Microsoft Partner Center account structure: Best practices for long-term success
About the author: David Starr is the founder and CEO of Cumulus26, where focus is on accelerating customer's Azure Marketplace journey from onboarding to business success. He is a former Principal Architect at Microsoft working on Azure Marketplace and a 6-time Microsoft MVP in Developer Tooling. Why account structure matters in Partner Center When first creating a Partner Center account, many Software Development Company (SDC) partners I’ve worked with dive straight into creating their transactable offers without first considering how their accounts are structured. This often leads to confusion about account setup, creating multiple “orphan” accounts, and support incidents that can delay the publication of your software to the Microsoft Marketplace--or even result in losing access to Partner Center. This article examines Partner Center account structures and the primary decisions to make when setting up your company’s accounts in the portal. We’ll cover the following. Initial considerations: Individual accounts. Understanding organizational account structures and configurations. Working with important identifiers used in account management and support scenarios. Setting up for long-term successful management of your accounts. This article ensures you’ll know how to structure your Microsoft Partner Center account so that it supports your organization’s needs today and can scale with you as you grow. Understanding Partner Center account management After initially creating your account, it’s tempting to skip user management and move on to other tasks in the portal. This can lead to the common mistake of failing to assign multiple account administrators right away. The predictable outcome is that if an account administrator leaves your organization, your staff could lose the ability to administer-- or even access-- Partner Center. This may sound intuitive upon reading it, so why mention it? It’s because I have worked with many publishers who failed to do this and were later unable to get the access they needed. This leads to time spent resolving support incidents, which can delay publishing your solution. Before diving into setting up an account, it’s helpful to understand there are three different accounts involved: Microsoft accounts, Azure Entra ID accounts, and Partner Center accounts. Although, the Microsoft account is essentially an extension of the Azure Entra ID account. In short, you must have an Azure Entra ID account to have a Partner Center account. These account types are shown in the image below. Each has its own features and capabilities. It is worth noting while you do need an Entra ID account, you do not need an Azure subscription, which allows creation of services like databases or virtual machines. This can be an important point for Azure administrators who provide accounts strictly for use with Partner Center. Setting up an Azure tenant in Partner Center Azure accounts for your organization are stored in tenants, which provide identity, security, and account management through Microsoft Entra ID. At least one tenant must be associated with Partner Center to manage the portal’s accounts. This allows those with accounts in the tenant to also have accounts in Partner Center. You may associate a pre-existing Entra ID account with Partner Center, or you may create one if needed. Regardless of which technique you use, you can manage users and permissions for Partner Center after configuring your tenant. User accounts After configuring your tenant, head over to the user management screen in Account settings, then select User management in the left side menu. As we mentioned earlier, the next account you’ll want to configure is another Global administrator. If you created the Azure tenant you are working with, you already have Global Administrator permissions in Partner Center. Otherwise, you may need to contact your Azure administrator to get the permissions you need. This is why it’s common (and good) practice for organizations with pre-existing Azure tenants to have an Azure administrator initially set up Partner Center. Adding another Partner Center administrator For this next step, there are three options for adding that new person to Partner Center: Create new user – Used if there are no other user accounts in the tenant. Add existing user – Use this if there are existing user accounts in the tenant. Invite outside user – May be used for inviting someone from outside your organization to manage Partner Center for you. Regardless of which method you choose, since you are adding a second Global administrator, give them that role during account setup. This is the first role listed in the account setup process as shown here. Configuring partner global and location accounts Now that you have at least two global administrators, you can turn your attention to setting up your organizational accounts. There are two types in Partner Center. Partner global account (PGA) Partner location account (PLA) Structuring your accounts There is one PGA per SDC and one or more PLAs. A PGA is an overarching account containing contact and other information for your organization. Each PLA account represents a different location for the organization. A single PLA is created when you first create a Partner Center account. This may be enough for some organizations, but for many SDCs it’s a good idea to consider how you will organize the company and its products in the future. See the image below for a typical example of PGA and PLA structures, the information associated with them, and their roles. Some organizations may want multiple PLAs to represent different sales centers or divisions within the SDC. It’s also a good idea for smaller SDCs to consider future growth at this stage. Think about how and where your company may eventually do business. However, you do not need multiple PLAs to sell your solution in multiple countries--you can sell worldwide even if you have only one PLA. Both PGAs and PLAs have unique identifiers, examples of which are shown in the below image. You may need to access these when working with Microsoft. To do so, go to: Account Settings > Identifiers > Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Managing publisher accounts and identifiers Each PLA has one or more publisher accounts, which are established when enrolling in the Microsoft Marketplace program. Each publisher also receives its own set of identifiers, and it’s common to be asked for these in customer support scenarios. When creating a new publisher, you get to specify your publisher account’s primary ID, but a second Seller ID is automatically assigned for you. To access publisher IDs, visit: Account settings > Identifiers > Publisher Tax and payment profiles-- used by Microsoft to bill on your behalf and to pay you for customer purchases-- are associated with publisher accounts. Publisher accounts are sometimes used by different billing departments or to organize products into logical groups. See the image below for a typical example. As you can see, the account structure is straightforward. If you consider it in advance of setting up Partner Center, you will be more likely to avoid configuration mistakes and be set up well for future growth. Organizing offers and plans for marketplace publishing We’ve seen how to structure user and organizational accounts to ensure a great Partner Center experience. When it’s time to set up your products to sell in the marketplace there are two more entities involved, offers and plans. Offers represent your base software product and plans are used to sell one or more SKUs of the product. For example, Cumulus26’s AMPup solution for marketplace publishers may be our offer, and has different plans for team, professional, and enterprise versions. To support global software sales, each plan is associated with one or more global markets. For example, a US-based publisher may sell software in Canada, the UK, and Germany. Selling markets are designated for each plan. Of course, each offer and plan receives its own ID. For each, you must specify the ID as you create each entity, and I recommend planning a logical naming convention for these IDs as you may need to navigate marketplace features using them at some point. Now you have a complete picture of Partner Center structures from PGAs all the way to plans as shown in the image below, which represents a single-region seller. This turns out to be the most common Partner Center account configuration due to its simplicity and the needs of most SDCs. Conclusion: Building for scalability and support There is a strong relationship between Microsoft Azure Entra ID and Partner Center accounts. For many SDCs the simplest path to successful user management is to start with an Entra ID Global Administrator setting up your initial Partner Center account. Don’t forget the important first step of adding a second Partner Center account administrator. You are now ready to model your organization and products in Partner Center, from PLAs and PGAs to offers and plans. You also understand the ID structures of each entity. You can refer to this article for help on where to find them when needed. With a solid understanding of Partner Center user and organizational account structures, you are ready to begin configuring your users and organization in Partner Center.
Unable to pass Employment Verifcation step in Partner Center
Hi, I have been trying to enroll in the partner center since January. I am stuck at the step Employment Verification. I have uploaded all requested documents like domain name registration, domain name invoice, TXT file, etc, but everytime I get the message ' Based on the information you have provided to date, we have determined that your organization does not currently meet the requirements to pass verification' without any further explanation what exactly is wrong or why I am not meeting the requirement and how to fix it. It is driving me crazy, and making me very frustrated to be frank, that Microsoft is not able (or not willing) to help me in a decent way by letting me talk to a real life person. Because in my honest opinion the issue would be solved quite easily. I have opened several tickets already, but the answer is every time the same without any clear explanation what the problem is and how to solve it. Can please someone help me. I am a self employed developer who wants to enroll in the partner center and buy the partner benefits to use them for my every day work. Best regards, ErikWelcome to the FY26 Q1 Partner Digest!
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Migration Incentives: New end-customer migration incentives are now available to help software companies and advanced specialized system integrators securely and efficiently move software companies’ end customers to modern applications running on Azure. See Azure Incentives > ISV Engagements tab in the incentive guide for details. 🗓️ Events & Office Hours June-September recaps June: The Microsoft Marketplace Ecosystem Opportunity Explore how AI is reshaping solution development and customer engagement in this conversation with Cyril Belikoff, Microsoft’s new leader for Marketplace. Learn how the marketplace is simplifying procurement and accelerating growth. 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Celebrate the winners and finalists of Partner of the Year Awards 👉 Register now and stay up to date with event news at Microsoft Ignite Unplugged. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Stay tuned to the https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/marketplace-blog/bg-p/MarketplaceBlog for upcoming recaps and new office hour announcements. 💬 Share Your Feedback! We truly appreciate your feedback and want to ensure these Partner Digests deliver the information you need to succeed in the marketplace. If you have any feedback or suggestions on how we can continue to improve the content to best support you, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
Request for Private Link Support in Microsoft Office Add-in Store
I'm currently in the process of publishing an Office Add-in. From what I’ve observed in Microsoft’s add-in review process, there doesn’t seem to be a way to create a preview or private link for an add-in published to the store. I’d like to obtain a private link to test the add-in across different platforms before making it publicly available. This would help ensure there are no issues when users install it from the store on various platforms. Other cloud providers, such as Google, offer similar functionality for their Google Workspace add-ons, allowing developers to test and share private versions before public release. Microsoft should consider providing a similar feature for Office Add-ins to support better testing, validation, and rollout strategies
Unable to open support tickets; error: "There was a problem retrieving the support request details."
Hello, We are looking to become a verified partner, but are unable to do so due to this error in communicating with the support team. I have tried creating multiple tickets, but after it is created, it's not possible to open it anymore. Upon opening error is thrown: "There was a problem retrieving the support request details." I tried contacting support, but they seem to give a generic response unrelated to the issue and close the ticket. May someone help, please? Generic response:
Error when i try to test deploy our Azure application offer solution from marketplace
Hi All, We have published our azure app offer and recently went live successfully. But when i try to access it from marketplace and test the deploy as a customer by giving all the parameters, i got below error at the end. I have reviewed the templates and i dont see anything wrong. And all test passed with the azure testing tool. Please advice if you come across this error and help us in fixing this. Thank you.Unlock FY26 partner growth in the agentic AI era
Microsoft is rolling out new tools and resources to help partners thrive in the AI era. From Copilot Studio credits to expanded designations and AI-powered go-to-market support—these updates are designed to help you build faster, sell smarter, and scale with confidence. Curious what’s coming? Explore the FY26 benefits.
Microsoft Partner Center Account Verification Issues - Steps Unresponsive
Hello fellow members, I am currently facing an issue with the Microsoft Partner Center's account verification process, and I'm reaching out to see if anyone else has encountered a similar problem or if there's a workaround that I might have missed. I have been trying to verify my account as guided by their official documentation (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/verification-responses). Here are the steps I followed: I went to Account Settings and clicked on the Legal Info, then clicked on the "Fix now" button as instructed. The next step mentions "In Account Verification, from Select document type to upload, select the type of document you want to upload for verification". This is where the problem lies. After Step 1, the "Account Verification" tab or option simply doesn't appear for me. It feels as though the process just halts there. I tried to find a way around it, assuming maybe it's a browser issue or some temporary glitch, but multiple attempts yielded the same result. Through different browsers, different computers at different times. I also raised support tickets regarding this matter, but unfortunately, I haven't received any concrete responses yet. They only keep directing me back to the same steps that are unresponsive. And this has been over a month now and I kinda get stuck. Has anyone here faced a similar challenge or has any insights on how I can proceed with this? I appreciate all the help and suggestions I can get. Thanks in advance!
Unable to create support request in Partner Center
Hello, I am unable to create support request in partner center. I am getting the following error message while trying to create a support request. "There was an issue creating your service request. Please wait 10 minutes and try again." Can someone let me know if there is another way to contact support in Partner center.? Thanks, Ari
