Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant GuideSoftware Assurance Planning Services

Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

Table of ContentsIntroduction............................................................................................................................ 2

About Software Assurance Planning Services....................................................................2Plan the Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Engagement.........................................2

Engagement Descriptions..................................................................................................2Suggested Engagement Outcomes....................................................................................4Required Engagement Outcomes......................................................................................4Engagement Delivery Outline............................................................................................5

Partner/Consultant Requirements...........................................................................................5Business Objectives...........................................................................................................6Partner Requirements........................................................................................................6

About the Engagement...........................................................................................................7Recommended Pre-Engagement Activities........................................................................7

Conducting the Engagement..................................................................................................8Completion and Results........................................................................................................12

Required Deliverables......................................................................................................12Office 365 FastTrack Planning Deliverable Generation....................................................12Next Steps....................................................................................................................... 12

Program Feedback................................................................................................................12Resources............................................................................................................................. 13

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

IntroductionThis delivery guide helps partners and consultants understand and deliver the Office 365 FastTrack planning engagements, through the Software Assurance Planning Services program. This covers a wide range of aspects including the engagement process, preparing for delivery, delivery execution guidance, and recommended/required completion activities.

About Software Assurance Planning ServicesSoftware Assurance offers a range of tools and resources to help Microsoft’s Volume Licensing customers deploy, manage and maximize their purchases.Software Assurance Planning Services provide customers planning assistance from qualified partners or Microsoft Consulting Services. These structured engagements help guide the customer’s IT staff through implementation planning and help ensure efficient deployments through collaborative planning built on best practices.A customer receives an amount of Planning Services days based on the type and number of licenses with Software Assurance the customer has purchased.

Plan the Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning EngagementOffice 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning engagements are designed to help customers understand Office 365 capabilities and determine customer readiness for migration to Office 365 services. These engagements are offered to help you, the Office 365 partner, envision and prepare the customer for a successful onboarding experience. The engagements should be delivered during your sales or planning activities and will provide a proven and defined method to ease transition, amplify user engagement, reduce project risk, and provide faster time to value.The planning engagements, getting started content, and scenarios presented by the delivery partner are a first step to a great Microsoft service experience. The process is designed to help you answer the customer’s service deployment and features questions, while addressing and managing both integration and migration expectations.

Engagement DescriptionsThese engagements provide a flexible yet structured methodology to lead the customer’s service experience. The engagements listed below will enable a partner to:

Help your customer envision and provide a deployment plan with a consistent experience Demonstrate Office 365 domain expertise and differentiate your skillset Gain a detailed understanding of the customers’ environment and business priorities Highlight next steps and define success criteria for the customer Accelerate value and time to market with the service for the customer

Engagements can be 1, 3, 5, 10 and 15 days in length and customized to the customer’s current environment, requirements and desired engagement length.

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

Partners are expected to adjust both the breadth and depth of the topics covered based on direct customer knowledge and consultant insight. If the customer engagement requires more effort in a specific area, the focus on the topic should be amended by the delivery team accordingly.One-day Office 365 Strategy BriefingA one-day strategy briefing will help the customer understand the current Office 365 solution. The benefit to the customer is an opportunity to work with an expert discovering how Office 365’s capabilities can help to achieve their business objectives. The outcome is an understanding of Office 365 and a high-level approach to deployment with clearly defined next steps.Suggested activities to undertake in this engagement include:

Overview of Office 365 customized to the customer’s areas of interest High level planning workshop to understand project objectives, challenges and success criteria for Office 365 Introduction to the Office 365 FastTrack Success Plan

Three-day Office 365 envisioning workshopA three-day engagement can help customers envision their Office 365 solution. It will build upon what is provided in a 1-day engagement with additional time spent on technical deep-dives, getting started scenarios and deployment planning. The outcome is a deeper understanding of the specific Office 365 workloads and a recommended approach to deployment with clearly defined next steps.Suggested additional activities to undertake in this engagement include:

Detailed planning workshops by workload to understand project objectives, challenges and success criteria of Office 365

Setup of a Getting Started environment to help end-users familiarize themselves with the Office 365 environment

Technical workshops to address specific customer concerns Completion of the Office 365 FastTrack Success Plan

Five-day Office 365 deployment planningA five-day engagement builds upon the 1 and 3-day engagements with additional time available for architecture design, environment assessments and detailed planning. The outcome is a recommended approach to deployment with clearly defined next steps.Suggested additional activities to undertake in this engagement include:

Solution envisioning and architecture design Configuration of deployment training labs Deployment and adoption planning for specific scenarios outlined in the Success Plan

Ten-day and Fifteen-day Office 365 planning and assessment engagementThe ten and fifteen-day engagement includes the outcomes of the previous engagements and helps customers go even further to envision, plan and get started with Office 365. The benefit to the customer is a deeper understanding of how Office 365 maps to their business priorities, access to technical expertise, and recommended guidance. The result is easier transition, amplified user engagement, reduced project risk and faster time to value.Additional suggested activities to undertake in this engagement include:

Technical assessment of current environment using planning tools and remediation checks Technical workshops to address specific customer concerns

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

Detailed deployment, remediation and adoption planning

At the end of each engagement, customers will be provided a detailed Office 365 success plan and readiness checklist.

Suggested Engagement OutcomesThe engagement’s primary intent is to help the partner gain a better understanding of the customer’s goals and/or understand the current state of their IT assets.When you deliver an engagement, regardless of the length, the following activities are recommended. However, you may design the engagement to fit your customer’s needs, so long as the outcomes outlined in the Required Outcomes section are completed and submitted. Suggested engagement track:

If the customer isn’t in FastTrack already, invite them through your partner dashboard. Help them set up an Office 365 trial tenant. Spend time understanding customer business objectives. Clearly define criteria for success of Office 365 project. Technical validation of service integration in customers’ landscape. Deliver Success Plan and review findings.

Required Engagement OutcomesThe following are the required outcomes for Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning:

Success Plan (Word document)o Once the engagement has commenced, the Partner must work with the

customer to create an Office 365 FastTrack Success Plan. The Success Plan will act as the final deliverable that will be presented to the customer upon completion of the engagement. It will also serve as the required deliverable that the Partner must attach as proof of execution when redeeming the Planning Services voucher for payment and completing the Planning Services Completion Report.

o For detailed instructions on creating a Success Plan for your customer, review the instructions included in the FastTrack Site Guide.

Planning Services Completion Report (Web form)o Once the engagement is complete the partner will fill out and complete the

Planning Services Completion report. For detailed instructions please visit the Partner Planning Services portal for voucher redemption instructions.

These items must be submitted to Microsoft as proof of payment.

Engagement Delivery OutlineThe Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning engagements deliver a specified set of customer activities to rapidly and predictably enable the service for the customer. FastTrack planning engagements deliver planning, envisioning and identification of potential stumbling blocks for onboarding and user adoption.

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

As mentioned these engagments can be customized to fit the customer’s current environment, areas of interest, requirements and preferred engagement length. The following is the suggested outline of activities.

These activities are detailed in the Deliver an Engagement section of this document.

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3-5

Engagement Kickoff Define project decision

making process Understand Office 365 Review Business

Requirements/Business Objectives

List Criteria for Success Introduce Success Plan

Meet with business users identified for project planning and prioritization

Review getting started scenarios and prioritize business impact

Begin building solution strategy and adoption priority

Review criteria for success

Complete Success Plan

Start detailed review of customers’ technical infrastructure

Run tools and scripts as needed to get detailed information about customers’ environment– Identity– Active

Directory/Identity usage

– ADFS needs assessment

– Network bandwidth scenario review

Review and build current state architecture for mail and SharePoint usage

Define and confirm usage scenarios

Day 6-9 Day 10 Days 11-15

Identify onboarding blockers and build remediation plan for each

Build priority of remediation items and notate if they block onboarding to Office 365 or limit user experience

Facilitate knowledge transfer to customer stakeholders

Session output with team Define next steps and

confirm customer timelines

Customized based on customer requirements

Partner/Consultant RequirementsPartners and consultants delivering these engagements are expected to be familiar with all the materials in this document, FastTrack Getting Started Scenarios and Content, entire service description, and public roadmap. This will allow the facilitator of the engagement to make

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

recommendations, build trust in the partner, and demonstrate the services’ ability to meet the customers’ business objectives. The requirements found below are provided to outline expectations during an engagement. Partners should ensure they have access to http://fasttrack.microsoft.com before the engagement begins.

Business ObjectivesDuring an engagement, a portion of the first day should be determining the customer’s strategic and tactical business objectives. Obtaining the customer’s success criteria is the recommended way to ensure that the customer and partner have a mutual and verifiable way to evaluate the planning engagement’s success. Successful engagements start with the right audience. It is important to ensure that you have key stakeholders and/or evangelists. Some of the roles most often involved in successful planning are: IT Decision Makers Business Decision Makers Line of Business leads that can articulate the business challenge that they envisage Office 365 can help solve Early Adopters

It is recommended that the partner work with the customer several weeks before the engagement to request the appropriate level of stakeholders be available for the engagement. If high-level decision makers are not available for the entire engagement, request that they can attend the kickoff session so that at least their success criteria and business objectives can be discussed.

Partner RequirementsIn order to deliver the Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning engagement, partners must have a Silver or Gold Cloud Productivity competency and fulfill the requirements of the Office 365 FastTrack program. For more information on the Cloud Productivity competency please visit the competencies pages of the Microsoft Partner Network portal.Expertise

The delivery consultant must be fully prepared for the engagement and is expected to be a subject matter expert in the Office 365 services, public roadmap, cloud adoption and change management. The consultant must properly prepare for the engagement by gaining a complete understanding of the Office 365 service description, and it is recommended they review the FastTrack Getting Started content and scenarios. This guide provides the starting point for consultant readiness and offers best practices in delivery of the Envisioning Workshop and Office 365 Planning & Assessment Engagement.

About the EngagementThe Office 365 FastTrack Planning Engagement provides customers structured envisioning, planning and enablement workshops focused on accelerating their path to Office 365. This guide

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

enables the partner to deliver the engagements in a managed but flexible way. The partner should strive to gain an understanding of how the customer plans to use Office 365 and the potential roadblocks, while the customer receives partner expertise and a deployment document.The Office 365 FastTrack onboarding approach provides the single recommended path to rapidly allow the customer to use Office 365 in their own environment. This is designed to expedite access to the service and provides tangible use cases for the customer to explore. These engagements should be considered a starting point for a customer’s service adoption path. The service and the work completed as part of the engagement can be used to directly move from planning to execution of the envisioned Office 365 solution. The partners delivering a FastTrack planning engagement are key to successful onboarding and adoption of the service.

Recommended Pre-Engagement ActivitiesEngagement kickoffThis section covers the activities the partner should complete to prepare for an Envisioning Workshop or Office 365 Planning & Assessment Engagement. Below is a pre-engagement list that can help ensure the engagement is well communicated and expectations are properly set before the consultant engages directly with the customer.

Pre-engagement tasksTypically, planning engagements are delivered onsite with a customer during consecutive days in the same business week. The following checklist can be used to ensure that the engagement gets started on the right foot and proper expectations are set.

Conduct a pre-call with the customer to set expectations, communicate the high-level agenda and confirm attendees and logistics.

Send a pre-engagement e-mail ahead of the engagement specifying the stakeholders who should be in attendance.

Request that the customer book conference rooms and space for the partner team to work and ensure AV equipment and internet access is available.

Ensure the consultant has a customized kickoff deck and engagement agenda and that both have been shared with the customer before the engagement.

Make sure all scripts, content, process and resources are organized and familiar to the consultant before going onsite with the customer.

Understand the customer’s purchase status and find out whether they have an Office 365 tenant setup prior to the engagement. The below information will outline how to find out whether a customer already has an Office 365 tenant or requires a new tenant setup.

Invite new customers to FastTrackIn engagements where the customer has no existing tenant, partners should invite and add their customers to FastTrack from the FastTrack Portal directly. FastTrack will send and invitation to the customer that will include links to login to FastTrack as well as create a trial tenant of Office 365. Partners can also create trial tenants for the customer through the normal trial creation process.

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

It is very important for new customers that the tenant name chosen at the time of provisioning is the tenant name that they will want to move forward with in production. FastTrack’s primary principle and goal is to move from Getting Started to Onboarding (Production) with no throwaway efforts and work.For customers new to FastTrack, you will login to the FastTrack Portal and search for the customer name from the navigation bar in the middle of the screen. If your customer is not already in FastTrack you will be prompted to “Invite Customer”. Then you will enter in the customer’s information and send the invitation. Once the initial customer information has been saved and the invitation sent they will be available in the FastTrack portal and you can begin working on the Success Plan and engagement planning steps.For detailed instructions please see the FastTrack Site Guide.

Invite existing FastTrack customersCustomers that have already been set up with FastTrack prior to the latest release can be invited to participate in the FastTrack process and Success Planning. Within the FastTrack portal search for your existing customers and select from the results. Click “Invite Customer” and enter the primary customer contact information. The customer will receive an invitation to their personalized FastTrack portal environment and can participate in completing the Success Plan with the partner.

Planning workshop invitationsPlanning is a vital part of any successful Office 365 service implementation. There are factors in the planning phase that can boost your success rate and the adoption of the service. Ensuring the key stakeholders and service evangelists are in the room while you are conducting the engagement is the first step. Some considerations for who should be in the room are IT Decision Makers, Business Decision Makers , Line of Business (LOB) leads that can articulate a business challenge that Office 365 can help solve, and Early Adopters.

Conducting the EngagementWhen delivering an engagement, it is important to construct an agenda ahead of time. Recommended agendas based on the number of days the customer has available to use are outlined above. It is important to note, however, that you can customize the agenda to further meet your customer’s needs, etc. Keep in mind that the more customized the partners makes the offering, the more effort will be required from you to: Manage the customer’s expectations. Define a scope, agenda and deliverables that can be completed in the allotted time. Stay within the overall intent and guidelines of the Envisioning Workshop and the Office 365 Planning &

Assessment Engagement and meet the required outcomes (deliverables). Use the sample agenda and delivery outline described in this document as a baseline. The Success Plan is the primary customer deliverable and completion should be a focus of the engagement. Use the delivery materials and resources listed in this document and on the Partner Planning Services portal to

support the engagement and build the agenda.Be aware that the customer will fill out an evaluation form; you must manage expectations and deliver as promised to have a satisfied client while meeting the required engagement outcomes.

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

Success Plan

The Success Plan should outline the customer’s current state and planned future state environment and include a remediation checklist that outlines technical blockers and their order of priority (from service blocking to nice to have). The Success Plan will also hold detailed information on the tools used during the engagement, stakeholders, users, and detailed information on any blocking technical issues.

Detailed Success Plan Sections and Topics

Below is a list of required sections you will find in the Success Plan.Overview Priority

Contacts Sponsorship Stakeholders Vision Success metrics

Current Environment Current technology Network environment Directory environment

Office 365 Deployment and Implementation Plan

Readiness Security requirements Workload requirements

Usage and Adoption Plan Change management Pre-launch activities Launch activities Post-launch activities

Support Plan Customer support agreements Customer support contacts Escalation paths

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

Readiness checklist example

Deployment Tasks /Events Complete

1. PLAN PHASEHold project kickoff meetingDevelop migration strategyIdentify mailbox size and item countsPlan for mail-enabled applicationsIdentify options for user identity and account provisioningIdentify Active Directory preparation and remediation requirementsIdentify your email coexistence strategyIdentify current network links, user concentration, and current utilizationIdentify on-premises infrastructure server requirementsIdentify the operating systems and client applicationsIdentify the mobile platform that your organization will useDevelop an end user and administrator training schedule and delivery mechanism2. PREPARE PHASEAdd and verify your domain name with Office 365Prepare your on-premises Active Directory for directory synchronizationEnable single sign-onInstall the Directory Synchronization Tool and perform synchronizationConfigure email coexistenceConfigure Lync OnlineConfigure SharePoint OnlineDeploy client applications and the Office 365 desktop setupPerform mailbox size reductionPrepare customer service deskTest and validate email migration and coexistenceComplete the migration groups and migration schedule3. MIGRATION PHASEAssign licenses to usersIssue final communications to end users

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

Deployment Tasks /Events Complete

Migrate mailbox dataMigrate existing collaboration documentsChange DNS recordsConfigure mobile phones and devices for Office 365

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

Completion and ResultsRequired DeliverablesTo be able to automatically generate the required deliverables at the end of the engagement, you will be required to have access to the FastTrack Portal (https://fasttrack.microsoft.com).

Office 365 FastTrack Success Plan . This is a mandatory requirement to secure payment for the engagement. The partner must complete and publish the success plan and deliver to the customer. See the FastTrack User Guide for instructions on creating and accessing Success Plans.

Planning Services Completion Report . This is a mandatory requirement to secure payment for the engagement. Someone with knowledge of the voucher numbers assigned and voucher submission process should help the consultant complete this step. Refer to the Planning Services Partner Portal to review the process for payment redemption.

Office 365 FastTrack Planning Deliverable GenerationThe Office 365 FastTrack Planning Engagement will provide the customer an Office 365 Success Plan. This deliverable recaps the business intent, describes actions taken in the Envisioning Workshop, and outlines the current state of the environment.In the Success Plan generation tool, you will cover more technical areas of the planning sessions and have a much deeper understanding of the remediation that need to take place and the options the client will want to include in the services. When inside the FastTrack Portal, the Success Plans tab will enable the partner to select the Success Plan. The Success Plan is going to cover technical competencies of the partner, as well as go over the customer’s current environment in detail. Once the partner fills out all of the questions for the Success Plan, the document can be exported into a Word format. The document will include any obstacles with the current remediation or requirements that have not met a current standard for the proposed solution.

Next StepsOnce you have completed the engagement and completed the Success Plan and Planning Services Completion Report, the delivery is complete. However, this is the start of the partner opportunity to engage, expand and evolve the Getting Started engagement into a full-service deployment. Obtain an agreement on execution of the Success Plan. Go over next steps to empower the customer to fully experience the Office 365 service offerings. Build a timeline you and the customer can agree to for each workload. Make sure each workload is clearly mapped out and follows Office 365 best practices.

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Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Planning Services Consultant Guide

ResourcesThe following table provides some links to online resources that provide more information about the topics covered in this document and related information.

Resource Description

Office 365 FastTrack Deployment Center(http://fasttrack.microsoft.com)

The FastTrack deployment resource center. Use this to get the customer-facing deployment content. The most updated content is available on this site.

Office 365 FastTrack User Guide(http://aka.ms/fasttracksiteguide )

This guide contains step by step instructions to help Microsoft and Microsoft partner users understand the new FastTrack site. This guide covers site registration, navigation, using the Field dashboard, finding customers, redeeming offers, and creating success plans and plan snapshots.

Office Ignite Readiness(http://ignite.office.com)

Access to Office technical readiness content, events, and resources.

Office 365 Public Roadmap Access information about Office 365 features and their release timeline.

TechNet center for Office 365 Get the info IT pros need to deploy, integrate, and manage Office 365 services for enterprises or large organizations.

TechNet center for the new Office Get the IT pro resources you need to try the new Office (Office 2016 and Office 365 ProPlus) including details about activation, compatibility and deployment.

Office IT Pro Blog Provides frequent topics on Office deployment and compatibility issues. Includes articles about Office Telemetry.

Office 365 Trust Center As an Office 365 customer, you have entrusted Microsoft to help protect your data. Microsoft values the partnerships we have with our customers and place great emphasis on protecting the privacy and security of customer data.

Office 365 Service Descriptions The service descriptions provide detailed descriptions of the services and features that are available with Office 365.

Office 365 Roadmap Here you will find information about the latest features and improvements to Office 365. Note these updates are shown for the current operating service.

Microsoft Planning Services Planning service site for partners. Learn about engagement options.

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