Microsoft 365 Administration (Exam 70-346)

Explore the core Microsoft 365 services, including Exchange Online, Skype for Business, SharePoint Online, and Office 365 Pro Plus, all built on Azure Active Directory for authentication and deployment considerations.

Evaluate subscription options from home and personal plans to business and enterprise licenses, comparing downloadable office apps, cloud services, and online-only versus installed experiences.

Set up a free trial of Office 365 E5 to explore Exchange, SharePoint Online, Power BI, and Teams, choosing a data center and completing user verification.

Poke around your Office 365 trial to get comfortable with the interface, customize the start page, language, and theme, and jump between Outlook, Yammer, SharePoint, and admin center.

Take a tour of the 365 admin portal, customize the home screen tiles, and use the hub menu to manage users, groups, resources, licenses, domains, service health, and admin centers.

Learn to monitor Office 365 health using service health to view incidents and post-incident reports, inspect history, and use the message center and status page to stay informed.

Master evergreen deployment in Office 365 and manage release preferences in the admin center. Choose standard or targeted release, and preview updates via the Office 365 roadmap.

Keep track of changes in Office 365 by using the roadmap, Office blogs, the admin mobile app, and the admin message center to monitor updates in your subscription.

Explore how initial setup assigns a default Azure Active Directory domain, enables custom domains for emails and logins, and supports up to 600 domains per tenant.

Add a custom domain to the Microsoft 365 tenant via the admin portal, verify ownership with a DNS text record (or an IMAX record), and save for later setup.

Learn how to configure microsoft 365 dns records for your domain, including verification, mx, spf, alias and cname records, autodiscover, federation, and hybrid exchange setups.

Configure a verified domain in Microsoft 365 by selecting services (Exchange), then create and verify necessary DNS records (MX, Autodiscover CNAME, SPF) to enable Exchange Online.

Master role-based access control in Microsoft 365 by assigning global, billing, and user administrators to manage services, monitor health, and handle tickets across Exchange, SharePoint, and Skype for Business.

Assign roles in Office 365 admin center by editing a user to a global administrator, set an alternate email for self-service password reset, and verify in the active users view.

Configure office 365 password policies by cloud versus on-prem identities, decide if passwords expire, and set expiration reminders in the admin center; microsoft notes a shift toward non-expiring passwords.

Add users in Office 365 via the portal, set names, login, and passwords, and assign licenses. Optionally use directory synchronization or PowerShell for bulk creation.

Explore how to manage cloud-based and on-premises users in the Office 365 portal, including directory synchronization settings, editing usernames, emails, aliases, licenses, and login status.

Delete cloud-based users in 365 admin portal; deletion removes the user and email and OneDrive data. Restore within 30 days to recover data and reassign licenses; permanent removal uses PowerShell.

Explore the types of Office 365 groups—security, email-enabled security, distribution, dynamic distribution, and Office 365 groups—and choose the right type by function before creating it for proper collaboration.

Create Office 365, security, and dynamic groups in admin portal with owners and members; use Exchange admin center to define dynamic distribution groups by rules like department equals accounts.

Explore how Office 365 groups unify collaboration by sharing calendars, files, notebooks, sites, and messages, while retaining history so team members access past conversations and events.

Create Office 365 groups from admin centers or Outlook, set privacy, add members, and use a shared mailbox, calendar, OneDrive, and OneNote for collaboration.

Explore how Teams blends Office 365 groups with chat, channels, calendar, email, OneDrive, and shared files to support project collaboration.

Manage most groups from the Office 365 admin portal, with dynamic distribution groups needing the Exchange admin center, and learn to empty a group before deletion to avoid access loss.

Leverage Azure Active Directory PowerShell to bulk update Office 365 users; install the module, meet prerequisites, connect to your tenant, and use examples to create users.

Learn to manage licenses in bulk with PowerShell by identifying unlicensed Office 365 users synchronized from on-premises Active Directory and assigning licenses in a single command.

Use PowerShell to manage Azure AD groups by creating a group, obtaining its object id, and adding users via variables and the MSO group cmdlets; enables bulk operations.

Compare azure active directory with on-premises active directory domain services and learn how to leverage them together to manage office 365 cloud resources, including single sign-on and premium features.

Prepare for directory synchronization by cleaning on premises directory, removing duplicates, and validating UPNs, ensuring the domain is registered with 365. Use IDFix and AD modify .NET tool for updates.

Use the IDFIX tool to scan and clean on-premises Active Directory for illegal characters and UPN issues, apply fixes, and verify a clean directory before Azure synchronization.

Discover prerequisites for Azure AD Connect to synchronize on-premises Active Directory with Azure AD, including forest functional level, server version, .NET, SQL Server, and admin accounts.

Install and configure Azure AD Connect, customize installation options, set up on-premises to Azure directory synchronization, choose sign-in methods (password hash sync, pass-through, single sign-on), and enable password write-back.

Learn how to filter directory synchronization in Microsoft 365 by configuring connectors, adjusting directory partitions, and applying rules based on domains, attributes, and extended attributes like no sync.

Learn to manage Azure Active Directory synchronization with PowerShell, check and adjust the 30-minute sync schedule, run initial or delta syncs, enable automatic syncing, and monitor results in the portal.

Understand Office 365 Pro Plus licensing and deployment, including five desktop, mobile, and tablet licenses, click-to-run streaming, and user-based versus volume licensing.

Learn how to enable user driven installations for Office 365 Pro Plus, control download settings in the admin portal, and validate access via the office portal.

Learn how IT-driven deployment uses the Office Deployment Tool and a configuration XML to push Office 2016 across devices via a shared network path, with machine-context installation and app exclusions.

Explore update options for Office 365 Pro Plus, including monthly and semi annual channels, security patches, feature releases, and targeted testing to balance updates with compatibility.

Explore Exchange Online Protection within Microsoft 365 administration, offering inbound and outbound spam controls, anti-phishing, anti-malware with advanced threat protection, and handling bulk emails and zero day threats.

Customize malware filters in Exchange Online Protection by creating a new malware filter, configuring notifications, and applying the filter to specific recipients or groups with defined precedence.

Configure Exchange Online connection filters to whitelist or blacklist IP addresses, bypassing the spam filter for trusted senders and reducing false positives.

Configure and customize Exchange Online Protection spam filters to control junk mail delivery, create custom filters, and apply policy rules based on recipients, language, region, and sender.

Enable end user spam notifications to let users release messages quarantined by a spam policy. Configure the default spam filter to enable this feature and choose daily delivery if needed.

Configure the outbound spam filter in the Exchange admin center to prevent messages from leaving your organization, enforce the 500 recipient limit, and set notifications or copies for monitoring.

Manage quarantine in the Microsoft 365 admin center by using advanced search to locate messages, preview headers, release legitimate mail, and add senders to the allowed list.

Create and configure resource mailboxes in the Exchange admin center to manage conference rooms and equipment, assign delegates, enable auto-accept or manual approvals, and customize booking options.

Create and manage a shared mailbox in Exchange Online, assign access (full access, send as, send on behalf), and route group inquiries without using a license.

Learn to create mail contacts in exchange online, add them to the global address list, and optionally hide them from GAL or add to distribution lists.

Create a mail user in Exchange Online to grant an external user Office 365 authentication and access to a shared mailbox via the Exchange admin center, without needing a license.

Learn how retention tags and policies in Exchange automate archiving and deletion, using default, policy, and personal tags with a clear tag hierarchy.

Create and customize retention policies in the exchange admin center, assign default and personal tags, and apply a single policy to selected users or bulk edit multiple mailboxes.

Learn how to create and manage SharePoint Online site collections in the Office 365 admin center, choose templates, assign administrators, set permissions, and recover deleted site collections.

Discover how SharePoint Online user profiles enable locating people by skills via Azure Active Directory. Create custom properties like software knowledge and use audience targeting to tailor announcements.

Manage metadata consistently in sharepoint online by creating term sets in the term store and applying them to document libraries to improve search and data quality.

Explore how SharePoint search indexes content and how to optimize results using the search schema and authoritative pages. Learn to promote or demote pages and sites to influence top results.

Explore how to add SharePoint apps to pages, create an app catalog in SharePoint Online, and manage licenses, permissions, and store-driven app purchases for your organization.

Configure global SharePoint settings from the admin portal across all site collections. Manage storage options, surface experience (modern vs classic), and information rights management across the tenant.

Configure SharePoint sharing at the tenant and site collection levels to control external and anonymous access, invite authenticated external users, and manage or withdraw invitations.

Learn how Azure Information Protection applies digital rights management to emails and documents in SharePoint and OneDrive, with policies that travel beyond the portal.

Integrate Office 365 message encryption with Azure Information Protection to protect emails inside and outside your organization, configured via a PowerShell script with testing and permission templates.

Activate information rights management for your tenant and apply it to a SharePoint library, configuring restrictions on printing, uploading non-supported files, and choosing read-only or read-write access.