutoE-Invoice for Dynamics 365 Sales

Azure Cost Review Consultation

BE-terna Fashion Connector to POS Language Pack

BE-terna POS Language Pack

Bissantz Tables for Power BI

blacklens.io for Microsoft Sentinel

Dynamics 365 Business Central Readiness for Discrete Manufacturing: 2-Hour Assessment

CaseDocker

CloudTalk: Calling and Contact Center for Microsoft Teams

Contextractor

Corevist Customer Portal

Cortex AI

Custom Filter Panel

D4U Bridge

Data Security and Compliance

DC365 Payroll for KSA

DC365 Payroll for UAE

Dimension Hierarchies

DriveIQ AI Agent

DRS Softech ICS to EML Converter

E-Mail Signature Generator

Embedded Payments and Reconciliation for Dynamics 365 Business Central

eSteps SmartStorage

FIXEdge FIX server

Freshservice IT Asset Management Remote Collector - Visualize Your Entire IT Infrastructure

Infosys Topaz Fabric

INNO Email Contact Sync AI

Inpass - Easy Visitor Management

IntraLinks

IQ Quantum

Italian Financial Statutory Reports

Jump AI Associate

AI-supported Meter Reading Plausibility Check for Energy Suppliers

Ledger Settlements Agent

Local Functionality for LS Central (Australia)

LumineOne AI For Excel

M | Compliance

MAILcolab

Microsoft Cloud Security Maturity Assessment

MII - All in One Analytics Solution

Nextecmedia

Nice Query Mate AI

Novl AI

Post-dated Check Management

Pellucid Forecasting

PharmaCore Analytics - Sapnity

Power BI Governance Assessment

Project Overview for Dynamics 365 Business Central

Quantium Add-in for Outlook

Release Review and Impact Analysis Service for Dynamics 365

Report Suspicious Email

ShipForma Shipping Documentation

Skywork in PowerPoint

STAEDEAN ECM+ Impact Agent

TrendAI Vision One Zero Trust Secure Access

Virtual Front Desk for Outlook

Warmly

WinTask

This content was generated by Microsoft Azure OpenAI, then revised by human editors.

Elisa – Vuoden kumppani / Cloud & AI Platform Transformation

JonnaKaarlenkaski — Thu, 07 May 2026 07:04:54 GMT

Pilvi ja tekoäly liiketoiminnan kasvun moottorina

Elisa IT-liiketoiminnan strategian ytimessä on selkeä lupaus: IT tehdään asiakkaalle helpoksi, moderni teknologia valjastetaan tukemaan liiketoiminnan kasvua ja Elisa kehittää asiakkaidensa ympäristöjä systemaattisesti vahvemmiksi. Microsoft Azure on keskeinen osa tätä kokonaisuutta.

”Elisa on Suomen johtava Azure-pilvikumppani. Tarjoamme turvallisia ja skaalautuvia ratkaisuja, jotka kiihdyttävät suomalaisen yhteiskunnan ja liike-elämän digitalisaatiota – yhä vahvemmin tekoälyä hyödyntäen”, sanoo Elisan IT-liiketoiminnan johtaja Noora Lainio.

”Palkintomme taustalla ovat lukuisat onnistuneet asiakasprojektit, syvä hybridipilvi- ja tekoälyosaaminen sekä tietysti pitkäjänteinen ja tiivis yhteistyö Microsoftin kanssa.”

Elisan lähestymistapa ulottuu teknologiaa pidemmälle: Azureen pohjautuvat ratkaisut, joissa automaatio ja tekoäly kytketään hallittuihin palveluihin ja toimialaosaamiseen mahdollistavat IT:n, joka tukee mitattavasti liiketoiminnan tavoitteita. Tämä tarkoittaa asiakkaille ennakoitavampaa ja kustannustehokkaampaa IT-arkea, parempaa tietoturvaa ja jatkuvuutta sekä nopeampaa kykyä viedä uusia digitaalisia palveluita tuotantoon.

Kun Elisa huolehtii ympäristön sujuvasta ja turvallisesta operoinnista ja kehittää palveluita systemaattisesti muuttuvien tarpeiden mukana, organisaation johto voi kohdistaa aikaa ja investointeja kasvuun, asiakaskokemukseen ja kilpailukyvyn vahvistamiseen.

Asiakastransformaatioita useilla toimialoilla

Elisa toteutti vuoden aikana merkittäviä Azure-hankkeita muun muassa Aktian, Digital Workforcen, Suomen Punaisen Ristin Veripalvelun, Sympan ja Terveystalon kanssa.

Digital Workforce – liiketoiminnan automaatiopalveluita ja -teknologioita tarjoava yritys – solmi Elisan kanssa Azure-kumppanuuden, jossa Elisa vastaa IT- ja Azure-ympäristöjen ylläpidosta. Käytännössä tämä vapauttaa Digital Workforcen resursseja ydintoimintaan: asiakasarvoa tuottavien palveluiden kehittämiseen ja skaalaukseen. Samalla jatkuvuus, tietoturva ja kapasiteetin hallinta varmistetaan hallitusti, kun Elisa huolehtii skaalautuvasta ja turvallisesta IT-perustasta ja tuo kumppanuuteen näkymän teknologian ja markkinan kehitykseen.

Myös Terveystalo valitsi Elisan kokonaisvaltaiseksi IT- ja tietoliikennepalveluiden uudistus- ja ylläpitokumppaniksi. Valinnassa korostuivat Elisan vahva toimialaosaaminen sekä käyttövalmiit automaatio- ja tekoälyratkaisut, jotka tukevat palvelutuotannon luotettavuutta ja tehostavat arjen tekemistä. Johdon näkökulmasta tämä näkyy parempana hallittavuutena ja kyvykkyytenä kehittää palveluja nopeammin – ilman, että tietoturvasta, jatkuvuudesta tai kustannuskurista tingitään.

Elisa rakentaa tulevaisuuden IT:tä Microsoftin teknologialla

Vuoden 2025 Azure-kumppanuuspalkinto vahvistaa Elisan asemaa luotettavana Microsoft-kumppanina, joka auttaa asiakkaitaan tekemään pilvestä ja tekoälystä hallittua kilpailuetua. Johdon näkökulmasta kyse on ennen kaikkea kokonaisuuden ohjattavuudesta: miten pilvipalvelut, tietoturva ja tekoäly viedään käytäntöön niin, että riskit pysyvät hallinnassa ja investoinnit tuottavat.

Yhdistämällä Microsoft Azuren mahdollisuudet omaan strategiaansa Elisa auttaa suomalaisia organisaatioita rakentamaan IT-ympäristöjä, jotka kestävät muutosta ja skaalautuvat tarpeen mukaan. Kun teknologia toimii saumattomasti ja turvallisesti, organisaatio pystyy nopeuttamaan digitalisaation läpivientiä, parantamaan asiakaskokemusta ja vapauttamaan kyvykkyyksiä kasvuun – ilman, että arjen operointi kuormittaa johtoa tai tiimejä.

Kirjoittaja: Santeri Kotajärvi, Elisa

Fabric Data Agents

Corinna Adkins — Wed, 06 May 2026 17:01:00 GMT

Hello All,

Hoping to get some information on necessary permissions for our users to properly be able to use Fabric Data Agents.

Scenario:

Created a Fabric Data Agent that uses data from Fabric lakehouse table. Published Fabric Agent to M365 Copilot, shared with a business user. Provided business user direct access to Lakehouse as well.

User is able to access the Fabric Data Agent from M365 Copilot however is getting error stating they do not have access to the data.

How do we solve for this, what are we missing?

Corinna

Optimizing Azure spend with Microsoft Marketplace

RajeshRamankutty — Tue, 05 May 2026 23:06:36 GMT

As someone deeply involved with Microsoft Marketplace product marketing team, I was excited to host our recent customer office hour session with Trunal Bhanse, CEO of Clazar. Our conversation focused on using Microsoft Marketplace to optimize Azure spend. The session explored how organizations can leverage Marketplace as a strategic procurement engine and maximize their cloud investments.

Setting the stage: Marketplace as a growth engine

Every organization today is striving to become a frontier firm—enriching employee experiences, reinventing customer engagement, and reshaping business processes. With AI at the center of transformation, the question often arises: should we build or buy AI solutions? If buying, how do we procure them efficiently and securely?

That’s where Microsoft Marketplace comes in. It’s your trusted source for cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents, offering the largest catalog in the industry. Marketplace is fully integrated with Microsoft Cloud, providing a seamless experience from discovery to deployment. Whether you need standard contracts, private offers, or multi-year agreements, Marketplace adapts to your procurement needs and ensures your transactions are visible in the Azure cost management portal.

Azure spend optimization: The power of Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC)

A major focus of our session was the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC). This agreement allows organizations to commit to a certain level of Azure consumption in exchange for discounted rates. The beauty of MACC is that eligible Marketplace transactions decrement your commitment dollar-for-dollar. That means when you purchase MACC-eligible solutions through Marketplace, you’re directly funding your cloud investments and maximizing your discounts.

Our conversation covered how to identify MACC-eligible solutions using tools like Azure Marketplace Compass, the Azure portal, and Marketplace storefront. With over 4,000 eligible solutions available, most organizations can find the software they need and align it with their MACC commitments. This approach is especially valuable at fiscal year-end or when budgets are tight, allowing you to leverage your commitment for critical investments.

Operationalizing Marketplace procurement

To truly optimize spend companies should start with an inventory of all solutions currently deployed or planned for procurement across their organization. By mapping this inventory against MACC-eligible offers, they can ensure every purchase maximizes commitment and discounts.

Security and governance are also paramount. Marketplace enables role-based access controls and private marketplaces, so only authorized employees can procure approved applications. This walled-garden approach gives administrators full control over what’s available for procurement.

Partner solutions and automation

To bring the MACC optimization process to life, Clazar provided a live demonstration of their platform which specializes in automation of this process. Their solution enables organizations to seamlessly match their software inventory against MACC-eligible offers, giving procurement and finance teams consolidated visibility into spend and streamlining the entire procurement workflow. With robust integrations for single sign-on-systems and automated dashboards, Clazar empowers customers to instantly identify eligible applications and make faster, more informed decisions about their Azure Marketplace investments

Microsoft Marketplace is more than a procurement platform—it’s a strategic lever for optimizing Azure spend, accelerating innovation, and simplifying operations. By aligning purchases with MACC commitments, organizations unlock savings, streamline processes, and gain unparalleled visibility into their cloud investments.

To learn more, watch the full recording of our conversation here: Using Microsoft Marketplace to optimize Azure spend - Microsoft Marketplace Community

Resources

Microsoft Marketplace: Microsoft Marketplace | cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents
Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) benefit: Azure Consumption Commitment Benefit - Marketplace customer documentation | Microsoft Learn
Cost management for Microsoft Marketplace purchases: Cost management for Microsoft Marketplace purchases - Marketplace customer documentation | Microsoft Learn

Master multi-currency private offers to scale your Microsoft Marketplace deals globally

j_weller_nv — Tue, 05 May 2026 22:52:27 GMT

Join us May 19 | 9:30 AM PT and learn how to confidently navigate multi-currency private offers in Microsoft Marketplace and close global deals with greater clarity. Join this practical session to understand how local currency invoicing, exchange rates, payment timing, and resale-enabled offer scenarios can impact your Marketplace transactions across geographies.
Learn more and attend: Multi‑currency private offers in Microsoft Marketplace - Microsoft Marketplace Community

Foundry IQ and the partner opportunity: Turning domain knowledge into AI advantage

Reenu — Tue, 05 May 2026 21:03:55 GMT

Turning domain knowledge into AI advantage with Foundry IQ

The enterprise software landscape is undergoing a fundamental shift. AI agents are moving quickly from experimental pilots into production workloads. As organizations deploy agents at scale, a hard truth is emerging: an agent is only as valuable as the knowledge behind it.

General-purpose models can reason, summarize, and generate. What they cannot replicate is the deep domain expertise software development companies have spent years building into products, data models, and best practices. That expertise is what turns an agent from “capable” into “useful” in real business workflows.

This is the moment to ask a strategic question: where does your knowledge live in the AI agent economy, and how easily can customers find it when they are building agents?

Microsoft Foundry IQ is designed to answer that question.

What Foundry IQ means for the partner ecosystem

Foundry IQ is a knowledge layer within Microsoft AI Foundry that connects curated, structured knowledge sources to the agents customers build and deploy. Organizations constructing agents in Foundry can browse, evaluate, and attach knowledge sources in the same place they select models and tools.

Microsoft is leading with its own investment. Foundry IQ already surfaces product knowledge for first-party services, including:

Microsoft Fabric (data pipelines, lakehouses, analytics)

Azure Storage (blob, file, queue, and table architectures)

SharePoint (collaboration, content management, and search)

A growing set of additional Microsoft services

For partners, this matters because it establishes a distribution surface inside the workflows where customers design and operationalize agents. Customers already use Microsoft knowledge sources when building. That same integration path is now open to partners, creating a clear opportunity to bring domain expertise into the agent-building experience.

Microsoft knowledge covers Microsoft products. Customers also need industry and function-specific expertise that only partners provide. Foundry IQ enables you to meet that need by connecting your knowledge to the moment of highest intent, when customers are assembling the knowledge and tools their agents will rely on.

In return, partners can gain:

Increased visibility inside the platform where enterprise AI decisions are made

A route to customer acquisition at the point of agent creation, not only through a separate sales cycle

Stronger integration into the Microsoft ecosystem that can reinforce alignment with Microsoft sellers

The ability to consume Microsoft first-party knowledge via the Model Context Protocol (MCP), making partner-built agents more capable without duplicating knowledge pipelines

Three partner value paths

The opportunity is not one-size-fits-all. Depending on your product architecture and go-to-market strategy, Foundry IQ opens three practical paths.

Path 1: Integrate your knowledge where customers are already building

Microsoft has populated Foundry IQ with knowledge for Fabric, SharePoint, Azure Storage, and other first-party services. Partners can integrate alongside these sources, becoming discoverable at the moment customers are assembling their agents.

This is about showing up where design choices happen, not after the architecture is locked.

A financial services organization builds a compliance agent and pulls in Microsoft platform knowledge alongside your regulatory expertise.

A healthcare organization constructs a clinical workflow agent and discovers your domain knowledge at the point of need.

In this model, your expertise becomes part of the agent’s foundation. Instead of being evaluated later through a separate procurement cycle, it becomes a selectable component in the agent-building workflow. That creates a new distribution channel at the point of highest customer intent.

Path 2: Consume Foundry IQ to power your own agents

The value flows both ways. Partners building agents, or agent-building platforms, can consume Foundry IQ as a knowledge source through MCP.

Consider a partner offering a vertical supply chain platform. By connecting to Foundry IQ via MCP, that platform can:

Ground its agents in Microsoft knowledge for Azure infrastructure, data services, and collaboration tools

Layer the partner’s proprietary supply chain logic on top

Deliver more capable agents without building and maintaining knowledge pipelines for every Microsoft service

This is leverage. Partners benefit from Microsoft’s knowledge investment. Customers get agents that understand more of the full stack, from infrastructure through industry workflows.

Path 3: Extend your existing knowledge platform with Foundry IQ

Some partners already operate knowledge management or intelligence platforms. For these partners, Foundry IQ can expand relevance without forcing a platform rewrite.

Foundry IQ and Microsoft Search capabilities can be integrated into your existing solution so you can:

Combine your proprietary knowledge graph with Microsoft’s enterprise knowledge surface

Deliver a more unified experience without requiring users to leave the platform they already use

Evolve a standalone knowledge product into one that is connected to broader enterprise intelligence workflows

This path strengthens your role as the knowledge hub while extending the reach of the content you surface.

The business case for software development companies

Across these paths, the business case tends to show up in three ways:

Growth through integration
When your knowledge becomes a selectable part of a customer’s agent architecture, each deployment becomes a durable touchpoint. Agents built with your integration can create ongoing product usage and expanded commercial opportunity.

Differentiation through domain expertise
Microsoft covers the platform layer. Partners cover the domain layer. As reasoning capabilities become more common, curated domain expertise becomes a key differentiator in agent outcomes.

Ecosystem leverage through co-innovation
Partners who integrate early can shape emerging patterns, build stronger visibility into customer demand, and become a natural choice when customers need domain-specific knowledge connected to their agents.

Next steps

Microsoft has already committed its product knowledge to Foundry IQ, and customers are using it to build agents. The domain layer is where partners complete the picture.

Start with these actions:

Identify your value path: Which of the three models aligns with your product and go-to-market strategy?

Inventory your knowledge assets: What expertise, data sets, or frameworks would materially improve customer-built agents?

Define an integration plan: Prioritize one scenario where your knowledge creates clear customer value and can be packaged repeatably.

Engage your Microsoft partner development team: Align on scope and the right technical path to integrate or consume knowledge.

The partners who move early can help set quality benchmarks and establish durable placement in the agent-building workflows customers adopt first.

Additional resources

Microsoft AI Foundry – Build, evaluate, and deploy AI agents

Foundry IQ Overview – Learn how Foundry IQ connects knowledge to agents

Model Context Protocol (MCP) – Open standard for connecting AI agents to knowledge and tools

Azure AI Foundry Documentation – Technical documentation for the Foundry platform

Microsoft Partner Network – Explore partnership opportunities and engagement path

What partners need to know before Microsoft’s new fiscal year

susantommy — Tue, 05 May 2026 19:26:16 GMT

At Ultimate Partner LIVE Bellevue, May 11–13, a lineup of senior Microsoft executives will take the mainstage to share what is shifting, what it means for your business, and how the most aligned partners are responding. Here is who to know.

Stephen Boyle, CVP, Enterprise Partner Solutions

Stephen leads Microsoft’s enterprise partner sales organization and brings a direct view of how the ecosystem is performing at the highest levels. In his fireside with Vince Menzione, he will share what the most successful partners are doing differently as AI moves from a conversation to a core business motion. For any partner navigating co-sell, enterprise alignment, or ecosystem positioning heading into FY27, this is the session that sets the frame.

Alex Zagury, CVP, Global Channel Sales

Alex brings a perspective most Microsoft leaders do not have, more than a decade at Cisco where she built a $9B+ partner-managed business and led the integration of the $28B Splunk acquisition. She joined Microsoft to apply that experience to the indirect channel. Her session covers FY27 channel priorities: where Microsoft is investing, what the most successful CSP and indirect partners are doing right now with AI and Copilot, and why the partners who have moved to an outcomes-based model are already seeing compounding growth.

Jose Gomez Cueto, General Manager, Americas SMB

The $777B SMB opportunity is Microsoft’s largest addressable market, and Jose leads it across the Americas. His session addresses what it means for an SMB customer to become a Frontier Firm, and why MSPs are the critical link in making that happen. He will also share how Microsoft moved faster to bring SMB-specific AI products to market than it ever has before, and what that signals for the rest of FY27.

Cyril Belikoff, VP, Microsoft Azure and Industry Clouds

Cyril has been at the center of some of the most significant structural changes Microsoft has made to how partners transact. He helped architect the unified Microsoft Marketplace and launched the Resale Enabled Offer, which enables channel partners to bundle ISV solutions and transact against Azure commit. His session addresses where the AI-driven marketplace motion is heading and what partners need to do now to capture their share of the revenue flowing through it.

More Microsoft on the Agenda

Microsoft leaders Greg Goldkamp, Monica French, Erwin Visser, Mira Ayad, and others will deliver practical, execution-focused content across co-sell, distribution, the SMB channel, and AI strategy throughout both days. This is not a product showcase or a keynote built for an audience of thousands. It is a room of 250+ senior partner executives, 2 days of mainstage and spotlight sessions, and direct access to the Microsoft leaders whose priorities will shape the next 12 months.