So it's been a couple months since Microsoft announced the new Office 365 exams and it looks like they've added another one. The first two are required for the MCP and MCTS certs. The new one is a Microsoft Office Specialist exam and covers features and end-user support ans experience mostly.
Exam 70-323 MCTS: Administering Office 365
Exam 77-891 MOS: Microsoft Office 365, and Features
70-323 has an e-learning course listed, 10954AE, although there appears to be no way to access the materials. When I search on the Microsoft Online Training page I receive links back to the tests, not to any course, and the site appears broken (maybe I should try again later) because every time I try to search the course catalog I get an error page instead.
There are also no classroom or Microsoft Press books yet for either one. For future updates on prep materials see 70-321 Prep Materials and 70-323 Prep Materials. See my earlier article Office 365 Exams & Certifications in April! for more on the first two Office 365 exams, 70-321 and 70-323.
77-891 is listed as an "Exam in development." I found the MOS Study Guide for Microsoft Office 365, though I'm confused as to why they released a study guide for an exam that hasn't been released yet... especially when there are no resources for the other two exams yet. Note that MOS stands for "Microsoft Office Specialist" and isn't one of the premium Microsoft certifications. Taking this test shows you know the end-user experience for the product, but demonstrates little with regards to administration, migration, etc. Maybe that is why the study guide came out first for 77-891... its more of an entry-level exam.Small Business Competency
Microsoft did announce that 70-321 and 70-323 would count toward the Small Business Competency for Partners.
You can learn more about the requirements for Silver at Earn the Silver Small Business competency.
You can learn more about the upgrade to Gold at Earn the Gold Small Business competency.
Essentially though, you can obtain the competencies by having one person passing two exams (77-321 & 77-323 when they are released) plus meeting some business and/or revenue requirements and paying a fee. To earn the Gold you have to have two people pass two exams instead and more of everything else.I guess if you're comfortable with the component products and have studied the materials that are available on the Office 365 Wiki and the Office 365 Deployment Guide you should be able to take the tests with hands-on experience. I've heard some people say the tests were easy and some say they took multiple times to pass. I haven't tried yet but am planning to soon. I'll post an update when I do.
