Development and Testing Sandbox Available for Microsoft 365

• A developer program offers a free Microsoft 365 E5 testing and development sandbox environment to users and organizations.
• The program offers a cost-effective way to test applications and configurations, and train administrators.

The Microsoft 365 Developer Program provides a virtual instance of Microsoft 365 E5 that can help administrators familiarize themselves with advanced settings and work out problems in a sandboxed environment. Although the program is meant for ongoing prototyping, development, and testing, IT organizations can use it to test configurations and familiarize administrators with advanced features before deploying them to a production tenancy.

In the Box

The Microsoft 365 sandbox includes most Microsoft 365 E5 components, and in addition 25 user licenses and optional test data, such as sample users. (Prior to Aug. 2019, users in the Developer Program were offered an Office 365 E3 developer subscription, with fewer features.)

The sandbox does not include Windows licenses or Audio Conferencing and has some other limitations. For example, inbound connectors for mail flow are not supported in Exchange Online and will throw an error.