What Is CPOR and What Does It Mean for Microsoft Partners?

With as many partners as Microsoft has, the company needs a way to recognize which ones are going above and beyond to meet their customer’s needs. Enter CPOR (Claiming Partner of Record), Microsoft’s way of identifying partners who are helping customers achieve their business objectives and take advantage of Microsoft 365.

In this episode of P2PNow, we discuss:

• Microsoft’s perspective on the CPOR program
• What it’s like being a partner of record from AvePoint’s POV
• Actions partners can take today to qualify

Transcript

Christian: The question for this episode is: What is CPOR? 

CPOR stands for Claiming Partner of Record, and is how Microsoft recognizes partners who are servicing a customer’s Microsoft cloud environment.  

Sam: This is a critical topic for partners because it can impact their Microsoft competencies, partner scorecard metrics, and revenue recognition.  

Christian: Exactly. It’s an important topic, so let’s begin with Microsoft’s perspective on the program: 

CPOR enables Microsoft to identify and recognize those partners who are helping customers achieve business objectives and drive value in the cloud. Once a partner associates themselves with a customer workload or subscription, they will then obtain access to usage data. This enables partners to monitor their customer’s active usage and utilization while at the same time providing them with recommendations on how they can maximize these metrics. It’s important to point out that Partners will not have access to any other customer data.

CPOR is also important to Microsoft because it helps them to better understand what is happening within the ecosystem of solution providers like AvePoint, and service providers. Microsoft is constantly reviewing and improving Partner Center and other tools needed to support customers. 

Sam: From an AvePoint perspective, we have scenarios where AvePoint is the partner of record and where our channel partners are the partner of record. If you have questions about CPOR in general, or regarding a specific customer account, please work with your Partner Manager to resolve.

Christian: That is a great first step, for sure.

Sam: What about a scenario where more than 1 partner is working with a customer? Does CPOR recognize multiple partners? 

Christian: Great question —  CPOR allows for only one partner of record per workload or product. However, multiple partners can be associated to the same customer for different subscriptions or workloads, for example one partner providing deployment services, but another providing adoption services and training. That’s another great topic you can discuss with your Partner Manager.  

Sam: There’s a lot more detail around the program, of course, and I’m sure partners will have questions and want to know more. What are some steps partners can take action on immediately? 

Christian: First and foremost, they should have regular communications with their Partner Manager to discuss any questions about CPOR standing and necessary proof of delivery metrics.  

Second, there is a ton of content available on this topic out on Docs.Microsoft.com under Claimed Partner of Record customer associations. I’d encourage all partners to read up on the topic and be familiar with the process. 

Sam: Excellent. Thank you for that overview, Christian. As always, to find out more about AvePoint’s Partner Program, visit www.avepoint.com/partners.

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