Office 365 Administration Takes Multiple Paths

Organizations that adopt Office 365 will need to consider solutions for large-scale administration of the offering. Each of the administration methods offered for Office 365 brings with it certain drawbacks. If complexity prevents an organization from tightening data access or ensuring compliance with applicable regulations, for example, the organization could incur more costs or abandon the rollout of projects entirely. The Office 365 administrative controls are not centralized, so organizations will need to plan for frequent training of administrators and rewriting of management scripts or even consider third-party management software or outsourcing.

Divergent Paths to Administrative Features

Administration of Office 365 can be roughly split into three categories of tasks:

• User management, such as adding users and assigning them licenses to specific services
• Tenant management of settings that apply across an entire organization, such as billing and service health inquiries