Office 365 is an amazing product with lots of features. This also means there is lots of complexity.
If you set up your business’s Office 365 account on your own, you get free support from the Microsoft exchange team. But what it also means is you have to create a ticket in the Office 365 support area whenever you need assistance, then supply your contact information and wait for a Microsoft Engineer to call you. Usually they call you back right as you are heading to lunch, or leaving for the day.
Of course once Microsoft calls, they will advise you how to resolve the issue. This may require a remote desktop session with you to get the issue resolved. Microsoft will not make changes to your account or your setup. They will walk you through making the changes yourself.
But what if you don’t want to be the one to create the ticket, or even interface with Microsoft? That is where the Delegated Admin or Office 365 Partner of Record comes in.
Note: Assigning a Partner of Record (POR) to your Microsoft Online Services has zero impact on your monthly subscription cost. It has no impact on the support or services you receive from Microsoft. Additionally, it does not provide a partner access to your data.
So why create one?
Simply, if you are not a “tech savvy” person or you have an IT support company that handles your account, you want someone else to call on your behalf. When there is not a POR listed, you as the owner of the account will have to create the ticket, then place the call to Microsoft who will verify your identity. Only then can you hand the phone call off to your tech support. This is for each ticket you create.
With a POR in place, they can create the ticket and call Microsoft support direct to manage the issue end to end.
If you change your support company, you can change your POR as well. It is literally three clicks from the admin page to the screen to add, change or delete the POR. The change takes place in less than five minutes
You will receive the warning that:
By continuing you agree that Microsoft can share your ongoing contact and subscription information with this partner. For more information, please review the privacy notice.
Here is what the partner gets in an email confirming they are POR.
If you don’t want to create tickets, make the phone calls and deal with the support call from Microsoft, then create a Partner of Record who can do this for you.