THE BRAINTREE APPROACH
Co-managed support or fully outsourced. Pick one.
The right model depends on what your own team wants to keep and where it needs depth. Braintree makes the handover between teams explicit, so an issue crossing workloads does not lose its owner.
01
Co-managed support
Keep your internal IT operation and add Microsoft-specialist depth where it is needed. Agree which incidents your team handles, which move to Braintree and how escalation works. A shared runbook, monitoring view and review cadence keep both teams working from the same picture.
02
Fully outsourced
Bring the agreed support operation under Braintree while retaining your IT strategy and business priorities. Define the supported systems, service desk responsibilities and escalation process before transition. Service hours, response targets and commercial terms belong in the agreement.
03
Evidence after resolution
Record what happened, how it was resolved and what needs to change. Use workload health and recurring case patterns to improve the runbooks, so the next incident starts with more knowledge.
CAPABILITIES
What it brings together.
01
Workplace and endpoints
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Microsoft 365 support
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Microsoft Intune management
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Identity support with Microsoft Entra
02
Cloud and applications
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Azure workload support
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Dynamics 365 specialist support
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Data and analytics workload support
03
Monitoring and response
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Microsoft Sentinel
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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
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Knowledge resources and service runbooks
Set the service before setting expectations.
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Workloads and locations in scope
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Support hours and criticality
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Acknowledgement and resolution targets
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Monitoring and escalation responsibilities
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Transition and knowledge transfer
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Service reviews and improvement priorities
PROJECT CONTEXT
Start with the support you run today.
Review the current help desk, monitoring tools, support hours, escalation routes and cost base. Use that assessment to compare co-managed and outsourced options and define the transition. AI-assisted support must use the organisation’s knowledge resources and keep engineer review in the process.
01
Co-managed and outsourced support need different boundaries
Model
Customer responsibility
Scope to confirm with Braintree
Co-managed
Retain the internal service responsibilities chosen for the organisation.
Specialist involvement, escalation, shared tools and the handoff between teams.
Outsourced
Retain business priorities, approval authority and oversight of the service.
Covered support levels, administration, monitoring and third-party coordination.
Either model
Name service owners and approve business-impacting decisions.
Access, service hours, severity rules, reporting and change boundaries.
02
Establish what is being taken into support
Bring the resource and user inventories, current support agreements, open issues, licences, monitoring tools and escalation contacts. Include critical integrations and third-party applications, even where another vendor owns them. The service map should show the dependency and the point at which responsibility passes to that vendor.
An onboarding scope should establish administrative access, configuration records, monitoring coverage and known exclusions. The customer needs to identify business criticality, validate contact details and approve the access arrangement. Agree the evidence required to accept the transition. An existing tenant may remain in place, but that does not establish that no configuration or operating changes will be necessary.
03
Connect a signal to an accountable response
Microsoft products can provide useful operational and security signals. Azure Monitor action groups support notifications and automated actions, while Azure Service Health provides information about relevant service incidents and advisories. These capabilities need a configured scope, recipients and a tested response path. A portal containing alerts does not demonstrate that a person or workflow owns them.
For security-related services, Defender and Sentinel can contribute detection and investigation capabilities. Define the protected resources and permitted response actions separately from general user support. The customer should understand who decides when a service may be interrupted, who communicates with affected users and which reporting decisions remain with its own leadership.
04
Use service records to decide what changes next
The customer should retain access to an understandable service record and know how to raise an unresolved issue. The handover and agreement should also identify what happens when coverage changes or the engagement ends, including operational documentation, access and outstanding work.
Incident handling: record impact, severity, ownership, actions and the conditions used to confirm restoration. Acknowledgement and resolution are different measures.
Problem improvement: identify recurring categories and decide whether configuration, user guidance, monitoring or a separate project addresses the underlying cause.
Change control: state which routine work is included and which changes need separate approval, testing and commercial scope.
Service review: examine the agreed measures, unresolved risks and improvement backlog, with an owner for each accepted action.
BEFORE YOU DECIDE
Practical questions.
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Which Microsoft services can be included?
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Is after-hours support included automatically?
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Does a response target promise a resolution time?
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Can our IT team continue handling everyday requests?
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Do we need to migrate our tenant first?
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Are monitoring and security response the same service?
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Are AI tools deployed as part of every engagement?
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Where will support data and telemetry be processed?
BUILD YOUR BUSINESS CASE
Make the handover and ongoing ownership explicit.
The problem to solve.
An environment can be technically live while responsibility for updates, integrations, permissions and incidents remains unclear.
What success should look like.
Define the boundary between your team and Braintree, the systems covered and the evidence used to review service quality.
Bring these into the discussion.
A useful starting point for your team and the people approving the investment.
Useful reading for your proposal.
Evidence, examples and questions to take into the decision.
Insight
7 September 2026
Service ownership
The work that begins after Dynamics 365 go-live
Use the support checklist to make ownership visible before signing a new agreement.
Read the insight
Customer story
25 June 2025
Customer story
Lazkam: implementation and the relationship after it
Read the customer’s account of a phased LS Central move and ongoing maintenance.
Read the customer story
Insight
14 August 2026
Change management
Keep update responsibilities current
Bring release and patch decisions into the operating plan.
Read the insight
LET’S GROW.
Work through the next step with Braintree.
Bring the systems and responsibilities that are falling between teams. We will help define an accountable support scope.
