This chapter requires users to have administrative privileges in Office 365. Those with a global administrator role will be able to perform every task in each recipe. Specific app and functional administrators will be able to do many of the recipes. No installations/downloads are required for the recipes in this chapter.

When someone joins your organization, you will need to create a new user profile so that person can be assigned credentials to your tenant. In this recipe, we'll walk through the steps of creating a single user via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

Getting ready

The user creating the account must be an admin with the appropriate role (such as Global Admin).

How to do it…

1. Go to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center at http://admin.microsoft.com.
2. Select Users > Active users.
3. Select Add a user.
4. A form will display, in which you enter the user's basic information. Fill in the first section, Set up the basics:
   

   Figure 2.1 – Fields and options for setting up a new user in Office 365

   In the Password settings section, it is recommended to allow the tenant to set a temporary password by leaving the default selections checked. You may check Send password in email upon completion and add an email address, or when the setup is complete, you will have a chance to copy the user's credentials.

   Click Next to move to the Product licenses section.

5. As discussed in Chapter 1, Office 365 Setup and Basic Administration, select the appropriate location and license. Additionally, you can select the Create user without product license (not recommended) option if you would like to assign licenses later:
   

   Figure 2.2 – License options when adding a new user

   Click Next to move to the Optional settings section.

   From here, you can assign an admin or elevated rights role to the user, or you can add in additional profile information for the user.

6. Select the appropriate option by expanding the section and filling in the details:
   

   Figure 2.3 – Optional role and profile information for a new user

7. Click Next to move to the Finish section.
8. Your user is not yet created. Review the information and click Finish adding:
   

   Figure 2.4 – Confirmation screen for reviewing the details of a new user

9. From this screen, you can copy the User details and provide those to the user:

Figure 2.5 – Optional ability to save a new user's configuration as a template for future new users

How it works…

In this recipe, you created a new user from scratch. User management starts with this action of creating a new user. Once the user has been created and appropriate product licenses applied, the user will have the ability to sign in.

Adding users one at a time can become quite laborious in a large organization. This recipe provides a method for importing a file and adding users in bulk. Additionally, this can be done through PowerShell, which will be covered in Chapter 3, Administering Office 365 with PowerShell.

Getting ready

The user creating the account must be either a global or user administrator.

How to do it…

1. Go to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center at http://admin.microsoft.com.
2. Select Users > Active users.
3. Select Add multiple users.
4. Click Add multiple users:
   

   Figure 2.6 – The Add multiple users button of the Active users page

5. The Import multiple users panel will open. From here, you can download a sample comma-separated values (CSV) file, enter your user information according to the column headings in the download, and then upload it to your tenant:
   

   Figure 2.7 – The upload file dialog for downloading templates of and importing CSV files of new users

6. The CSV file must include all the exact column headings that are found in the sample. If you move the headings, the upload may not work appropriately.

   Data must be entered into the username and display name columns for each user.

7. Click Next to move to the Set user options section.
8. From this screen, you can set the Sign-in status and select product licenses for the bulk loaded users:
   

   Figure 2.8 – Dialog options for allowing sign-in and assigning product licenses upon import

9. Click Next to move to the View your result section.
10. On the View your result screen, you can choose to send the results to an email address, check how many users were created, and download the results. Note that the results will include plaintext passwords. The results will help show how many users were successfully created and maybe illustrate a need for licensing adjustment to meet the number of users:
    

    Figure 2.9 – Confirmation of created users with the option to email a result file to users

11. Click Send and close to finish the process.

How it works…

You just imported a CSV file with many users' data to create new users in Office 365 more efficiently. This behind-the-scenes method is functionally the same as manually adding users. However, it applies those selections in bulk and then creates a downloadable file with the login information.

See also

• Learn more about using a CSV file to import users at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/Office365/enterprise/add-several-users-at-the-same-time#more-information-about-how-to-add-users-to-microsoft-365.

Groups in Office 365 are a great way to manage people with similar tasks, access needs, or users within the same team or department. Groups are an essential component to the Office 365 ecosystem, and when an admin gets groups right, the admin's job becomes much easier to manage. In this recipe, you'll create an Office 365 group.

Getting ready

The user creating the group must be either a global or user administrator.

How to do it…

1. Go to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center at http://admin.microsoft.com.
2. Select Groups > Add a group.
3. Select the group type you wish to create, and then click Next.
4. In the Set up the basics section, enter a group name and description, then click Next.
5. From the Edit settings page, assign the group a unique email address, choose if the group is public or private, and determine if the group should have a Microsoft Teams team:
   

   Figure 2.10 – New Office 365 group creation dialog

6. Click Next to move to the Owners section.
7. In the Owners box, select two users who will have ownership of the group.
8. Your group is not yet created. On the Review and finish adding group screen, review your selections and click Create group to complete the process:

Figure 2.11 – Confirmation of a newly created Office 365 group

How it works…

In this recipe, you created an Office 365 group. Groups are a foundational component to many of the advanced features and products available with your tenant. Groups segment users for ease of administration and collaboration between those users. Understanding how and when to use a group is a vital component to successfully setting up a tenant and may require forward thinking on how and why a group needs to be created.

There's more…

Creating a group is only the first step. Next, you need to assign users to the group. This is done by navigating to the Groups section, searching for the correct group, and going to the Members tab. Select View all and manage members, and then add or remove members.

See also

• Understanding the group types: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/microsoft-365/admin/create-groups/compare-groups
• Managing a group: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/create-groups/manage-groups?view=o365-worldwide
• Adding guests to a group: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/adding-guests-to-office-365-groups-bfc7a840-868f-4fd6-a390-f347bf51aff6

Security Defaults are a set of rules and identify security mechanisms preconfigured by Microsoft, but the rules are left disabled by default. Enabling these defaults will impact your entire tenant. Admins and users will be required to start using MFA (adding an additional layer of security upon sign-in), better protecting your tenant and the data within from exposure through phishing and other identity-related attacks.

The See also section of this recipe includes a link to user training as well as additional resources you should read before enabling the Security Defaults, to ensure you are clear on the impact to your organization.

Getting ready

Only an admin with the Global Admin role can make these changes to the tenant security settings. These steps are based on the "new" admin center (released for preview in 2018-2019).

This process assumes you are working from a recently created tenant (2017 or newer). If you are using an older tenant and have set up baseline policies, you will need to disable those policies and move to the new Security Defaults. Additionally, you may need to activate modern authentication in your tenant (the See also section of this recipe has instructions on how to verify this). This is not required for recently created tenants (2017 or newer).

How to do it…

1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center at http://admin.microsoft.com.
2. Go to the Azure AD Properties page at https://portal.azure.com/#blade/Microsoft_AAD_IAM/ActiveDirectoryMenuBlade/Properties.
3. Select Manage Security defaults at the bottom of the page.
4. The Enable Security defaults panel will load:
   

   Figure 2.12 – Information about and ability to Enable Security defaults

5. Toggle the Enable Security defaults selector to Yes.
6. Click Save.

How it works…

You've just enabled MFA, among other security enhancements, by toggling on Enable Security defaults. Security defaults are rules, or conditional access policies, which are set by default to help control how users and admins interact with Office 365.

See also

• User training on how to download and use Microsoft Authenticator with Office 365: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/use-microsoft-authenticator-with-office-365-1412611f-ad8d-43ab-807c-7965e5155411?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#ID0EAADAAA=_Step_1
• Verify if your tenant is set up with modern authentication (typically applies to tenants older than 2017): https://docs.microsoft.com/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/enable-or-disable-modern-authentication-in-exchange-online
• Understanding the new Security Defaults and the impact to your users and tenant: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/fundamentals/concept-fundamentals-security-defaults