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Microsoft Learning retires the Microsoft 365 Teamwork Administrator Associate certification

15 Comments

This is a sad blog post for me to write, but unfortunately Microsoft Learning has announced today that they are retiring the Microsoft 365 Certified: Teamwork Administrator Associate certification on August 31st, 2020.

As a reminder, the Microsoft 365 Teamwork Administrator certification was testing on the following topics, in two different exams, the MS-300 and MS-301:

  • Configure and manage SharePoint Online
  • Configure and manage OneDrive for Business
  • Configure and manage Teams
  • Configure and manage workload integrations
  • Configure and manage SharePoint On-Premises
  • Configure and manage hybrid scenarios
  • Migrate to SharePoint Online

What happens if you passed this certification, or if you were studying for it? Even if a certification that you’ve earned has been retired, it remains on your transcript and can be shared as usual. A retired certification remains in the active section of your transcript for at least two years after its retirement. Therefore, if you find that those topics are important and you want to showcase your skills in those topics, you have until August 31st, 2020 to pass the MS-300 and MS-301 to achieve the certification! You can view the official announcement here!

Microsoft Learning’s answer to this retirement is that everyone should take the MS-700 exam to become a Microsoft 365 Certified: Teams Administrator Associate. (You can find a study guide here)

My take on this retirement

I am personally disappointed in this announcement for multiple reasons, but mainly because I know that there are still a lot of admins out there who manage SharePoint / OneDrive / Stream/ Yammer / etc and would love to get certified. The MS-300 covered the “collaboration” part of Microsoft Teams , and nothing about calling, managing voice , and auto attendants in Teams. While the MS-700 is great for Skype for Business admins transitioning to Teams, I do believe the “Microsoft 365 Teamwork” admin was a real role out there. Now, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the MS-301 get retired, as Microsoft, and therefore Microsoft Learning not investing a lot in on-premises anymore. We don’t have any Windows Server 2019 or SQL Server 2019 exams anymore, so I wouldn’t have been surprised to see SharePoint 2019 go, but to see SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Stream, Yammer, etc , certification content was completely a shock.

What should you do?

Well, there are really two options that I see. First one, you can still go get your Teamwork Administrator Associate certification until August 21st and it will be valid for two years! By the rate Microsoft changes certifications, we don’t know what will happen in two years anyway, so we might, or might not see a new certification for SharePoint Online out there! There is some great content out there, including over 19 hours of content on Pluralsight for the MS-300 , as well as a ton of content on the MS-301. Furthermore, as announced by Microsoft only yesterday, if you are a consulting company that wants to achieve the Advanced specialization – Teamwork Deployment , you need to have 4 individuals in the company who have passed both MS-300 and MS-301 , so those certifications will still be valuable for your organization!

The other option is to go get Microsoft Teams certified, which I know a lot of the takers of the MS-300/301 were interested in anyways. To get the Microsoft 365 Certified: Teams Administrator Associate certification, you only need to pass the MS-700 and you are good to go. You can find study resources over here!

What do you think of this retirement? Let me know in the comments!

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15 Comments

  • May 8, 2020 at 1:15 am
    Eduardo Jimenez

    again Microsoft does its thing, I understand it to a certain extent, I know that the On-Premises part is not so important anymore, but just now that I am about to finish studying for my MS-301 exam I see this news it really bothers me and disappoint me

    Reply
  • May 8, 2020 at 1:17 am
    Seb

    I was preparing it too… I don’t know if it’s doable to pass both exams until august now… That’s a bad news.

    Reply
  • May 8, 2020 at 6:10 am
    Rich

    My first question is – why?

    Reply
  • May 8, 2020 at 9:58 am
    Aroh

    They are retiring the exams too fast. Prepared for 2 months this year.

    Reply
  • May 8, 2020 at 10:01 am
    Brian Siefferman

    So consultants just got the news that they need to study for and pass 2 exams that are being retired… not sure what the logic in that is. Not sure what harm it does with just keeping them active but I digress πŸ™‚

    Reply
  • May 8, 2020 at 3:12 pm
    Marco Alfani

    Very bad news: I was unable to find the official announcement: can you provide a link?

    Reply
  • May 9, 2020 at 8:10 am
    Konstantin

    Good Decision. I learned also for Ms-300. so i can now learn for ms-101. OnPrem Knowledge is not more so relevant for the most.

    Reply
  • May 11, 2020 at 3:12 am
    Marco Alfani

    Thanks!

    Reply
  • May 15, 2020 at 6:07 am
    Femke

    Will your learning content on MS-300/301 remain available after the retirement? Eventho I wont be able to take the exams (two months is just to short..) I would be great to still be able to follow the course.

    Reply
    • May 15, 2020 at 9:25 am

      Hello!

      Yes, all of my content will remain available πŸ™‚ !

      Thanks!

      Reply
  • June 10, 2020 at 12:28 pm
    Ronald Bond

    I don’t like the decision. I was going for that cert. Based on what I saw at Build 2020 they are probably working on a new certification for the collaboration features. They will probably pull in things like Fluid Framework and Microsoft Lists.

    Reply
  • July 7, 2020 at 6:11 pm
    Christopher B. Dix

    Didn’t they just start these certifications and exams? Was all prepped to take the MS-301 and MS-300. What is going on over at Microsoft?

    Reply
  • August 24, 2020 at 7:09 pm
    Patty

    SharePoint isn’t going away anytime soon is it? Why would they take away an exam when so many business are moving to 365? SharePoint is still essential to many business looking to migrate. Makes me wonder….

    Reply
  • May 10, 2021 at 10:36 pm
    AntGut

    Hey Chris! I agree that that the Teams Assoc. cert was too short-lived. And as Vlad noted, moving to a “Teams-only” cert a bit short-cited (as you and I know, on-prem will be around a long time for our customers and understanding hybrid and full collaboration is a “must”, more for the red and other color networks). I really wish I knew the rationale for this move, but can surmise that it’s to align our testing/certs with the overall move to cloud.

    Reply

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