Contents
Introduction to Microsoft 365 Administration
In this course, we take an introductory look at administration within Microsoft 365.
Learning Objectives
- Describe the capabilities of the Microsoft 365 admin center
- Describe user licensing, roles, and reporting in the Microsoft 365 admin center
- Explain how Microsoft 365 helps manage applications and devices
- Understand the Microsoft support structure for Microsoft 365 services
Intended Audience
- Users new to Microsoft 365
- Users who want to learn the administrative tools and capabilities available within Microsoft 365
Prerequisites
To get the most out of this course, you should have an understanding of general technical concepts.
It's no secret that utilizing any kind of software, there are bound to be hiccups along the way. And it's important to know what kind of support you have available to you when something does happen. Microsoft offers a Service Level Agreement that lays out Microsoft's commitment to maintain specific levels of service for its Microsoft 365 services. For example, Microsoft offers a 99.9% uptime on Microsoft Teams, which is outlined in the Service Level Agreement.
Alongside this, Microsoft also has technical support, which varies depending upon the licensing and level of security of the issue. For example, if you have a business premium license, your support structure would look different than that of an E5 license support structure. The range varies, but the support is always there. Microsoft breaks up technical support issues into three categories: medium, high, and critical. Medium severity issues are understood to have minimal business impact, and only create a partial disruption to a single or a few users.
High severity issues are a step-up, where they have moderate business impact and creates a significant disruption to a single or a few users, but the service or tool affected are still usable in its current state. Critical severity issues are understood to have a severe business impact affecting multiple users, and the service or tool affected are unable to be used in their current state. Each of these severities offers a different support response time promised by Microsoft depending upon the user's license. For business licenses like business basic, standard, or premium, a medium or a high severity issue is available for a support during business hours and has no response time commitment.
However, a critical severity issue is available for a support 24/7 and has a one-hour response time commitment from Microsoft. For enterprise licenses, these vary slightly. A medium severity issue is available for a support 24/7 and has a four-hour response time commitment. A high severity issue is available for a support 24/7 and has a two-hour response time commitment. And a critical severity issue is available for 24/7 support and has a one-hour response time commitment. Generally, when recalling this information, it's easiest to remember that all enterprise licensing has some variation of 24-hour support, while the 24/7 support from business licensing applies only to critical severity issues. For more information regarding support structure in regards to Microsoft 365 licensing, you can check out the documentation in the transcript below.
Lee has spent most of his professional career learning as much as he could about PC hardware and software while working as a PC technician with Microsoft. Once covid hit, he moved into a customer training role with the goal to get as many people prepared for remote work as possible using Microsoft 365. Being both Microsoft 365 certified and a self-proclaimed Microsoft Teams expert, Lee continues to expand his knowledge by working through the wide range of Microsoft certifications.