Get started with Microsoft 365 Business

• 9/20/2018
• 3 minutes to read
• Contributors
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What is Microsoft 365 Business

Microsoft 365 Business is a comprehensive set of business productivity and collaboration tools, such as Outlook, Word, Excel, and other Office products that are always up to date. You can protect your work files on all of your iOS, Android, and Windows 10 devices with enterprise-grade security that is simple to manage.

Microsoft 365 Business is meant for up to 300 licenses, if you need more licenses, see Microsoft 365 Enterprise documentation for more information.

Get Microsoft 365 Business

• If you have a partner, they will get Microsoft 365 Business: Get Microsoft 365 Business from Microsoft Partner Center.

• If you don't have a partner and want to get Microsoft 365 Business, you can buy it here.

Set up Microsoft 365 Business

Overview of Microsoft 365 Business Suite set up

The following diagram describes how admins set up Microsoft 365 Business. It also describes the steps to prepare Windows PCs for Microsoft 365 Business. You can also add new devices to in the Microsoft 365 Business admin center with the Windows AutoPilot. You can use AutoPilot to set up and pre-configure new devices, getting them ready for productive use as soon as a user signs in with their Microsoft 365 Business credentials.

1: Set up Microsoft 365 Business (Admin)

Sign in to Microsoft 365 Business admin center with your global admin credentials, and complete the steps below to set up Microsoft 365 Business.

1. Pre-requisites for protecting data on devices with Microsoft 365 Business

   Read the pre-requisites first to make sure your devices are ready for Microsoft 365 Business.

2. Set up Microsoft 365 Business by using the setup wizard

   If you are permanently moving from a local Active Directory to the cloud, you can either add your users manually in the Microsoft 365 Business admin center by using the setup wizard, or you can do a one-time sync with Azure AD Connect. There are two ways to do this:

• If you also have an Exchange 2010, Exchange 2013, or Exchange 2016 server, you can Use Minimal Hybrid to quickly migrate Exchange mailboxes to Office 365. The minimal hybrid steps include a one-time sync of users to Azure AD as well as email migration from on-premises to the cloud. After the email migration is complete, the directory synchronization is automatically turned off when using this method.

• Use The Office 365 directory sync wizard to synchronize your users to the cloud. Follow the steps in Set up directory synchronization for Office 365 to complete this process. After you synchronize your users to the cloud, you will have to Turn off directory synchronization for Office 365.

  You will also have to give each user that was added this way a license to Microsoft 365 Business. You can do this in the setup wizard, or in the Assign licenses to users in Office 365 for business.

2: Prepare mobile devices

Follow the steps inSet up mobile devices for Microsoft 365 Business users to install Office apps on devices and making sure they are protected by Microsoft 365 Business.

3: Prepare PCs

Admins can pre-select settings for new devices Windows 10 PCs by using Windows AutoPilot. Users can set up their existing or new Windows 10 devices by following the steps in this topic: Set up Windows PCs for Microsoft 365 Business users. For existing devices users can also Optionallymove files to OneDrive for Business. They can also use third-party tools to move files associated with Windows profile to OneDrive.

If your organization uses Windows Server Active Directory on-premises, you can set up Microsoft 365 Business to protect your Windows 10 devices, while still maintaining access to on-premises resources that require local authentication. Follow the steps in Enable domain-joined Windows 10 devices to be managed by Microsoft 365 Business to set this up. This is the preferred method and devices in this state are called Hybrid Azure AD joined devices.

If you retain a local Active Directory that contains some on-premises resources (such as file shares and printers) , you can give your Azure AD-joined devices access to these resources by following the steps here: Access on-premises resources from an Azure AD-joined device in Microsoft 365 Business.

After you have set up Windows 10 PCs, you can automatically install Office to the devices.

Contact support

If you need to contact support:

• Contact your partner.

• As a Microsoft 365 Business admin, you have access to our customer support team, Contact support for business products - Admin Help