Microsoft's main portal for running an organisation's Microsoft 365 services, found at admin.microsoft.com. Admins use it for users, groups, licences, billing, domains and roles, to check service health and Message center, and to configure Copilot and agents, with shortcuts to the more specialised portals.
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Each book explains Microsoft 365 admin center in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Microsoft 365
Formerly Office 365, Microsoft's software-as-a-service productivity suite. A Microsoft Entra tenant provides its identity, and its data is not governed by Azure RBAC.
- Azure Service Health
Dashboard tailored to your subscriptions that reports Azure platform outages, scheduled maintenance and health advisories affecting them.
- Message center
The place in the Microsoft 365 admin center, under Health, where Microsoft posts news of coming changes, new features, retirements and scheduled maintenance. Problems happening now are reported in Service health instead.
Related terms
- Agent
A specialised form of Microsoft Copilot set up for one particular job, pairing instructions with knowledge and skills. You can create one in Copilot Studio, SharePoint or Agent Builder, and administrators control them from the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Agent Registry
A central list, reached in the Microsoft 365 admin center via Agents > All agents > Registry, of all agents people in your organisation can use. It flags overall numbers, ownerless agents and those that aren't managed.
- Billing policy
Ties an Azure subscription and resource group to the whole tenant or to one group, so that pay-as-you-go Copilot usage (SharePoint agents or agents in Copilot Chat, for instance) gets charged. Admins create them in the Microsoft 365 admin center, can have 50 at most, and a budget on one only raises alerts.
- Copilot security dashboard
Collects Purview signals about Copilot in one Microsoft 365 admin center page (Copilot > Overview > Security), offering shortcuts to set up DLP, deal with oversharing and tighten compliance. Global Readers may view it; an AI Administrator is needed to change anything.
- Integrated apps
The area of the Microsoft 365 admin center, under Settings, where admins roll out apps, add-ins and agents to users, remove them and check the permissions they ask for.
- Microsoft Copilot readiness report
A usage report in the Microsoft 365 admin center that lists users who meet the technical requirements for Copilot and, based on how they use Microsoft 365 apps, recommends who might get a licence.
- Service health
Shows, per service, any active incidents and advisories in the Microsoft 365 admin center, plus an Issue history tab going back 7 or 30 days. Future changes appear in Message center, not here.