Some organizations live by the mantra “There is always room for improvement in everything.” Microsoft is one of those organizations. Microsoft and its Partners strive to improve on their customer services. They have tried to do so by either reinventing their products or reorganizing their services. If you hadn't imagined that Microsoft Cloud services could get any better, you are in for a surprise.
In September 2017, Microsoft announced FastTrack for Microsoft 365. It offers deployment and adoption of self-serve tools, guidance, and engineering assistance for collaboration, voice, devices, and security across Windows 10, Microsoft 365, and EMS.
Microsoft FastTrack
Microsoft's Fast-Track Program is a package of dedicated services, sources, assistance, and funding. It allows Microsoft partners companies to provide Microsoft Cloud services with greater benefits, lower costs, and efficiency to their customers. You can now have Microsoft Fast-Track services in your Office 365 and Dynamics 365 for business
FastTrack is designed to help you deploy Microsoft 365 at no additional costs. You can use the FastTrack high-quality solutions with a new or existing qualifying subscription.
All remote guidance is provided to you through a combination of tools and published documentation. The personnel cannot act on your behalf but will provide you with a combination of verbal and written instructions and best practices to help you successfully equip your eligible services and allow users to take full advantage of your Microsoft 365 purchase.
FastTrack helps in the following languages: Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, and Vietnamese.
Features of fastTrack
Envision
Identify and prioritize scenarios while learning about available resources as you plan for rollout. This stage is critical to your journey, as you’re setting business goals to measure success.
Onboard
During the Onboard stage, you work remotely with the FastTrack team and/or your partner. Together, you prepare your environment and get a project plan in place to start the process of moving to the cloud.
Drive Value
Lasting cloud services success depends on usage and satisfaction. Achieving this success requires planning and execution through the Envision and Onboard phases, and ongoing operational excellence.
Services and Scenarios supported by FastTrack
This topic includes details on the workload scenarios supported by FastTrack and the source environment expectations necessary before we can begin. Based on your current setup, we work with you to create a remediation plan that brings your source environment up to the minimum requirements for successful onboarding.
FastTrack provides guidance to help you first with core capabilities (common for all Microsoft Online Services) and then with onboarding each eligible service:
Data Migration
FastTrack can help you migrate mail and file data in your source environments to Office 365 (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business).
The type of assistance we provide depends on your number of Office 365 licenses:
What’s New in FastTrack? Product Updates
Eligibility for Microsoft FastTrack
Microsoft 365
Office 365
EMS
Azure
An overview of the Microsoft FastTrack digital experience and resources
Here's a look at the newly expanded FastTrack to help you successfully roll out Microsoft solutions. Office 365 Senior Product Manager, Sharon Liu will show you how FastTrack helps you to identify and prioritize your key scenarios and stakeholders, build a customized success plan that you can share with others, get assistance from our team of Microsoft FastTrack engineers, and use pre-built assets to inform and train your users.
How Does Microsoft Fast-Track Program Help Partners?
Partners and FastTrack working together is a powerful combination that leads to the most successful deployments. FastTrack’s customized guidance includes access to Microsoft engineering expertise, best practices, and a variety of tools and resources. However, Microsoft FastTrack alone may not cover all of a given customer’s onboarding and adoption needs.
That’s where you can add value—providing your services and expertise to fill any gaps to optimize customers’ Microsoft 365 implementations. Grow your business by offering onsite project management, custom scopes of work, and customized training to enable your customers’ success. You might also consider becoming a Microsoft FastTrack Ready partner, which enables you to leverage the FastTrack methodology to deliver the FastTrack benefit directly to customers
A facilitated partner means more facility and innovation for customers. Microsoft Fast-Track Partners can give more efficient, customized, and enhanced solutions to their clients with extended deployment and support capabilities because the underlying objective of the Microsoft Fast-Track Partner Program is to facilitate the clients. Any company with Microsoft Fast-Track status offers
How Does Microsoft Fast-Track Program Help Customers?
If you're corporate and want to move your business to the cloud, any Partner with Microsoft Fast-Track Ready status can give you an advantage over other companies. If you choose a Microsoft Fast-Track Partner to deploy a Cloud Solution for your organization, you can have much more than just a solution. You would experience extended support post-deployment at a cheaper price. Furthermore, Microsoft servers, engineers and consultants would directly involve themselves to make sure that the whole process is completed smoothly. With Microsoft Fast-Track Program, you can have
How to Use Fasttrack Service Description
The FastTrack service description helps business stakeholders understand the benefits and answer key questions like; What purchases are eligible? How to get help? What can I expect from Microsoft FastTrack? What obligations do I have? What about data migration?
To ensure this, it’s broken down into four sections:
Eligibility – Understand if your purchase is eligible for FastTrack assistance and identify the Microsoft 365 services covered by FastTrack Specialists.
Process and Expectations – Learn how to engage FastTrack for assistance, get an overview of how that assistance is provided, receive tips for a successful experience, and understand key responsibilities of both FastTrack and your company.
Products and Capabilities – Obtain more details on the specific guidance Microsoft FastTrack provides for each Microsoft 365 product or capability and our expectations for your source environment prior to the start of that work.
Data Migration – Understand the type of data Microsoft FastTrack will migrate into your Microsoft 365 environment and specifics around the process and limitations.
How Can We Help?
Communication Square, a Microsoft Gold Partner and also, a FastTrack-ready partner - has helped several clients get on-board for Microsoft business solutions with Microsoft Fast-Track Partner Program. We ensure expert guidance and that the onboarding experience is a pleasant one and take pride in extending our professional services and support post-deployment, constantly keeping in touch with our clients to find their pain points, and analyzing their environment to design a tailored solution for their needs.
FAQs
1. What are the sign-in requirements for microsoft.com/FastTrack?
To sign in you must have an active work or school account (organization ID or Azure Active Directory ID) on an active tenant (including free-trial tenants). This work or school account is the email address and account that you use to sign in to Microsoft 365, Office 365, EMS, or other Microsoft cloud services for work or school. If you don’t have a work or school account you can obtain one by purchasing Microsoft cloud services or signing up for a trial.
2. I’m eligible for Microsoft FastTrack but don’t have an Azure Active Directory ID to log into the FastTrack portal. How do I sign in?
See the entry above for more information about Azure Active Directory IDs. If you are currently eligible for FastTrack but are experiencing difficulty logging into the FastTrack portal because you do not have an Azure Active Directory ID, please contact the FastTrack team by sending an email to FastTrackNoTenantSub@Microsoft.com with the subject line "FastTrack Non-AAD login" and include the following information:
How to Use Fasttrack Service Description
The FastTrack service description helps business stakeholders understand the benefits and answer key questions like; What purchases are eligible? How to get help? What can I expect from Microsoft FastTrack? What obligations do I have? What about data migration?
To ensure this, it’s broken down into four sections:
Eligibility – Understand if your purchase is eligible for FastTrack assistance and identify the Microsoft 365 services covered by FastTrack Specialists.
Process and Expectations – Learn how to engage FastTrack for assistance, get an overview of how that assistance is provided, receive tips for a successful experience, and understand key responsibilities of both FastTrack and your company.
Products and Capabilities – Obtain more details on the specific guidance Microsoft FastTrack provides for each Microsoft 365 product or capability and our expectations for your source environment prior to the start of that work.
Data Migration – Understand the type of data Microsoft FastTrack will migrate into your Microsoft 365 environment and specifics around the process and limitations.
How Can We Help?
Communication Square, a Microsoft Gold Partner and, a FastTrack-ready partner - has helped several clients get on-board for Microsoft business solutions with Microsoft Fast-Track Partner Program. We ensure expert guidance and that the onboarding experience is a pleasant one and take pride in extending our professional services and support post-deployment, constantly staying connected with our clients to find their pain points and analyzing their environment to design a tailored solution for their needs.
FAQs
1. What are the sign-in requirements for microsoft.com/FastTrack?
To sign in you must have an active work or school account (organization ID or Azure Active Directory ID) on an active tenant (including free-trial tenants). This work or school account is the email address and account that you use to sign in to Microsoft 365, Office 365, EMS, or other Microsoft cloud services for work or school. If you don’t have a work or school account, you can obtain one by purchasing Microsoft cloud services or signing up for a trial.
2. I’m eligible for Microsoft FastTrack but don’t have an Azure Active Directory ID to log into the FastTrack portal. How do I sign in?
See the entry above for more information about Azure Active Directory IDs. If you are currently eligible for FastTrack but are having trouble logging into the FastTrack portal because you do not have an Azure Active Directory ID, please contact the FastTrack team by sending an email to FastTrackNoTenantSub@Microsoft.com with the subject line "FastTrack Non-AAD login" and include the following information:
3. What is Microsoft FastTrack for Microsoft 365?
Microsoft FastTrack is a benefit designed to help you deploy Microsoft 365 (included in eligible subscriptions) at no additional cost. You can use FastTrack services with a new or existing qualifying subscription.
4. What role do partners play when working with Microsoft FastTrack?
Microsoft FastTrack specialists can work closely with both customers and partners during a FastTrack engagement. This teamwork helps customers benefit from all the resources and guidance available through FastTrack. With the purchase of an eligible subscription, customers, partners, or field staff can request assistance for FastTrack services. With access to FastTrack’s best practices, customers and partners can use a standardized, repeatable process to support successful deployments. Additionally, partners can combine their expertise with Microsoft FastTrack services to provide best-in-class solutions to their customers’ plans.
Once engaged, an approved partner works with their customer to help build a plan that drives the achievement of their business goals. Local environment considerations and timelines are documented to prioritize resources. A Microsoft FastTrack specialist can help review the plan and provide guidance about business goals, local infrastructure requirements (on-premises and/or to the cloud), timing, and resource needs. Once planning is complete, the partner and customer have a blueprint for managing the customer rollout.
5. What are the eligibility criteria to be Microsoft FastTrack Ready?
Active Gold Cloud Productivity or Active Cloud Enterprise Mobility Manage, along with one of the following:
Teamwork eligibility – 2,500 active entitlements growth in trailing twelve months on three of the four Teamwork workloads (Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, Yammer)
Security eligibility – 2,500 active entitlements growth in trailing twelve months in both Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Azure Active Directory Premium workloads.
Get Modern eligibility – Either 5,000 monthly active user growth in trailing twelve months on Office 365 ProPlus or deliver five or more Windows 10 ECIF engagements in FY19
6. What workloads are in scope for this program?
Our goal is to help customers realize business value with Microsoft 365. As part of the Microsoft FastTrack program, you'll be supported and incentivized to help customers get the most out of the following workloads:
Exchange Online
SharePoint Online
Microsoft Teams
7. How can I set up Microsoft 365 by myself?
Our guides walk you through setting up the services you want to use. You select the features and options you want to deploy, and the guides build a step-by-step setup plan customized to your needs. You'll get a full set of instructions, videos, reference articles, and scripts. Some guides include automation that will change some of your settings, while in other areas of the guide you can change your settings and data to guide you. You can use these guides anytime, even during planning or after you've already set up the services, to learn more about Microsoft 365 features and options. In addition, you can use the guides to prepare your environment and set up email, Exchange Online Protection, Windows 10 with Office 365, SharePoint, Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise, OneDrive for Business, Azure AD Connect, Azure AD Basic and Premium, Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Groups, Skype for Business, Yammer, and StaffHub.
8. What are the 3 phases of Microsoft FastTrack?
Microsoft FastTrack is divided up into three stages, designed to make sure your cloud journey starts on the right foot, and that you move to Office 365 with confidence. The three stages are called Envision, Onboard and Drive Value.
Last Updated 9 months ago
