AWS updated their APN Customer Engagements portal to version 14 to provide an improved experience for AWS partners co-selling with AWS across ACE Pipeline Manager and CRM Integration. We now have a new Salesforce package to support these new ACE v14 features from existing Salesforce and Hubspot integration through Labra.

This blog covers the key benefits of the new ACE v14 update, along with the key changes to fields, and how you can utilize these changes from within your CRM.

Starting with the v14 release, all new feature launches will be backward-compatible for a time-boxed period after launch, in the case of v14, it is 1 July 2024. The cut-off timeline will be announced during the launch but will be greater than 3 months.

Key benefits of ACE v14

Here are some of the new benefits offered by ACE v14.

Attaching Solutions and Products to Opportunities: Partners can attach a solution and AWS products to each opportunity. Additionally, AWS sales can attach a solution to a shared opportunity, aiding in better-informed decision-making.

Here’s how you can leverage this feature right within your Salesforce.

Inclusive workflows for a variety of opportunities: Partners can accelerate their build-market-sell motions by clearly specifying which opportunities require co-sell support, which is for “For Visibility Only” (FVO), which are renewals, and which are net-new engagements. Partners can also indicate the pre-sales activities undertaken already to make the co-selling interaction more effective.

Insights: Partners will gain access to tailored guidance with AWS Recommended Next Steps and Engagement scores for better prioritization. Use these new fields in creating custom reports and add filters as well.

Fields added

Here are the important new fields added in ACE v14.

AWS products
[Optional]
This field contains the list of AWS products that are being used by your solution in the form of an Array. It enables the association of specific AWS products with the opportunity. Partners can indicate which AWS products are relevant to the opportunity’s solution and align with the customer’s needs.

To obtain the complete list of AWS Products, visit Partner Central > Sell > Opportunity Management.

Click on Bulk Actions > Import Opportunities > Start Import.

Link: https://partnercentral-uat.awspartner.aws.dev/OpportunityBulkImportPage

Under Products and Offerings, Click on the link “Your Products and Offerings can be viewed here.”

NatSec
[Optional]

There’s now a new field to specify if your opportunity contains classified National Security information. Newly implemented built-in controls hide sensitive data for National Security opportunities.

The default value is taken as “No”. “Yes” value is accepted only when the industry is set to government.

When this value is set to “Yes”: AWS redacts the values of postalCode, state, customerCompanyname, customerWebsite from all internal systems to maintain confidentiality. Also sets the country to the United States.

Solutions offered
[Mandatory field]
Customers can now download their updated solution listings as Excel sheets and update them on Salesforce to populate picklist values. This removes the back-and-forth switching between Salesforce and AWS portal to copy the solution IDs for each listing.

Rejection reason
[Conditionally mandatory]
Specifies the reason for rejecting an AWS referral. This is used by AWS for deriving insights as to why the opportunity was rejected. It is mandatory if they reject it before the Accept-by date.

Customer DUNS number
[Optional]
A new Data Universal Number System (DUNS number) field has been introduced for easier matching of accounts in partner CRMs.

DUNS number is useful to map the opportunity to an account but not the most reliable value since all customers do not have DUNS.

Fields updated

Here are the important fields updated in ACE v14.

Customer business problem
[Mandatory]
Describe the problem that the end customer is facing and how the partner is helping with a solution. Here you can include relevant information about the partner’s value proposition, unique selling points, and expertise in tackling the identified issue.
Use concise language and precise descriptions to convey the context and significance of the opportunity. The content in this field helps AWS understand the nature of the opportunity and the strategic fit of the partner’s solution.

Partner primary need from AWS
[Mandatory]
Partner Primary Need from AWS is changed from single picklist to multi picklist with a change in picklist values. New values are mentioned under Standard values on the Opportunity sheet in this file.

Customer use case
[Mandatory]
The use case picklist values have changed and new values are mentioned under Standard values on the Opportunity sheet in this file.

Campaign name
[Optional]
The campaign name is changed from a single picklist to multi picklist with a change in picklist values. New values are mentioned under Standard values on the Opportunity sheet in this file.

Country and postal code
[Mandatory]
Specifies the country of the end customer associated with the opportunity. In the new version, additional picklist values have been added.

When an AWS Originated Opportunity is shared, this field is masked and comes with the value “Accept to View”.

Specifies the postal code or ZIP code that corresponds to the end customer’s business address. This information is crucial for geo-mapping the company. Countries without a postal code will no longer take values.

Fields deprecated

Here are some of the fields deprecated in ACE v14.
AWS field engagement
It specified whether an AWS Account Rep supported you on this.

Contract vehicle
Contract Vehicle on the Opportunity. Used for Public Sector opportunities

Public reference title and URL
The title of the customer’s public reference on the opportunity and the public URL has been deprecated.

FAQs