Microsoft posted an odd blog on September 9 to announce improvements in the relationship between Exchange Online and Azure Active Directory. Many Office 365 tenants might have ignored the post, but it's actually about a piece of important work to help the service run better. Many updates happen to Exchange Online objects that need to be replicated to Azure Active Directory and onward to other Office 365 app directories. This work means that changes show up faster, which is good, but there's a small downside to note.

Oct 1, 2019|Tony Redmond

How to synchronize password hashes between AAD and Domain Services.

Sep 16, 2019|Russell Smith

AAD Basic edition is ‘going away’ because it is low volume and confuses customers.

Aug 29, 2019|Russell Smith

Microsoft launches public preview of FIDO2-based password-less sign-in for Azure Active Directory accounts.

Jul 30, 2019|Russell Smith

You can add photos to Azure Active Directory guest accounts and have Office 365 apps display those photos. But it's a lot of work to track down suitable photos for individual guests. If you want to change the default two-initial icon displayed by Office 365, you can use PowerShell to update all guest accounts with a photo. Here's how I handled the problem.

Jun 20, 2019|Tony Redmond

You can now protect your Azure Active Directory account with a 256-character password, including spaces. This news will bring much joy to Office 365 administrators and others who hated the previous 16-character limit, but please don't rush into forcing users to change their passwords without taking the time to pause and consider how best to proceed. Longer passwords are good, but they should be only one part of a strategy to protect user accounts.

May 15, 2019|Tony Redmond

Microsoft launched the preview of Entitlement Management, a new part of their Azure Active Directory Identity Governance program. The idea is that you can manage access to resources via policy, which seems to be a good thing, especially in large organizations where objects like Office 365 Groups, SharePoint Sites, and Teams might just get a little out of hand. The preview is interesting, but like all previews, it needs some work to be ready for prime time.

May 14, 2019|Tony Redmond

How to set up Azure Active Directory Domain Services – Part 1

May 7, 2019|Russell Smith

In this Ask the Admin, I’ll look at why user authentication isn’t enough in a cloud-first, mobile-first world and how Azure AD conditional access works with cloud apps and on premises Windows Server Active Directory.

Oct 23, 2018|Russell Smith

Office 365 makes it easy to collaborate with external users through Office 365 Groups and Teams, both of which use Azure B2B Collaboration. In fact, collaboration is so easy that users might be carried away and share with all and sundry, including your competitors. Which is why it's nice to have a policy to control sharing with certain domains that works for applications like Groups, Teams, and Planner.

Apr 26, 2018|Tony Redmond