Partner with indirect resellers in the Cloud Solution Provider program

Article
2025-04-18

Appropriate roles: Admin agent | Sales agent

With such a complex and rapidly evolving technology marketplace, customers want the competitive edge that technology solutions can give them. In such a climate, it makes sense for partners to invest in partner-to-partner engagements to extend offerings and enable customers to do even more.

New resellers are entering the market and seeking ways to offer their solutions to customers outside of their markets and locales. As an established technology provider, you're well positioned to be their route to market.

To establish partnerships, introduce innovative solutions to the market, and facilitate customers' adoption of cloud services, collaborate with indirect resellers through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.

In the indirect provider/reseller (two-tier) model, you work with indirect resellers to offer Microsoft cloud solutions to customers. You purchase products and subscriptions directly from Microsoft and then offer those solutions to customers through your resellers.

As an indirect provider, you use Partner Center to:

Connect with indirect resellers who can help expand your reach and customer base.
Establish partnerships with indirect resellers that allow you both to serve common customers.
Designate indirect resellers to manage specific customers and their subscriptions.
Manage your relationships with Microsoft, customers, and indirect resellers all in one place.

For information on the CSP program requirements as an indirect reseller, see Get started as an indirect reseller on the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program website.

Establish and manage partnership with indirect resellers and customers

To establish and manage your partnership with indirect resellers and customers, use the following steps:

Review your company's profile on Microsoft's official indirect providers list.
- To make changes to your company's indirect provider listing, contact your Microsoft representative.
Connect with indirect resellers.
- Before you can interact and transact with resellers, you must establish partnerships with them in Partner Center.

After you complete the preceding steps, you can manage your reseller partnerships on the Indirect resellers page from your Partner Center menu.

Important

Before you can start working with resellers, they must be onboarded as CSP indirect resellers in Partner Center. Direct your resellers to Partner with indirect providers in CSP for information about enrolling in CSP.

Connect with indirect resellers

To interact and transact with indirect resellers in Partner Center, you must establish a partnership with them. Having a partnership with an indirect reseller allows both you and the reseller to serve common customers.

To establish a partnership, Admin agents can email a partnership request to the reseller using the link provided in Partner Center. Be sure to have the reseller's email address on hand before you get started.

On the subscription details page, in the Reseller (PartnerID) field, add the reseller you want to work with. Be sure to use the PartnerID associated with the reseller's Partner Location Account they used to onboard to Partner Center. This action ensures that the reseller receives the appropriate incentives (if eligible) and they have an active Microsoft Partner Agreement to engage in the transaction.

To request a partnership with an indirect reseller, use the following steps:

From the Partner Center home menu, navigate to the Customers workspace.
Select Indirect resellers.
Select Request a partnership.
A draft email message appears.
- Select Open in email to open the message in your default email application.
  - or -
- Select Copy to clipboard to copy and then paste the message into an email.
Select Done.

Important

You can customize the text in the email message to suit your needs. However, don't modify or remove the link, as it's personalized for your Partner Center account.

After the reseller accepts your partnership request, they appear in your indirect resellers list. Then you can:
- Add new customers on their behalf.
- Submit orders on behalf of their customers.
- Associate the reseller with a subscription, so they can manage it on behalf of the customer who purchased it.
- Designate the reseller as the customer's support contact for specific subscriptions.

Add an indirect reseller as Partner of Record (POR) on a new subscription purchase

Note

⚠️ The Partner of Record (POR) validation will take effect from June 2, 2025. Until that date, the user experience through both the UI and API remains unchanged.

🔄 What is changing?

Indirect providers will be required to assign an authorized indirect reseller as the Partner of Record (POR) when placing new Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program subscription orders.

🎯 What is required?

When you place a new CSP subscription order, the system will check that the indirect reseller assigned as Partner of Record (POR) meets all the following criteria:

🔍 POR validation checklist

✅ Requirement	📄 Description
CSP authorization and active tenant	The indirect reseller must have valid CSP authorization and an active tenant.
Same region	The indirect reseller must be located in the same geographic region as the indirect provider.
Accepted MPA	The indirect reseller must have accepted the Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA).
Linked to a Partner Location Account (PLA)	The indirect reseller must be associated with a valid PLA.

Warning

If the indirect reseller doesn't meet these conditions, the subscription purchase will be blocked after June 2, 2025.

🧭 How does it change your user experience?

The new POR validation checks might impact the way you handle:

🛒 New subscription purchases.
🔐 Granular Delegated Admin Privileges (GDAP) relationships with customers.

⚠️ What to expect

❗Error messages on invalid POR

If an invalid Partner of Record (POR) is assigned during a new subscription order through UI or API:

The system will block the purchase.
An error message will appear with guidance on what went wrong. For a breakdown of possible errors, see error code descriptions.
The order will fail until a valid POR is associated.

🚫 GDAP access termination

If a reseller's tenant is suspended, granular delegated admin privileges (GDAP) across all the partner's customer accounts is revoked.

What do you need to do to avoid the error?

If you're an indirect provider, to ensure a smooth process when making a purchase:

🔍Use the Insights dashboard to identify invalid PORs and work with those resellers to correct the issues or find their replacements.
👥Train your teams on the new validation rules and how to resolve the errors.
🤝Work with your resellers to make sure they meet all the requirements.
🆔 Get the correct PLA ID for the country or region where you want to purchase a new subscription and use that in your purchase as a POR.

If you're an indirect reseller, to be associated with a purchase, you should:

✅Have an active CSP tenant that is associated with an authorized Partner Location Account (PLA) ID.
✅Accept the Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA).
✅Be located in the same region as their indirect provider.
✅Share your PLA ID with your indirect provider by going to Account settings > Organization Profile > Identifiers in your tenant.

Update details of existing subscriptions to include the indirect reseller

For existing subscriptions, you can update the subscription details to include the indirect reseller. To perform this change, you need Admin Agent or Sales Agent roles in Partner Center.

To update the details of existing subscriptions to include the indirect reseller, use the following step:

On the subscription details page, in the Reseller (MPN ID) field, add the reseller who should get credit for the transaction. Doing so ensures that the reseller receives the appropriate incentives credit and provides contact details for customers on the Microsoft 365 admin center.
In the Reseller (MPN ID) dropdown, either:
- Select an existing indirect reseller listed or
- To add a different reseller, select Indirect reseller not in the list? Enter Partner ID. Enter the reseller's Partner ID, and select Verify
Select Submit.

Set the level of access and involvement for a reseller

Depending on the level of access and involvement that you want the reseller to have, you might want to take one or more of the actions described in the following table.

To accomplish this:	Do this:	At this location:
Enable a reseller to manage a customer's account and have administrator permissions to manage their subscriptions.	Associate the reseller with the customer account when adding the new customer.	Add customer page.
Enable the reseller to manage an Azure customer's account.	Associate a reseller with an Azure customer account when adding a new customer.	On the Microsoft Entra admin center, select User Settings to change the indirect reseller's default permissions.
Give the reseller credit for incentives.	Associate the reseller with the subscription (new or existing).	New subscription page
Delegate customer support for specific subscriptions to the reseller.	Select the reseller from the Designated support contact list.	On the subscription's detail page, select the customer from your Customers page and then select the subscription from the customer's Subscriptions page.

Remove a partnership with an indirect reseller

From the Partner Center menu on the dashboard, select Indirect resellers.
On the Indirect resellers page, select Remove partnership.
Select Yes when the message asking for confirmation appears.
Important

To remove a relationship, you need Admin Agent or Sales Agent role types in Partner Center.

Customers associated with the indirect reseller aren't removed. Any delegated admin privileges granted remain unchanged. Depending on their level of access and involvement, consider communicating with the indirect reseller and end customer about this change. When you, as an indirect provider, decide to terminate a relationship with an indirect reseller, you are confirming that:
- The decision was made in good faith.
- It was done for legitimate business reasons.
- The termination complies with all terms outlined in your agreement with the customer or partner.
- You also defend and hold Microsoft harmless from and against any third-party claims to the contrary.
You must provide legal notice of termination to your customer or partner if your agreement requires it. This tool doesn't generate notice to the customer or partner.

After you end a partnership with an indirect reseller, they'll no longer appear in your indirect reseller list.

Find answers to your questions about the Microsoft Partner Agreement.

How indirect providers can help their resellers adopt the Microsoft Partner Agreement - FAQ.
Learn more about managing customer accounts and subscriptions.

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