Customer deployments

Terminology: Deployments and references

Within the partner program, the terms “deployment” and “reference” are often used interchangeably. For Adobe to validate a partner’s experience with Adobe applications, we require customer references. Partners submit their selected references through a dedicated form that collects detailed information about the specific customer engagement, implementation, or integration.

Submitting your deployment

Submitting your customer reference requires completing a simple form with details that allow us to validate your submission.

The form includes requests for these details:

• Your name and contact information
• Customer name and contact information
• Information about the engagement (product, project name, project summary)

NOTE: For the Customer Deployment Type dropdown, please make your selection is as follows:

• Solution partners submitting a consulting delivery reference should select Implementation.
• Technology partners submitting a reference for someone using your integration should select Integration.

Submit a customer deployment

Selecting a customer reference

Choose a knowledgeable contact. Any customer stakeholder who was personally involved in planning, coordinating, and/or implementation efforts for all products related to this customer deployment can be submitted as a reference. For example, a project lead or project manager will typically have insight into your role and contributions to the project. Multiple contacts can be included in a single reference.

How Adobe engages your customer. The customer contact you identify in your submission will be contacted by email and asked to complete a quick five-minute survey about the engagement. For this reason, it is important that you select an appropriate customer contact with knowledge of your work. Deployments are only considered “active” or validated once the customer has responded to the brief survey.

Following up with your customer. If your contact fails to respond to the survey, we may ask for your assistance to remind your customer about the survey. All surveys will time out after 90 days, at which time the deployment would need to be re-submitted to trigger the survey to send again.

References are confidential. Responses from your reference are kept confidential. The number of deployments will be reflected in your Partner Directory profile, but no details from the customer will be shared.

What constitutes “success”

Adobe considers a customer engagement to be successful when the customer confirms that a partner’s deployment of an Adobe application met or exceeded the customer’s expectations. An ongoing engagement that is progressing well and without escalation to Adobe may also be considered successful.

How deployments are counted

Multi-solution references. It’s quite common for customers to be using two or more Adobe applications. When selecting a reference to submit, be sure to include all Adobe applications used, as a single reference can be counted once per product included.

Product specialization. Customer references submitted as part of a product specialization request will be counted toward the requirements for that specialization and can also be counted toward annual customer deployment requirements for Gold and Platinum partners.

Solution Validation. Similarly, any customer references submitted as part of a Solution Validation request (App Assurance, Rapid Deployment solutions, Accredited solutions) can also be counted toward annual customer deployment requirements for Gold and Platinum partners.

Program level. If you’re pursuing both solution partner and technology partner program level advancement, a single customer deployment cannot be counted against both sets of requirements.

Remember that deployments are only considered “active” once we’ve received the survey response from your customer.

Recency of reference engagement

For program leveling purposes, customer deployments have to be submitted within the program year, although the actual engagement could have performed outside of this time range. Recent customer deployments are preferred.

Single- and multi-product references

Any customer project that includes one or more Adobe products could be considered for a reference. Both specialization and Solution Validation require your references to reflect the Adobe product for which you’re applying. However, if more than one Adobe application is part of any engagement, additional products should be noted on your submission.

When to submit customer references

We encourage all partners to submit successful deployments as they are completed, regardless of whether you are actively seeking to advance your Adobe partnership or pursue specialization or Solution Validation. Plus, these references will be displayed on your Partner Directory profile.

Outside of ongoing submissions, partners should be mindful that the program membership year starts annually on March 1. To meet your level requirements ahead of an upcoming renewal, all customer reference information must be received by the last day of February.

Deployment information in the Partner Directory

The Partner Directory displays two years of customer reference data based on the start of the program year (March 1). As Adobe approves your submitted customer deployment, your Partner Directory listing is automatically updated to include the deployment.