AWS Co-Sell Opportunity Team: Who's on Your Deal

The AWS co-sell opportunity team is the list of AWS people attached to an opportunity you work with AWS, each named by a role such as AWS Sales Rep, AWS Account Owner or WWPS PDM. Once AWS staffs a deal it also edits its own record of it; this guide reads both, matches each change to the event Fours raises, and covers what to do next.

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You shared an opportunity with AWS, or accepted one AWS sent you. The open questions now sit on AWS’s side: has AWS put a seller or a partner development manager on it, did the AWS seller just move the close date, and is this the moment to reach out?

Your own record won’t say, because a shared opportunity is two records. Yours is the one you update, and what you send AWS when one of your fields changes is its own subject. The other is the AWS opportunity, which AWS updates itself: “AWS typically updates AWS opportunities, and each time an update is made, an Opportunity Updated event is generated.” Reading what changed takes two calls, GetOpportunity for your record and GetAwsOpportunitySummary for AWS’s, and in AWS’s words, “Most regular updates from AWS will be available through the GetAWSOpportunitySummary response.” AWS also “may occasionally update attributes in the partner’s opportunity directly.” The event says something moved. It doesn’t say what.

The statuses and stages on your own record are covered in how co-sell works on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. This guide is about AWS’s.

Who is on the AWS co-sell opportunity team?

The AWS opportunity team is the set of AWS people attached to your opportunity, each with a name, an email address and a business title. GetAwsOpportunitySummary returns it as OpportunityTeam, which AWS says “helps partners know who from AWS is engaged and what their role is.” Each member’s BusinessTitle takes one of six values, and Partner Central shows the same roles under its own labels:

Partner Central label	API BusinessTitle value
AWS Sales Rep	AWSSalesRep
AWS Account Owner	AWSAccountOwner
Partner Success Manager/ISV Success Manager	PSM, ISVSM
Partner Development Manager/Partner Development Representative	PDM
WWPS PDM	WWPSPDM

AWS publishes labels and values on separate pages with no mapping, so the rows follow the names.

AWS’s opportunity docs name the roles without saying what each does on a deal, and the API says only that a business title “indicates their organizational role.” One definition does exist, in AWS’s CRM integration glossary: a Partner Development Manager is “A role in the AWS Partner Network, responsible for improving relationships with AWS Partners, helping them grow and improve their offerings on AWS.” For the rest, ask the person rather than guess from the title.

When does each role become visible?

It depends on which side sourced the opportunity.

• An opportunity AWS referred to you: before you accept. A pending invitation shows, among other fields, “AWS contact fields – Name and email of AWS Sales Rep, AWS Account Owner, Partner Success Manager/ISV Success Manager, Partner Development Manager/Partner Development Representative, WWPS PDM.” With five business days to accept or reject, who AWS staffed is part of the decision.
• An opportunity you shared: once AWS validates it. AWS’s guide puts the AWS contacts on the opportunity’s Contacts tab, and “Validated opportunities have a status of Approved.” Choose the opportunity’s row on the Opportunities page, then Update or the customer company name, then the Contacts tab.
• Through the API: GetAwsOpportunitySummary, called with your own opportunity’s identifier, returns OpportunityTeam.

An approved opportunity with nobody on its AWS team raises a different question: whether AWS engages at all. That question is covered, along with the co-sell motion AWS returns in the same response, in how AWS decides whether you get a rep.

What does AWS change on its side of the deal?

AWS’s side of a shared opportunity is the AWS opportunity: AWS’s own record of the deal, which GetAwsOpportunitySummary returns and AWS updates on its own schedule. Four groups of its fields are worth reading:

• Lifecycle. LifeCycle holds AWS’s Stage, NextSteps (with a NextStepsHistory), TargetCloseDate and ClosedLostReason. AWS’s stage list is not yours: besides stages you’d recognize, it includes values such as Seller Engaged, Deferred to Partner and Closed Incomplete, so don’t map it onto your own one-to-one. AWS’s next steps “are based on AWS guidance and the current stage of the opportunity.”
• The team. OpportunityTeam, as above.
• Involvement. InvolvementType is For Visibility Only or Co-Sell: “the type of involvement AWS has in the opportunity, such as direct cosell or advisory support.” InvolvementTypeChangeReason takes one of five values (Expansion Opportunity, Change in Deal Information, Customer Requested, Technical Complexity, Risk Mitigation), used “to track why the level of AWS engagement has changed from For Visibility Only to Co-sell.”
• Origin and visibility. Origin says which side sourced the opportunity: AWS Referral or Partner Referral. Visibility is Full or Limited: “Use Full visibility for most cases, while Limited visibility is reserved for special programs or sensitive opportunities.”

Partner Central shows a narrower slice. When the AWS seller moves an opportunity to a terminal stage (Launched or Closed/Lost) in their own CRM, AWS Stage, AWS Close Date and AWS Closed/Lost Reason populate on the validated opportunity’s Additional Details tab, apart from your own fields: “Edits to AWS Close Date on the Additional details tab do not affect the Target Close Date on the Project details tab.” An AWS close date that disagrees with yours is a conversation with the AWS seller, not a sync error.

Which AWS-side changes does Fours flag?

Fours raises a named event when AWS fills a role for the first time, when AWS moves one of four lifecycle fields to a non-empty value, and when a referral is accepted or first attached to an APN opportunity. It documents none for involvement type, origin or visibility. Here is each change, its Fours referral event, and what to do:

AWS-side change	Fours event	What to do
A role on the AWS team is filled for the first time	New AWS team member, once per role. Roles filled in the same sync arrive as one event, such as AWS PDM, PSM assigned - <referral name>	Start the rep outreach, and tell your alliance manager who AWS assigned
A filled role changes hands later	None. New AWS team member fires only on a role’s first fill	Re-read the team before emailing on a deal that has been open a while
AWS’s Stage, Next Steps, Target Close Date or Closed Lost Reason moves to a non-empty value	Referral update, even when AWS doesn’t bump the opportunity’s last-modified date. A cleared field doesn’t fire it	Have the opportunity owner compare AWS’s stage and date with yours; on Closed Lost, read the reason before responding
The referral is accepted, or first attached to an APN opportunity	Referral accepted	Route it by email, Slack or Microsoft Teams to whoever runs your co-sell queue
InvolvementType changes, with an InvolvementTypeChangeReason	None	Read it from GetAwsOpportunitySummary when AWS’s Opportunity Updated event arrives
The Origin or Visibility value	None	Read it from GetAwsOpportunitySummary

New AWS team member is Fours’ “AWS has staffed this deal” signal, “not a change notification for every later edit.” It covers all six roles, which Fours names AWS Sales Rep, AWS Account Owner, WWPS PDM, PDM, PSM and ISV SM, and since one sync can fill several, Fours’ doc says to “read the list of roles from the message rather than assuming exactly one.” It isn’t a notification setting: the doc contrasts it with Referral accepted, the configurable one, and suggests using it “to notify your alliances channel, or to kick off the outreach” described below.

The referral update event catches what AWS’s last-modified date can miss, and AWS’s first fill of an empty field counts, so a deal AWS hasn’t touched yet produces an event the first time AWS touches it.

Referral accepted also fires on “the first APN opportunity attach,” so a referral that becomes a real AWS opportunity raises it even if the acceptance happened earlier. Its email is configurable in Settings → Notification, and it routes to Slack and Microsoft Teams as well.

How should you respond when AWS staffs or changes the deal?

Two responses cover most of it: email the AWS Sales Rep once AWS staffs the deal, and, on a strategic deal, ask AWS for a shared Slack channel.

Email the AWS Sales Rep from a team alias

Fours’ rep outreach emails “the AWS Sales Representative attached to any opportunity you share via Fours Co-Sell” from a team-managed Google Mail alias, using your template. It builds on an existing Fours and Salesforce setup, and Fours’ team configures it:

1. Connect a Google Mail alias to your Fours organization. It becomes “the sender for all automated AWS Sales Rep communications.”
2. Write the template. Fours fills it from the co-sell opportunity and the Salesforce record: opportunity name, Salesforce opportunity owner, relevant Salesforce contacts, and your ask.
3. List the CC recipients, such as the opportunity owner, your Partner Account Manager (PAM) and your alliances team.
4. Open a support ticket confirming the alias is connected, with the final template and CC list, and share the template with your Fours Customer Success Manager. Fours’ team then configures the automation.

Documented triggers include a newly shared opportunity, status updates such as In Progress or Closed Won, deal launch or private offer creation, and custom lifecycle stages. For a deal AWS has just staffed, name New AWS team member in the ticket; Fours’ doc points to it for exactly this.

An illustrative template for a fictional ISV, Acme, sent from [email protected] with [email protected] on CC, using only merge fields from Fours’ own example:

Subject: Co-Sell Opportunity for {{Account.Name}} with AWS

Hi {{aws_rep_name}},

I work on the alliances team at Acme. We shared {{Opportunity.Name}} for
{{Account.Name}} with AWS through ACE, and I'd like to make sure you have
what you need from our side.

Estimated Close Date: {{Opportunity.CloseDate}}
Opportunity Owner: {{sf_opportunity_owner_name}} ({{sf_opportunity_owner_email}})

Could we take 20 minutes this week to agree on the next step and who owns
it on each side?

{{Signature}}

Request a Slack collaboration channel on strategic deals

An AWS Slack collaboration channel is a Slack channel for one opportunity, created by AWS at your request. AWS limits who gets one: “AWS Partners can request collaboration on select strategic, high-value opportunities that require AWS co-sell support. The eligible opportunity must be at the Qualified stage or higher.”

In Partner Central, choose Sell, then Opportunity Management, open the opportunity by its ID, choose the Collaboration channels tab, then Request a Slack channel, and add the users you want. AWS notifies the AWS account manager for the opportunity, who creates the channel with your selected contacts and other relevant opportunity team members. Once the request is approved, invitations arrive by email. Check one detail first: “The email you use for Slack must match the one used for your AWS Partner Central account.”

Frequently asked questions

Who is on an AWS co-sell opportunity team?

AWS people in the roles AWS names: AWS Sales Rep, AWS Account Owner, Partner Success Manager/ISV Success Manager, Partner Development Manager/Partner Development Representative, and WWPS PDM. AWS’s API returns them as OpportunityTeam, with each member’s name, email and business title.

When can you see the AWS contacts on a co-sell opportunity?

On an AWS-referred invitation, before you accept: AWS shows each AWS contact’s name and email. On an opportunity you shared, AWS’s guide puts them on the Contacts tab once the opportunity is validated, which means a status of Approved.

What is Fours’ New AWS team member event?

An event Fours raises the first time an AWS-side role is filled on a referral, with roles filled in the same sync batched into one. Unlike Referral accepted, it isn’t configured in Settings → Notification; use it to notify your alliances channel or start the AWS rep outreach.

Does Fours catch AWS-side changes that don’t update last-modified?

Yes. Fours raises its referral update event when AWS moves Stage, Next Steps, Target Close Date or Closed Lost Reason to a non-empty value, even if AWS doesn’t bump the opportunity’s last-modified date. Clearing a field doesn’t raise it.

Does Fours flag a change to AWS’s involvement type?

Fours documents no event for it. Read InvolvementType, either For Visibility Only or Co-Sell, and InvolvementTypeChangeReason from GetAwsOpportunitySummary. The same response returns Origin and Visibility, which have no documented Fours event either.

When can you request an AWS Slack collaboration channel?

For “select strategic, high-value opportunities that require AWS co-sell support,” at the Qualified stage or higher. Request it from the opportunity’s Collaboration channels tab in Partner Central; the AWS account manager for the opportunity creates the channel, and invitations arrive by email.

Takeaways

• Read the AWS roles as labels; AWS’s opportunity docs don’t say what each does. The team shows before you accept an AWS referral, and once an opportunity you shared is Approved.
• A shared opportunity is two records. AWS edits its own Stage, Next Steps, Target Close Date and Closed Lost Reason, on a stage list that isn’t yours.
• Fours flags a role’s first fill (New AWS team member), AWS-side lifecycle moves even without a last-modified bump (referral update), and acceptance or first APN attach (Referral accepted). Fours documents no event for involvement type, origin or visibility.
• Email the AWS Sales Rep through Fours’ outreach, set up from a support ticket, and request a Slack collaboration channel for strategic deals at Qualified or later.

Fours keeps AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud co-sell referrals in one system and flags when AWS staffs a deal or changes it on its side. See how referral tracking and rep engagement run in Fours’ co-sell automation.