Request assistance from Microsoft

  • 7 minutes

Microsoft Support provides global technical, pre-sales, billing, and subscription support with every Microsoft 365 Enterprise, Business, Education, and Government subscription. Support is available both online through the Microsoft 365 portal and by telephone for both paid and trial subscriptions.

Technical support for Microsoft 365 subscriptions aids with basic installation, setup, and general technical usage. Some examples of these issues are listed in the following table.

Support Category

Examples

Installation and setup

  • Exchange Online:

  • Microsoft 365 mailbox migration

  • Recipient configuration (mailbox permissions, configuring mail forwarding, configuring shared mailbox)

  • Autodiscover configuration

  • SharePoint Online:

  • Permissions and user groups

  • Configuration of external users

  • Skype for Business Online:

  • Installation and creating contacts

  • Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise: Installation and setup assistance

Configuration

  • Service configuration failure issues

  • Provisioning issues

  • Domain setup and redelegation

  • Service configuration issues

  • Single sign-on (SSO)

  • Active Directory synchronization

Microsoft assigns a severity level to a case when it’s opened, based on an assessment of the issue type and customer impact. Examples of issue types and severity levels are shown in the following table.

Severity Level

Operations and Support Description

Examples

Sev A (Critical)

One or more services aren’t accessible or are unusable. Production, operations, or deployment deadlines are severely affected, or there will be a severe impact on production or profitability. Multiple users or services are affected.

  • Widespread problems sending or receiving mail.
  • SharePoint site down.
  • All users can’t send instant messages, join or schedule Skype for Business Meetings, or make Skype for Business calls.

Sev B (High)

The service is usable but in an impaired fashion. The situation has moderate business impact and can be dealt with during business hours. A single user, customer, or service is partially affected.

  • The Send button in Outlook is garbled.
  • Setting is impossible from the EAC (Exchange Admin Center), but it's possible in PowerShell.

Sev C (Non-critical)

The situation has minimal business impact. The issue is important but doesn't have a significant current service or productivity impact for the customer. A single user is experiencing partial disruption, but an acceptable workaround exists.

  • How to set user passwords that never expire.
  • User can’t delete contact information in Exchange Online.

Administrator role and responsibilities

The only people who can access the Microsoft 365 admin center are users who have been assigned Microsoft 365 admin roles. They're also the only ones who can communicate directly with Microsoft about Microsoft 365 service requests.

With Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Microsoft 365 Business plans, you can choose several types of administrators who serve different functions. This service description uses the generic title administrator to refer to all categories of administrators.

The administrator is:

  • responsible for service administration and account maintenance.
  • the primary contact that sets up and supports each service user.
  • authorized to submit service requests to Microsoft.

The administrator’s role is to:

  • provide user account setup and configuration to allow users access to the services.
  • address client connectivity, client software, and mobility installation issues.
  • address service availability issues within the customer’s organizational span of control.
  • use Microsoft’s self-service support resources to resolve support issues.

Microsoft support’s role is to:

  • troubleshoot and provide technical guidance for customer issues and escalations.
  • gather and validate information related to specific service requests.
  • provide issue coordination and resolution management.
  • maintain communication with the administrators to help ensure that issues are addressed on an ongoing basis.
  • aid with licensing, invoicing, and subscription inquiries, and purchasing and trial inquiries.
  • continually gather customer feedback on how to improve the service through surveys.

To Submit a Service Request:

  1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, in the left-hand navigation pane, select Show all, select Support, and then select New service request.
  2. Fill out the required fields and be as descriptive as possible with what you're experiencing.
  3. Select submit.

Knowledge check

Choose the best response for the following question. Then select “Check your answers.”

Check your knowledge

1.

As the Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator for Lucerne Publishing, Inc., you've run into an issue that your IT team can't fix. You want to submit a service request to Microsoft seeking its assistance. What is your responsibility as Lucerne's Enterprise Administrator when submitting a service request?