Multiple PowerShell modules are available to Office 365 administrators to automate common processes. In this case, we want to send a welcome message to new accounts. Three PowerShell modules are available, but what’s the best in terms of performance and ease of use? There’s only one answer and that’s Exchange Online.
Teams supports federated guest access for Gmail accounts using the identity provider framework of Azure B2B Collaboration. Office 365 tenants must first decide if they want Gmail accounts as guests in all or some teams before going down the federation route. Why Teams and not other Office 365 apps? It’s all to do with the endpoint used by the client to connect. If it can handle federation, all good. If not, it’s standard Azure B2B Collaboration.
Microsoft annoyed many Office 365 tenant administrators when they announced plans to allow self-service purchases for the Power Platform apps. A curious note in the FAQ might reveal how tenants can block this feature. If self-services purchases depend on accessing your tenant directory, maybe you can disable the service principal that holds the role enabling that access.
Azure Active Directory now features the public preview of the My Sign-Ins feature, which allows users to see where their sign-ins originate and what applications are used to sign-in. It’s a nice idea but Office 365 users are unlikely to find the page. We can help by creating a custom tile with a link to the My Sign-Ins page. The tile appears in the Office 365 apps menu and makes it easy for people to access their sign-in data.
Office 365 Informatiom Barriers allow tenants to erect communication firewalls between different groups. Teams supports Information Barriers, but currently has a problem adding new guest accounts to team memberships. An easy workaround exists, but debugging what’s going on is difficult because of the lack of clues.
Office 365 applications create lots of Azure Active Directory guest accounts. Here’s how to find old accounts and check their Office 365 group membership. If you know the accounts that are old and stale and aren’t members of any Office 365 group, you can consider removing them from your tenant.
Office 365 makes extensive use of Azure Active Directory guest accounts. Implementing a risky sign-in policy is a good idea, but it can have the unfortunate side-effect of suddenly blocking guest accounts that could previously access tenant resources. If blocks happen, they can only be lifted through administrative intervention in the guest account’s home tenant.
Microsoft makes a strong case that all Azure Active Directory accounts should be protected with multi-factor authentication (MFA). That’s a great aspiration, but the immediate priority is to check accounts holding admin roles. This post explains how to use a PowerShell script to find and report those accounts.
A reader asks if it’s possible to create a dynamic Office 365 group for global administrators. Well, it is and it isn’t. Azure Active Directory doesn’t give us the ability to execute the right kind of query to find global administrators, but with some out-of-the-box thinking, we can find a way to accomplish the task.
The Groups section of the Azure Active Directory portal now includes a preview of a feature to configure the Office 365 Groups naming policy without going near PowerShell. Although those proficient with scripts and GUIDs will lament this sad reduction in standards, the normal administrator will welcome the chance to forget some obscure syntax.