News

Microsoft Switching IT Pros to Microsoft 365 Admin Center

• By Kurt Mackie
• 06/06/2018

Microsoft will start transitioning IT pros to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center from the the Office 365 Admin Center "over the next few weeks," the company said Tuesday.

During the switch, IT pros will find that URL links to the Office 365 Admin Center management portal will be swapped out for a new admin.microsoft.com address. That link will take users to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center management portal instead.

The Microsoft 365 Admin Center actually was introduced in March as a tool for organizations with Microsoft 365 Business subscriptions. Microsoft 365 Business subscriptions, which became generally available back in November, provide access to licenses for using Office 365 services, Windows 10 and the Enterprise Mobility + Security mobile management suite (Microsoft Intune, Azure Active Directory Premium and Azure Rights Management).

Microsoft is promising that the switch to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center won't incur a cost. The new portal offers a "simpler experience" compared with the Office 365 Admin Center. Moreover, the Microsoft 365 Admin Center has easier integration with other Microsoft services, according to Microsoft's Brian Besand, in the announcement.

"If you've used the Office 365 Admin Center before, the experience will feel very similar," Besand explained. "The navigation is the same, and you'll have the same granularity of control over your environment."

He added that IT pros that get switched to using the Microsoft 365 Admin Center will still see "links to all your specialty admin tools for services like OneDrive and SharePoint conveniently linked in the left navigation pane." In addition, the bookmarks created in the Office 365 Admin Center "or any of the specialty admin centers" will continue to work.

Back in March, Microsoft had announced that the Microsoft Security and Compliance Center had been integrated into the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Microsoft had explained its action back then that it was working to create "more integrated, streamlined administration experiences across Microsoft 365."

Arrival of the Microsoft 365 Admin Center for organizations will depend on when it gets rolled out to specific Office 365 tenancies, or when Microsoft swaps out the Office 365 Admin Center URL. Although it wasn't stated, Microsoft appears to be retiring the Office 365 Admin Center with this announcement.