Microsoft Partner Employees
There are a lot of resources for Microsoft Partners but a lot of them are under NDAs so I will only put here those that are available for public. If you are unsure if your company is a partner, you can look it up here Microsoft Partner Directory.
Associating your certification profile with your organization
Sign into your organizations Partner Center Account (yes, it is very slow to load, it isn’t a problem on your side) and under Your learning choose the Associate Microsoft Learning account.
If you are wondering what the Partner University is, there were some assessments that you needed to take for partner competencies but since the system has changed, there is no need to provide more information on this topic.
New Microsoft Partner designations
You can find all the related information in the linked documentation.
The biggest change from the now ending competencies is that requirements require fewer certifications from single individuals and in benefits the Visual Studio Enterprise subscription will no longer have the monthly credits (it will be bulk credits for one subscription instead) People got pissed about that so the change was delayed for now. Visual Studio Enterprise credits remain unchanged at this moment.
Also, now it will be significantly harder to obtain designations for smaller companies so if you can renew the legacy Gold/Silver, do it. Action pack and specializations are the same.
For long term demo tenants (there are other resources but this is the most significant one), this is the best way to get them for free. There should be tenants for every feature you might need to test out.
Microsoft Techcommunity for Partners
These are the communication channels, where you can see 99% of any news or changes happening to everything. I recommend subscribing to the topics that interest you to stay up to date on all the cool stuff happening.
Microsoft Customer Digital Experiences (CDX)
If you work for a Microsoft Partner, you should be eligible for this product. In CDX, you can setup M365 demo tenants, usually filled with content already. These tenants are renewable + you can have multiple active at the same time. There are all sorts of demos and showcases of Microsoft products. Great for any kind of testing or exam preparation.
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