Read time: 6 minutes
Do you own multiple Office 365 tenants to manage your business operations and teams? Organizations often find it challenging to manage multiple tenants in Office 365 together due to a lack of a unified portal. Switching between tenants repeatedly can give rise to security issues and limit cross-tenant visibility. Admins need to have the knowledge of multitenant management in Office 365 to avoid any potential issues with the workflow.
Microsoft 365 Multitenant management allows MSPs and administrators to monitor and control multiple Microsoft tenants from a centralized interface. Not only does it save a lot of time, but it also prevents portal fatigue and any potential security lapse. This blog will highlight the core challenges users face while managing multiple Office 365 tenants, and the ways to manage multiple tenants efficiently.
How To Manage Multiple Office 365 Tenants? Quick Answer:
- Use Microsoft 365 Tenant Switcher.
- Use Microsoft 365 Lighthouse.
- Use PowerShell/Microsoft Graph API for automation.
Challenges of Managing Multiple Office 365 Tenants
- Users from different Office 365 tenants cannot use a shared mailbox.
- A custom domain is not available for two tenants at the same time.
- Cannot transfer services like SharePoint Sites, Yammer, OneDrive for Business without the help of a professional tool.
- SharePoint Search and Team Store are available for single-tenant only.
- Need to switch tenants in teams to communicate with people with different tenants.
- Very limited experience in Office 365 Groups for multiple tenants.
- Cannot synchronize offline document libraries from OneDrive of multiple tenants (with the same identity).
- Utilization of Office 365 services like Forms, PowerApps, PowerBI, etc. would be quite difficult.
- Users from other tenants cannot share a chat file, create a team, view organization chart or join public teams in teams of the other tenant.
The list of disadvantages is even longer. Therefore, if you have multiple tenants, you either need relaible solutions or professional resources for managing multiple tenants.
How to Manage Multiple Office 365 Tenants in an Organization?
You can either use tools by Microsoft like the Tenant Switcher, Partner Center, or Lighthouse, or automate the process by using Windows PowerShell or Microsoft Graph API. Let us discuss these feasible and effective strategies that an organization with multiple tenants can follow for smooth functioning.
Microsoft 365 Tenant Switcher via Admin Center
The Tenant Switcher feature in Microsoft 365 Admin Center allows MSPs and administrators to switch between multiple tenants without having to log out. This feature is perfect for admins having to manage more than 3 tenants and offers instant access to Teams, SharePoint, and Exchange admin portals across different tenants. A thing to note is that this feature is available for Cloud-only and hybrid environments particularly. Follow the steps below to use this feature:
- Log into Microsoft 365 Admin Center with the Global Admin credentials.
- The Tenant Switcher window will be opened once you login successfully.
- Select any tenant from the given list to switch to without having to manually log out.
- If you want to get insights about your tenants’ health, click on the View insights across all your tenants
Microsoft 365 Lighthouse
Microsoft 365 Lighthoouse is centralized portal primarily for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), which allows them to manage and protect their customer tenants at scale. This features makes it easy to detect threats quickly, standardize policies across all tenants, and scale the tenant management process. The only limitation it has is that it only works for tenants managed by Microsoft Partner Center. This feature is not available for enterprises not part of the Partner Center.
Microsoft Partner Center
Microsoft Partner Center is an online portal with the help of which Microsoft Partners like several MSPs, CSPs, and others manage their tenants. This portal is used to delegate admin access (DAP and GDAP) to manage customer tenants.
PowerShell and Graph API Automation
PowerShell and Graph API automate the management process to manage multiple tenants in Office 365. These methods are only available for administrators having high-level access for scripting bulk operations for managing tenants. PowerShell is best for quick scripting and Graph API is best for a more detailed oriented organization.
Tips to manage multiple Office 365 tenants
- Become A Microsoft Partner: Being a Microsoft partner is beneficial. From a single access, one can navigate to other tenants using the Partner feature in the App launcher feature of Office 365.
- Multiple Browsers for Multiple Tenants: To have multiple sessions of different tenants at the same time, using multiple browsers would be a great option.
- Save Time with PowerShell: Use of PowerShell to create new Office 365 users with a pre-set CSV file saves time for multiple tenant management.
- Employ Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Turning ON the Multi-Factor Authentication is a good anti-theft strategy to avoid any security breaches. By monitoring user sign-ins, transactions, access from multiple tenants, one can keep it secure. The factors for authentication include an authentication code, biometric device, passcode, etc.
- Manage OneDrive for Business: Storage space of OneDrive for Business can be managed using an incremental synchronization method. The method stores the cache on Azure Cloud rather on the system. It saves the storage space on the system and ensures quick and smooth functioning of multiple tenants on the server.
- Use Management Tools: Employing in-built management tools like Remote Connectivity Analyzer (for identifying connectivity and configuration issues), Exchange Server Deployment Assistant (for queries generation for deployment objectives and guidelines), IdFix (for fixing errors), Azure AD Connect, Dir Sync, AAD Connect (for assisting migration processes with all kinds of synchronization between local AD and Office 365) and Exchange Admin Center migration options (staged, IMAP, cutover, remote migrations) tools.
What if There’s an Easy Way?
While Microsoft Tools and Automation tools like PowerShell and Graph API offer ways to manage multiple tenants in Office 365, they’re only limited to MSPs and administrators. For users having multiple tenants, migration of multiple tenants’ data to a single tenant can be an effective method. Opt for a professional migration solution to eliminate any risk of data loss due to manual strategies. Kernel Office 365 Migration tool could be the best choice here.
The tool is meant for all sorts of Office 365 migrations, including migration between tenants. The tool supports bulk mailbox migration to Office 365 along with public folders, archive mailboxes, groups, etc. It lets user decide what content to migrate and offers incremental migration. Simply this is one of the most effective solution for Office 365 data migration.
Final Verdict
Owning multiple Office 365 tenants in an organization is associated with benefits as well as shortcomings. Whether you’re an admin within an enterprise or an MSP managing several customer tenants, you need to have a proper strategy to keep the workflow going. We have given some tips and effective methods to do this. However, if you don’t have admin rights, then you must migrate data from one Office 365 tenant to another to merge and access it from one single place.
Frequently Asked Questions
A. Administrators can manage multiple tenants in Office 365 from one unified dashboard with the help of Microsoft 365 Admin Center and Lighthouse. For an automated process, PowerShell or Graph API automation can also be used.
A. Lighthouse is a unified online portal primarily designed for MSPs to manage multiple customer tenant from a centralized dashboard.
A. Yes, with the help of a reliable Office 365 migration tool, it’s possible to consolidate all your data at one place.
