Creating a tenant

The act of creating a tenant is a relatively simple affair, requiring you to fill out a basic contact form and choose a tenant name. Microsoft periodically changes what plans are available for new trial subscriptions. As of this writing, Office 365 E3 is available for a trial subscription. Currently available public trial subscriptions require the addition of payment information, which will cause a trial to roll over to a fully-paid subscription after the trial period ends. See Figure 1.2:

Figure 1.2 – Starting a trial subscription

The signup process may prompt for a phone number to be used during verification (either a text/SMS or call) to help ensure that you’re a valid potential customer and not an automated system.

After verifying your status as a human, you’ll be prompted to select your managed domain, as shown in Figure 1.3:

Figure 1.3 – Choosing a managed domain

In the Domain name field, you’ll be prompted to enter a domain name. If the domain name value you select is already taken, you’ll receive an error and be prompted to select a new name.

After you’ve finished, you can enter payment information for a trial subscription. Note the end date of the trial; if you fail to cancel by that time, you’ll be automatically billed for the number of licenses you have configured during your trial!