Every quarter, thousands of Microsoft partners renew their Solutions Partner designations. They pay the fees, display the badges, and move on with their day. What most of them never do is claim the free consulting hours that come bundled with those designations.

We are talking about Technical Presales and Deployment (TPD) services. Real Microsoft consultants. Up to 50 free advisory hours. Available right now in your Partner Center dashboard. And the majority of partners we work with have never submitted a single request.

That changes today.

First: Do You Even Qualify?

TPD hours are not for everyone. Microsoft reserves them for partners who have invested in their partnership level. Here is the breakdown:

- Solutions Partner designation: 50 advisory hours, unlimited technical presales
- Partner Success Expanded Benefits: 10 advisory hours, unlimited technical presales
- Partner Success Core Benefits: 5 advisory hours, and presales deducts from your hours
- Partner Launch Benefits: not eligible at all

Read that first row again. If you hold a Solutions Partner designation, you have 50 free advisory hours plus unlimited technical presales support. That is not a typo.

No designation yet? You are leaving both credibility and free consulting on the table.

The Six Solutions Partner Designations

Microsoft currently offers six Solutions Partner designations, each tied to a solution area. All require a minimum of 70 points (out of 100) in the Partner Capability Score, measured across Performance, Skilling, and Customer Success.

- Modern Work: Microsoft 365, Teams, collaboration
- Security: Defender, Sentinel, Entra, Purview
- Business Applications: Dynamics 365, Power Platform
- Data & AI (Azure): Azure data, AI, machine learning
- Digital & App Innovation (Azure): App development, DevOps, GitHub
- Infrastructure (Azure): Azure infrastructure, hybrid, migration

Each designation unlocks not just TPD hours but also free internal licenses (25 Copilot, M365 E7), partner badges, and marketplace visibility. If you are not tracking your Partner Capability Score, start today.

Specializations: The Next Level

Once you hold a designation, you can layer on specializations to differentiate further. These are included in the designations program at no extra cost.

Key FY27 specializations worth knowing:

- Microsoft 365 Copilot (Modern Work): newly renamed and expanded from the retired Adoption and Change Management track
- Copilot (Security): brand new for FY27
- AI Platform on Microsoft Azure: for Data & AI partners
- Agentic DevOps with Azure and GitHub: replaces the old Accelerate Developer Productivity track

Specializations signal deep expertise to customers and Microsoft field sellers. They are how you move from "partner" to "the partner Microsoft recommends."

Heads Up: The Skilling Ground Is Shifting

One more reason to check your score this week: Microsoft is retiring a wave of certifications and replacing them with AI-focused ones. AZ-204 and MB-280 retired July 31, AZ-500 and PL-200 follow August 31, and the changes feed directly into the skilling requirements behind your designation points. If your certification plan was built on the old tracks, re-plan it now. Completed certs stay valid for one year, so anyone already in the exam pipeline should finish fast.

What Can You Actually Use TPD For?

Microsoft organizes TPD into five scenarios. Each one maps to a real moment in a partner's business lifecycle.

1. Plan Your Business

Before you build anything, get help figuring out where to focus. TPD consultants assess your technical capabilities, identify gaps, and create a growth plan. This includes help with CSP enrollment, technical architecture planning, and requirements mapping.

This is the session you book when you are staring at your portfolio wondering: "Should we invest in Copilot, Security, or Azure infrastructure first?"

2. Build a Service or Application

From product vision to publishing. TPD consultants guide architecture design, review your patterns, and help you list in Microsoft Marketplace. They also help you navigate the co-sell submission process.

The catch: no long-term consulting over 25 hours per engagement, no production troubleshooting, no building your entire solution for you. They advise. You build.

3. Technical Assistance for Sellers

This one is criminally underused. Your sales team hits a technical objection they cannot answer. Instead of losing the deal, you book a TPD session and get help creating demos, proofs of concept, and handling customer objections.

They also help with Pricing and Billing workspaces in Partner Center, which matters if you are running CSP operations and need to understand Microsoft's billing mechanics.

4. Grow and Support Your Business

After you build and sell, TPD helps you expand. Implementation guidance, design reviews, security posture improvements, and Partner Center SDK/API development support. If you are automating your CSP operations, this is where you get Microsoft to review your approach before you write ten thousand lines of integration code.

5. Software Development Companies (ISV)

For ISVs building on Microsoft platforms, TPD offers architecture guidance, modernization advice, and help getting listed in Marketplace faster. The ISV Success program adds exclusive benefits including AI services and developer tools.

What Is NOT Covered

Knowing the boundaries saves you time. TPD does not cover:

- Long-term consulting engagements over 25 hours
- Break-fix support or production troubleshooting
- End-customer discussions (they talk to you, not your customer)
- Licensing pricing or price lists
- On-premises-only products (Exchange on-prem, SharePoint on-prem, on-prem Dynamics)
- Hardware devices (HoloLens, Xbox)

If you need cloud consultation as part of Advanced Support for Partners or Premier Support, that goes through your Partner Success Account Manager instead.

How to Submit Your First TPD Request

The process takes five minutes:

- Step 1: Sign in to Partner Center and select Benefits - Step 2: Select Technical pre-sales and deployment - Step 3: Click the Partner Advisory Hours benefit link - Step 4: Fill in case title, description, and select the relevant product - Step 5: Submit. A Partner Technical Consultant contacts you within two business days

One important note: if your account is only associated with the CSP program and not the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, you will see an authorization error. Make sure you are signed in with the right account.

Why Partners Leave These Hours Unused

We talk to partners every week who do not know TPD exists. The ones who do know often assume it is "just for big partners" or "too complicated to set up." Neither is true.

The real reason most partners skip TPD is simpler: they are busy. They are closing deals, managing customers, and fighting fires. Booking a free consultation with Microsoft feels like a luxury they cannot afford.

That logic is backwards. A two-hour TPD session that helps you close one more deal or avoid one architectural mistake pays for itself many times over. The hours are already paid for through your designation fees. Not using them is leaving money on the table.

The Cloud Factory Angle

As a distributor, we see designations and TPD as a flywheel. Partners who earn designations get TPD hours. Partners who use TPD hours build better solutions. Partners who build better solutions earn more designations. The cycle compounds.

At Cloud Factory, we track designation progress across our entire partner base. Our Designation Score system monitors daily points across all six categories, so partners know exactly where they stand and what they need to hit 70 points. Designation Score tracking is coming soon to the Cloud Factory Partner Portal. Until then, jump straight into Partner Center and check your score there.

And if your team needs the skilling to reach 70 points: we have courses ready via Readynez. Contact your Partner Account Manager or Partnercare and get a free course.

Combined with TPD hours, this is how you turn a Microsoft partnership from a badge on your website into a growth engine.

Key Takeaways

- Up to 50 free Microsoft advisory hours are bundled with every Solutions Partner designation. Most partners never use them. The hours are renewed quarterly.
- TPD covers advisory, not operations: architecture guidance, Copilot readiness, technical objection handling, ISV modernisation, and CSP integration support. It does not do production troubleshooting, long-term consulting over 25 hours, or end-customer discussions.
- The flywheel is designation → TPD hours → better solutions → stronger designation. Partners who skip TPD leave both money and capability on the table.
- The new July 2026 specialisation skilling requirements raise the bar. TPD hours combined with focused certification training is the fastest path to both 70 points and a stronger practice.

Partner Play

Here is what you do Monday morning:

- 1. Check your Partner Capability Score. Log into Partner Center and see where you stand across the six designations. If you are below 70 points in your target area, that is your priority.
- 2. Check your TPD eligibility. Go to Benefits, then Technical pre-sales and deployment. If you hold a Solutions Partner designation, you have 50 hours waiting.
- 3. Book one session. Pick the scenario that matches your biggest current challenge. Building a new Copilot practice? Book scenario 2. Losing deals to technical objections? Book scenario 3.
- 4. Set a quarterly reminder. TPD hours do not roll over indefinitely. Use them or lose them. Put a recurring reminder in your calendar to check your remaining hours every quarter.
- 5. Tell your team. Your sales engineers and architects should know this resource exists. Forward this article to the person who handles technical presales in your organization.

Fifty hours. Free. Sitting in your Partner Center dashboard. Go claim them.

Sources: Microsoft Learn - Technical Presales and Deployment Benefits, Microsoft Learn - Solutions Partner Designations, Microsoft Learn - Specializations, Partner Center Announcements - July 2026

Ready to grow your Microsoft practice? Explore Cloud Factory's partner platform →

Looking for your local Cloud Factory team? Find your country's contact →