A story about our journey on the marketplace. I hope it will inspire and help on your journey
I would like to share my experience with publishing transactable apps on the Microsoft commercial marketplace, the Microsoft 365 App Certification Program, Marketplace Rewards, and certified software designations. Starting with publishing our apps on to the marketplace: We have several apps that operate within the context of Microsoft 365, including apps for Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Copilot Agent, Office, and SharePoint. We have been in AppSource for many years and have customers worldwide. We developed an in-house license application to manage our customers' licenses. Before the commercial marketplace, we managed all invoicing and license management manually. Now, everything has become much easier. We have published monetized SaaS apps connected to the AppSource apps. Using the SaaS Fulfillment API, we integrated the purchasing process with our in-house license application. We have gained numerous benefits, including: Significant time savings in the invoicing and billing process, as purchasing, adding, removing, or cancelling licenses is automated and managed by Microsoft Customers appreciate the ability to manage licenses themselves, finding it easier Improved market awareness due to promotion in the marketplace And new customers are joining regularly. It is also important to mention Marketplace Rewards, which offer various benefits. For example, customer case stories can be published through Marketplace Rewards on Microsoft customer case stories. Here is a link to our latest story: Microsoft Customer Story - Design for Leisure improves efficiency 30% with iGlobe solutions and Microsoft Planner. Additionally, the Transact & Grow Incentive Campaign has provided us with financial incentives through marketplace sales, as well as Azure sponsorship credits to offset deployment costs. Considering these advantages, there is potential to make the apps CSP Ready as well: https://aka.ms/P2PeBook. Equally important is obtaining the Microsoft 365 App Certification. Certification confirms that an app solution is compatible with Microsoft technologies, compliant with cloud app security best practices, and supported by Microsoft. This is significant because: It provides certification from Microsoft, confirming app security and compliance It saves time in the sales process, as security and compliance are already verified It makes the app easier to find on AppSource, the Commercial Marketplace, and in the Teams App admin portal, where it will be listed in a special category Achieving sales in the marketplace, having customer case stories, and obtaining the Microsoft 365 App Certification provides the foundation to obtain Certified Software Designations, which come with additional benefits and opportunities for co-selling with Microsoft. Today two of our apps have achieved the Certified Software Designation for Modern Work. Soon iPlanner Pro for Teams that includes a Copilot Agent will follow as well. I share this story not to boast but to inspire and motivate others. There is nothing exceptional about us or our experience here – it can be completely replicated by leveraging the resources that Microsoft provides.Was it all very easy…. No. Is it doable? Yes!Is Anyone Else Facing Issues with SaaS Subscriptions on Teams Store/AppSource?
Hi All, We’ve published two Teams Apps with SaaS subscriptions. While most customers can subscribe without issues, we still receive numerous contacts from those unable to subscribe through the Teams Store/AppSource. The most frustrating part is the vague error messages when a subscription fails, providing no clear explanation. As a result, we often need to redirect customers to a different payment platform. Microsoft, we ask for your support in helping ISVs by: Fixing whatever is causing subscription failures for some customers. We are loosing money here!!! Providing clearer error messages when a subscription fails. I don’t believe this is a widespread issue, as most subscriptions go through smoothly. Anyone else experiencing this?Action required to prepare your app for cloud.microsoft
Hey there, Perhaps this is the wrong forum to ask, but since we're discussing Teams apps here, I thought I'd ask. Did anyone get emails from Microsoft regarding the changes to the cloud.microsoft? The changes involve: Upgrade to version 2.19 or aboveof the Teams JS library Retain the domains that your app’s CSP headers/ x-frame-options currently refer to Update your x-frame-options/CSP headers to allow for add: *.cloud.microsoft The corresponding blog is here:Action required: ensure your Microsoft Teams apps are ready for upcoming domain changes We're reviewing some options currently and its looking like there could be wide-spread affect on existing customers of our Teams apps. Anyone gone through this? Do we know the actual timeline were this will be mandated?OpenAI Bot SDK in Microsoft Teams - Technical Question
Currently, we are working on a new feature for our 'check it' Microsoft Teams product, we have a technical challenge that MS support is unable to help with and want to see if anyone in here has had a similar issue: Using the OpenAI models, specifically with the OpenAIClient SDK (.net) it has become a common behaviour for all AI bots to stream their response to the user in an organic conversational manner (open AI playground, Chat GPT etc..). When trying to do the same with the team's bot SDK on await turnContext.UpdateActivityAsync(newActivity, cancellationToken); call. I receive a 429 Too many requests issue. Even with the guidance to allow for retries* it fails to find the correct exception type within the retry policy indicating that this is not teams. The same calls can be made in the AI playground without issue or streamed out to a web application. This leads us to assume it's the bot rates that are failing. Is there any way to update an activity in a streaming manner or will the bot SDK look to support this now or in the future? Rate limiting for bots - Teams | Microsoft Learn$10K+ FY24 opportunity for Teams publishers
Does anyone here have a Teams transactable offer in the Marketplace? If you do, you could be eligible for $10K+ incentives.Great video and insights fromElena Kennedy(Microsoft partner leader) on how Teams solutions developers to take advantage of FY24 incentiveshttps://lnkd.in/gUczm_FZ Get your step-by-step guidehereChanging Published ID
This is a bit of a 'what we have gone through' post to see if anyone else has been through the process of changing/adding a new trading name to an existing Microsoft Partner accountif anyone has had the same problems that we have and a word of advice for anyone thinking of doing it. We currently have three MS Teams solutions available through the Teams/AppSource marketplace (gauge.it, check.it and ask.it) which we built and launched under the original company name Cloud Cover IT. We sold the Managed Service arm of the business Back in December 2023, with the remaining parts of the business (including the Development arm) continuing under the legal of Cloud Cover IT as seemed the best thing to do considering our MPN number, retention of clients, existing IP etc... Due to our business now being a Software company that developed Saas and Low Code Power Platform solutions, we felt the trading name needed to change so we settled on Flyte (flyte.cloud). Before changing the above we ran through the plan with Microsoft Support and was advised that making this change was relatively easy as all that would be required was to change the publisher's name in the partner centre - this is where the issues started. The initial step was fine- our Publisher Name had successfully updated to Flyte, our Windows ID showed as Flyte, and our apps showed in AppSource and Teams Store under Flyte- however, the app permissions modal still shows Cloud Cover IT Services LTD when a user downloads one of these Flyte apps. This has resulted in ongoing issues with the verification team who would not pass our app without this being changed to Flyte to match. We completely understand that this should align, however Microsoft Support has been unable to provide any solutions to solve this issue. Since this issue first arose at the beginning of January 2024, we have been continually passed between the Azure and Partner Centre support teams and as of today remains unresolved. Currently, we have a concession from the validation team until June however nobody seems to know how to fix the problem without changing the legal name / MPN number. If anyone has been through the process of changing their Trading Name with Microsoft or knows how we can introduce a permanent solution to this issue, it would be greatly appreciated.Mobile Home Screen Icon from 3rd Party Teams App
Recently, I discovered that from Teams you can create a shortcut of a personal app on your device home screen. Do you know how do I set the icon to appear? Is something to do with the manifest? Our app is Teams native, meaning you can't find a web version of it outside Teams. Could that be the problem? I searched in the documentation of MS but I couldn't find. Can someone point me at the right direction?
Teams Publishers: Share your Marketplace Win Story to build Awareness inside Microsoft
To all our #Teams ISV Publishers, did you sell your solution through our Commercial Marketplace? Is your customer leveraging your Teams Integration? Bonus if you have integrated Copilot / AI within your solution, that would be very interesting to us! We want to hear from you! It's that time again to submit your Marketplace Transaction Win Story to be considered for amplification within Microsoft (nothing will be shared publicly without your and your customer's explicit permission!) Simply fill out this form with your win story details and we'll review it! https://www.linkedin.com/smart-links/AQGOy9PEIQ1tcg
