Announcing General Availability of the new Exchange admin center

[Scott Schnoll]

The new Exchange admin center (EAC) is a modern, accessible, web-based management portal for managing Exchange Online that is based on the Microsoft 365 admin center experience. The new EAC is simple and accessible, and it enables you perform tasks like restoring mailboxes, migrating data, and much more.

Since entering Public Preview in June 2020, over half a million admins around the world have used it. We thrived on the feedback of our early adopters and we have steadily improved the new EAC with the help from a great community of early users.

Today, we are excited to announce that the new EAC is now generally available for customers (including GCC customers) in 10 languages. With this announcement, we are also releasing a new dashboard, new usability features, and several intelligent reports to help admins be more productive in their work. The new EAC is expected to be available to customers in GCC High in early August 2021, and to customers in DoD near the middle of calendar year 2022.

Here are some highlights:

1. Personalized Dashboard, Reports, Insights - The new EAC offers actionable insights and includes reports for mail flow, migration, and priority monitoring.
   
2. Azure Cloud Shell - Cloud Shell is a browser-accessible shell that provides a command-line experience built with Azure management tasks in mind. It enables admins to choose a shell experience that best suits their workstyle.
   
3. Mailbox management and recover deleted items - Recipient management is one of the most crucial tasks that admins perform. The new EAC now includes easier mailbox management.
   
4. Modern, simplified management of Groups - The new EAC also enables you to create and manage 4 types of groups: Microsoft 365 Groups, distribution lists, mail-enabled security groups, and dynamic distribution lists.
   
5. Migration - The new EAC supports various kinds of migrations, including cross-tenant migrations for M&A scenarios, and automation Google Workspace/G-Suite migrations.
   
6. Left navigation panel - The new EAC also includes a new left navigation panel to make it easier to find features.
   

You can access EAC today at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com.

To learn more, check out https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/exchange-admin-center.

Take a tour of the new EAC at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/videoplayer/embed/RE4FqDa.

[jvanbeusekom]

It is an nice admin center. But I really hope the time it takes to retrieve permissions on an mailbox is going to be improved. Because often that really takes a while.

[tratz1210]

I am still using the quarantine feature on EAS devices.  Unfortunately it wasn't added to the new EAC so I am stuck using the old EAC

[Peter Forster]

@Scott Schnoll  Any plans to add the "Mobile" functionality from the old Exchange Admin center to the new one?

What about all the other stuff still missing - is it planned to fully migrate all settings to the new portal?

[MatthiasMichl]

Discovered a few annoying things with the new Admin Center:

- you can not see the "member of" any longer to check for group memberships

- splitting the groups into sections (e. g. having all group types in one list in the old EAC

- list all mailboxes in one view (e. g. filter for Shared mailboxes rather than having an own tab for each type like in the old EAC)

=> inconsistent experience for mailbox and groups and is exactly the opposite as in old EAC

- adding mailbox delegation is weird (you have to click add permissions first... but you usually tend to immediately use the search field first)

- adding send on behalf permission for shared mailboxes is still missing (it also was missing in the on-prem EAC as well as the old online EAC). You will have to leverage PS for that, while you have that grant send on behalf for regular mailboxes. This was and is a design flaw in my mind. You can add the read and manage permissions from the GUI, but not send on behalf.)

[Dima Razbornov]

Great news!

@Scott Schnoll any updates on when the old EAC will be retired?

[Jonas Back]

@MatthiasMichl Agree on all points.

With mailboxes/groups I suggest putting it in ONE view and then make it easy to filter out if you just want to see for example Distribution Lists

[BrianAdmin]

I have been using New Admin Center for a while, but I keep having to go to the Classic for a few things.  The New admin center def. has nice features.

1. Not being able to see membership from a mailbox keeps me using the Classic.

2. Managing Retention Tags/Policies keeps me using the Classic.

3. Restriction to DLs don't work properly.  i.e. I couldn't add another Azure AD Synced Distribution list to a distribution list delivery restriction.  

Thanks!

[AdityaMukund]

@tratz1210 and @Peter Forster : Quarantine devices (in fact, the whole Mobile Device Management) feature is in our backlog and it will be made available to our users in 3-4 months from now.

Update: The MDM feature will be delivered by December 2021.

[AdityaMukund]

@Peter Forster : Could you please let us know what other ‘missing’ features are you looking for? Please check out this document as well which talks about few major changes in new EAC portal: Differences between the Classic admin center (Classic EAC) to the new admin center (new EAC) | Micro...

[AdityaMukund]

@Dima Razbornov : There are 2-3 more features that still have not found home in new EAC yet. The old EAC will be retired only when those features are also available to our users. Tentatively, it will take minimum 5-6 months to reach that stage. We will keep our users informed about any such development.

[AdityaMukund]

@jvanbeusekom : Could you please clarify if you are talking about Mailbox permissions (mailbox delegation permissions) that includes ‘Send as’, ‘Send on Behalf’ and ‘Read and manage’ settings?

[AdityaMukund]

@MatthiasMichl :

1. Member of" feature: The EAC FC is already working on it and it will be available before May ends. :smiling_face_with_smiling_eyes:
2. Splitting the groups into sections: We understand that currently what is annoying to our customers is if they do not know the group type of the group that they are searching for. An overall group search feature is what we are working on which will help our customers search for the required group from one location itself. This will be available before May ends.
3. Adding mailbox delegation is weird: Thanks for pointing this out. We will triage this issue to see what a better design could be here that is more intuitive.
4. Adding send on behalf permission for shared mailboxes is still missing: Thanks for pointing to this new ask from a valuable customer like you. We will look into this DCR and keep you updated.

[AdityaMukund]

@Jonas Back : Mailboxes (both user and shared) have already been put under one banner 'Mailboxes' and now you can use existing filters to check the mailboxes that you are searching for. Also, the user can even create custom filters and save them for future.

[AdityaMukund]

@BrianAdmin :

1. Not being able to see membership: Are you looking for “Member of" feature to check for DL memberships? The EAC FC is already working on that and it will be available before May ends.
2. Managing Retention Tags/Policies: The new and modern version of these features is now a part of Security & Compliance center. If you will go to old EAC and click on these feature tabs, you will observe a yellow banner that shows the new home for them. Please check out this document which talks about few major changes in new EAC portal: Differences between the Classic admin center (Classic EAC) to the new admin center (new EAC) | Micro...
3. Restriction to DLs: Thanks for pointing this out. We will look into this, and keep you updated.

[jvanbeusekom]

@AdityaMukund  Yes I am talking about the "Manage mailbox delegation" and the loading of "Read and manage", "Send as" and "Send on behalf".

[Dima Razbornov]

@jvanbeusekom, you can find these under users properties- mail tab. Usinf O365 admin portal Microsoft 365 admin center - Active users
Weird, eh?

[jvanbeusekom]

@Dima Razbornov You can also see them under "Manage mailbox delegation" under the mailbox in the new Exchange admin. My point is only that it often takes an while to load the information. 

[BrianAdmin]

Is anyone having problem accessing Exchange Admin in classic mode?  Some admins are having problem accessing classic ECP, but everything works when we switch to new Admin site.  Is this by design?  Thanks.

[AdityaMukund]

@BrianAdmin : It is not by design.

We definitely expect users to switch to new EAC as it is more performant, it has add-ons like Cloud Shell, Recover deleted items feature, Cross-tenant migration and Reports and insights and is coherent with other admin portals.

Note: If the admin is logged in to new EAC and still wants to access Classic EAC, we have provided a link to 'Classic Exchange admin center' on the left navigation panel.

If the admins are not able to access Classic EAC altogether, please raise a support ticket and we will look into it.

[BrianAdmin]

@AdityaMukund

Thank you for the comment. 

Below are findings from the troubleshooting:

1.  We started to notice the issue when we created Azure Security Group and assigned the Azure Security group to the Exchange Administrator Role in Azure.  New Admin works, but we didn't have access to the classic admin site.

2.  Added users directly to the Exchange Admin role and New/Classic works without any issues.

It looks like the issue is related to using Azure Security Group to assign Exchange Administrator role.  Please let me know if this is a known issue and will be fixed in next release.  Thanks. 

[jvanbeusekom]

@AdityaMukund The new Exchange Admin center is far from finished, just found out that in the new admin center you cannot edit groups while being an Groups Administrator. Also tested it in InPrivate mode. While in the Classic Exchange Admin center I have no problems editing groups.

[MatthiasMichl]

One more annoying thing i noticed:

when looking at an info (e. g. Mailbox), you now have that "information-flyout" from the right border of the screen - so far so good. 

However when you want to compare 2, 3, 4 mailboxes for settings, with classic, you were able to open the mailboxes in separate popups and could compare settings. Now you have to switch back and forth and take screenshots of one or the other to do a comparison.

[Deleted]

Cross tenant migration is still in preview, or it's in GA with the new EAC?

[null null]

Any chance... this will be migrated to on-prem (only) Exchange.  Our target environment cannot talk to the Internet (and Azure) so we have to keep using on-prem Exchange for Email.

[Jbrines1969]

@AdityaMukund

I see you mentioned in April that the mobile phone part was due in 3-4 months, any update now when it will be added?

[AdityaMukund]

@Jbrines1969: Thanks for the question. Updated information: We targeted delivering IMAP migration first (Will be available by end of this month) and we will be delivering Mobile feature next by December 2021.