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The Great Loop Departed User Process
When employees leave a Microsoft 365 tenant, they might leave a user-owned Loop workspace behind which contains some valuable information that the organization wants to retain. Two years or so after announcing that a workflow to handle user-owned workspaces was coming, Microsoft is rolling out the update to tenants worldwide. The process is manual, but not much automation is possible to review and preserve workspace content. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/04/user-owned-loop-workspaces/
need exchange se for hybrid environment
We have a hybrid Office 365 environment with an Exchange Server 2016 that no longer performs any role. It does not host any mailboxes and is not used as an SMTP relay. We would like to keep an Exchange installation solely for administrative purposes through the GUI. Questions: 1. Can we keep Exchange Server 2016 installed? 2. If we need to install Exchange Server Subscription Edition (SE), do we need licenses for this installation, considering that all our Office 365 licenses are Business licenses? Thank you.Microsoft Launches Container Management Support for Security Groups
A recent blog from the Microsoft Digital (IT department) discusses the preview implementation of container management labels for security groups. The implementation is limited because it encompasses just one control: the ability to have guest accounts in the membership of security groups. However, just that limited control is sufficient to stop unintended access to sensitive information by guest accounts, and that’s a very good thing. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/03/security-groups-labels/
Employee performance management tools in Microsoft 365?
So we are a relatively large organization and in drastic move, we've decided to shift from Google Workspace to Microsoft, primarily centering our employees around Microsoft Teams while trying to encourage them to use Copilot as effectively as possible. In this transition, one of the platforms we will be saying goodbye to will be our performance management software. Are there any Microsoft native performance management tools that can help us go through goal-setting, performance reviews, and feedback? Third party suggestions would also be good but only if they fit into the whole Microsoft workflow well.
Word/PowerPoint are not suitable replacements for Publisher
I’m writing following the guidance that Word and PowerPoint can be used as replacements for Publisher. This feedback is based on completing a real production document, not theoretical use Having just completed a fairly complex, layout-heavy technical document, I thought it only fair to share how that works in practice. In theory, I can see the logic: Word handles documents PowerPoint handles layouts Therefore, between the two, everything should be covered Unfortunately, in reality, this appears to be more of a theoretical exercise than a practical solution. Publisher was clearly designed for: Fixed, page-based layouts Precise positioning of objects Efficient alignment of mixed content (text, images, tables) Producing consistent, professional multi-page documents By comparison: Word is admirably committed to reminding you that it would prefer everything to flow freely, regardless of whether you want it to or not PowerPoint, while better behaved, does seem to assume every page is a standalone slide rather than part of a structured document Both tools can, with enough persistence, be persuaded into doing the job. However, this involves a level of manual intervention, workaround, and general negotiation with the software that feels somewhat at odds with modern productivity software. To put it simply: They are not replacements in any meaningful, real-world sense. The end result can be achieved, but the process is unnecessarily time-consuming, fragile, and prone to unexpected layout changes—particularly when precision actually matters. Replacing a purpose-built publishing tool with two applications that were never designed for that role gives the impression that this use case has been… optimistically simplified. I would strongly encourage Microsoft to either: Provide a genuine page-layout solution within the Office suite, or Enhance existing applications so they can support fixed-layout publishing without constant workarounds At present, the gap left by Publisher is very noticeable for anyone producing structured documents beyond basic text. I appreciate the direction of Microsoft 365 overall, but in this particular area, the experience feels less like an evolution and more like working around a missing tool. Regards Andy
Taken over MS365 tenant, failed payment stuck
Hi all, I have taken over an MS365 tenant for a customer that took over another company. This was a tenant managed by an MSP, but they canceled the relationship. So I tried to purchase a Business Premium subscription for one month and couple it to my admin account, so that I can decoupled some devices from Intune, and also reinstate 1 or 2 accounts for the time being. I added a new billing profile (I could not add a billing account) while ordering from Microsoft directly. However the payment failed, there were 3 attempts in very quick succession. Probably because my card setting were too strict. So I switched the payment method to another card after this. However since then I have one product under "Your products" with the label "failed", the errors it gives: "We weren't able to create a subscription for one of your products. Update the selected filters and choose subscription status Failed to view the product in the list below." Clicking the product just shows "subscription failed". It does show renews on 1-7-2026. So it is expiring? How can I retry the payment? Unfortunately all support options keep pointing to the previous tenant owner so I'm posting here. So I'm trying here. I've been at this for way too long already.Cannot install addins
I am a Microsoft 365 Personal user. When I try to add the Claude for Excel Addin (for the Desktop version of Excel), I get an error: "Error loading add-ins. One or more add-ins failed to load. See your add-ins.". However, this is not specific to the Claude addin, since every addin gives the same error. When I click on the My-Addins option and then "refresh", I get another error: "Access denied to catalog." Signing in and out of Office does not fix the issue. Clearing the Office 365 cache did not fix the problem. The issue extends to Powerpoint and Word as well. I cannot add any addins to the web versions of Office either. Interestingly, if I download an XML manifest file, I can use the "Manage my addins" option in the web versions of Office 365 to manually add the addins. But still no luck with the Desktop versions. Anyone have any thoughts on how to fix this? Do I need to manually reinstall Office 365? I also noticed that the "Get Add-ins" button in "Account" settings is disabled.Microsoft Cans Power BI App for Reporting Microsoft 365 Usage
Microsoft has announced that the Microsoft 365 Usage Analytics Power BI app will retire on August 1, 2026. The alternative is the usage reports in the Microsoft 365 admin center or to develop a custom Power BI dashboard based on data imported through the Graph usage reports API. The decision isn’t surprising, but I’m sure that some will mourn the passing of Microsoft’s first tool to report usage information. https://office365itpros.com/2026/05/29/microsoft-365-usage-analytics/Migration from Hosted Exchange (Hybrid) to M365 Classic Outlook Client Problems and Solutions
Hello Everyone, I'm a tech who started on a 8088 processor in the 80's. Not mentioning the Vic20 and C64 since that hardly seem relevant! I'm posting here to hopefully help the next person with the issues I've had over the last few weeks. My client had to port his email from a provider with an on-perm Exchange server in a Hybrid setup with M365 to his own M365 environment. I expected this was to be about 3 hours of work for me - setup M365 environment, plan the cut-over window, update the Outlook clients on each PC. It ended up being roughly 20 hours of my time and at least 10 hours of dedicated time for my client. For those wanting to jump directly to what mostly fixed it use this link, it should get you past the dreaded "an encrypted connection to your mail server is not available" when trying to add the mail account into a clean profile. Use https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/classic-outlook-troubleshooters-086e3d66-5404-4034-9cc5-545909dcc166 and pick "Classic Outlook Profile Setup Troubleshooter" Most hits are going to tell you its an autodiscovery issue, but if you're reading this I'm going to assume you've already confirmed that. Our issue was some ghost configuration, only on the PCs previously setup for mail on the old server. A new PC could add the same account without issue. Some of the research suggested this would not happen if the proper Microsoft migration process is followed to move the account - but in our case the previous provider was unable to perform the migration. I'll skip over the research we tried along the way, such as New Outlook Profiles, Registry entry changes, MS Personal users with the same email as MS Business Users, Autodiscover problems (including concerns that the base website for the client was offering invalid data), and so on. After each hit where we applied a fix we again had to try adding the mail to the profile, and each time we sat watching the little circle for up to 5 minutes only to get the same error. Now, once we found the link above - which did not come up in most searches - things got better, but not 100%. We added the profile ok but then Outlook gave a permission error while starting. To fix that, the user signed in must have administrative access and you use File Explorer to navigate to the folder identified in the error. In our case it was in folders kept under \Windows\System32\. When prompted that we need to grant permanent access we said yes. In our case this is where Outlook was storing the ost files. That worked for most of the clients, but we had one additional issue where the error was pointing to a folder that didn't exist. Just creating the folder was not enough, the final fix was to hold CTRL-SHIFT down while opening Outlook to start in administrative mode to allow it to create the ost file in the newly created folder. Finally 3 weeks after our cut over window, while the client had to use OWA, we were able to get outlook running. This was critical for my client because they did not have access to the mail history since the migration didn't happen - they had to open a copy of their PST in Outlook and use mail in OWA and constantly bounce back and forth. I hope this helps someone avoid the pain we went though!Microsoft Rolls Out the New Calendar Sharing Model
An automatic upgrade is currently ongoing to move Outlook calendar sharing from the old MAPI-based model to a new REST-based model. The new model has been available to Outlook classic clients on an optional basis and is now becoming the default. The REST model is simpler and exploits the Exchange Online service instead of depending on client transactions. It’s also part of the transition to the new Outlook. https://office365itpros.com/2026/05/28/calendar-sharing-outlook/
