Training and certification

Overview

Requirements

You have been introduced to the levels that can be achieved within the PartnerWorld program. Skills attainment is one of the areas through which you earn points toward the Advanced and Premier levels.

The following table identifies all of the key skills, both Sales and Technical, across all key product and solution areas, for which a partner firm receives one point toward the Advanced or Premier level attainment. The minimum skills requirement must be achieved using only IBM sales and technical skills. Beyond the minimum requirement, any listed non-IBM skills in the table will also count as one additional skill point for the Advanced/Premier level calculation.

The "Updated on" entry indicates the date the table was last updated.

Entries in this table can represent a certification or mastery skill. The "Status" column and "Eligible Skills Name" together indicates three levels of status of these skills:

• New/Active (or Active) skills: shown with the skills name hyperlinked (to information about the skill on the www.ibm.com/certify site), signify that these are the newest skills, and are available to be taken at Prometric test centers.
• Withdrawn skills: shown with no hyperlink, these skills will qualify for PW skill points (and may qualify for BP programs and brand authorization), but are no longer available to be taken at a test center.
• Expiring skills: shown with a date in the "Expiration Date" column, these skills are not available to take, and will no longer count for PW skill points effective on the date listed.

The table shows whether a named skill is a sales ("S") or technical ("T") skill.

Also noted in the table is information on versions of a named skill. The Skill code ("PW Skill Code") consists of two parts, the Skill's root number ("Cert#") and the skill's version counter ("Ver"). When you see multiple versions of a skill listed, you will note that their eight digit number in the "PW Skill Code" column have the same first six digits in common, but the last two digits differ—indicating that these are consecutively newer versions of that skill. It is good to remember this numbering convention as the PW Code is used to identify skills in PPS, and in other BP programs, to refer to the skills without using their names.

• Versions of the same skill: Where you see two or more skills within the same brand category (e.g., Power Systems) that have the same numeric "Seq #" and first six digits of the "PW Skill Code", this indicates multiple versions of the same skill.
  • Seq #: When you see multiple versions of a skill listed using the a, b, etc under the "Seq #", you will also note that the eight digit number in the "PW Skill Code" column have the same first six digits in common, but the last two digits differ—and indicate that these are consecutively newer versions of that skill.
  • Newest version: The highest letter in the Seq# column, and the highest number in the version counter column ("Ver"), indicates the newest version. You should always take the newest version of a skill as it will continue to count the longest for PartnerWorld skill points (and other BP programs that use this table).
• Counting for PartnerWorld skill points: Even if an individual person holds more than one version of a multi-version skill, only one skill point will be awarded in the calculation for the firm's Advanced or Premier level.

Periodically, new skills will be added to this table-e.g., certifications for a newly announced product. Once added, they will immediately be used in calculating your firm's points toward a new level. Occasionally, when a new certification is added it may cause an older version of that skill to be removed from the list. If a skill is to be removed at any point, it will be kept in the table with an "expiration date" next to it indicating that it will no longer count toward the firm's Premier/Advanced level after that (expiration) date. This will give you a window (normally of at least 90 days) to recognize the fact and replace that skill with its newer version or with another eligible skill.

In the case of non-IBM accepted certifications the test vendor does not automatically forward test results to IBM. The Business Partner is therefore required to declare the certification to IBM in the Partner Profiling System (PPS), and then forward to IBM a copy of the Certification Skill Certificate to receive credit in the certification database.

• S — Sales
• T — Technical
• New/Active — New skill, added within last 60 days of the Updated date, and also Active
• Active — Available in Prometric test centers and has a live link to certify site
• Withdrawn — No longer available in Prometric test centers
• Expiring — Already withdrawn, and will no longer count for PW skills points as of the list date
• a Bolded Date signifies that the skills will expire within the next 90 days, or last 60 days of the Updated date