Want to get certified in Office 365?

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Certifications are a great way to verify and document your skills. To help you certify your Office 365 skills we're releasing two exams soon (expected in april 2012)

Exam 70-323: Administering Office 365 intended for IT professionals who administer Microsoft Office 365 in an environment that may include Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Lync, and/or Microsoft SharePoint - link

Exam 70-321: Deploying Office 365 intended for consultants and IT professionals who plan and implement Office 365. This includes migrations to Office 365 (simple and hybrid deployments) - link

Passing these two exams will give you two certifications:

  1. “Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Administering Office 365” (pass Exam 70-323)
  2. “Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Office 365 Administrator” (pass Exam 70-323 and Exam 70-321)

Currently no preparation materials have been published, but a good starting point would be the virtual labs on the (great) new Office 365 TechCenter, your new one-stop for all the technical info on Office 365

UPDATE July 2012. Recently two on-demand online preparation courses has been published:

  • Administering Office 365 Accelerated Jump Start (Prep for exam 70-323) - link (6 part series)
  • Planning & Deploying Office 365 Jump Start (Prep for exam 70-321) - link (15 part series)

UPDATE2 August 2012. New “Exam 74-324: Administering Office 365 for Small Business” introduced

  • As published on the Microsoft Partner Network “Small Business competency requirements overview” page accessible here, the current mandatory Office 365 exam for the Microsoft Small Business competency, “Exam 70-323: Administering Office 365”, is being changed to align more with the needs of small-business customers
  • A new test is being introduced - “Exam 74-324: Administering Office 365 for Small Business” - which will replace Exam 70-323.
  • If you are working to attain the Small Business competency, Exam 70-323 is still valid, but when Exam 74-324 is available (currently planned for mid-September 2012), we recommend having someone at your company pass Exam 74-324 to fulfill the exam requirements for the Small Business competency

Note: as a Microsoft Partner you might want to take a look at the Office 365 Practice Accelerator - a great help in building a practice around Office 365. 4x4 hours training available for you now!