Microsoft Education Solutions Guide - available for all IT Admins, partners and schools
What is ESG- Education Solutions Guide The Microsoft Education Solution Guide (ESG) was developed to simplify and enhance understanding of the license features and products that you have available to you in a Microsoft 365 tenant. Initial focus and intent were to create better tools to understand the tenant setup and configuration to enhance security and compliance. Link to full guide is here. It consists of three stages: Goals and Objectives for ESG Goals Develop prescriptive deployment guides that provide a centralized resource with education-specific scenarios to assist organizations in defining, managing, and organizing their tenant and appropriate applications. Reduce the overall complexity of tenant and service deployment. Establish baseline recommended pathways to facilitate a common and agreed-upon configuration based on subject-matter experts. Utilize AI technology to uncover and compare recommended settings against user requirements based on documented configurations. Implement phased configurations to aid customers and partners in understanding what they may not know or should consider during discovery to meet customer expectations. Highlight unused features and products to ensure customers fully leverage the potential and benefits of their purchased product licenses. Identify opportunities for partner participation in achieving customer goals and expectations based on customer requirements and ESG findings. Create an easy pathway for customer change management to enhance control, security, compliance, and privacy of tenants. Develop custom assessments to evaluate product entry for items such as Copilot, Defender, Purview, Intune, Zero-Trust, and Microsoft Entra ID. Objectives Deliver information for features available (used/unused) to users based on license model. Prescriptive recommendations based on education scenarios. - Present upgrade license opportunities from A1 to A3 to A5. Security analysis exposing gaps and issues proactively to allow modifications before it's too late. Promote partner access to customers that have defined gaps based on assessments and are requesting partner assistance. Better discovery and assessment analysis with new tools. Designed to be more self-serving customer and partner access management. Speed up user adoption for educators and IT Admins alike. Recommended Roles for Implementation IT Admin Identity Admin Security Admin Compliance Admin OneDrive Admin SharePoint Admin Exchange Online Admin Teams Admin Navigation ESG has seven main sections in the navigations. ESG – Microsoft Solutions Guide overall, Microsoft Education license (A1-A3-A5), and Microsoft addons licenses. Baseline Phase – Overview, Products and Features, Licenses. All five sections (Setup, Identity, Applications, Security and Compliance, and Devices) Standard Phase - Overview, Products and Features, Licenses All five sections (Setup, Identity, Applications, Security and Compliance, and Devices. Advanced Phase - Overview, Products and Features, Licenses. Three sections (Identity, Applications, and Security and Compliance) Addons – Any addon products and when/where they can be added to your current license configuration. Windows – Education specific Windows based products and features. References – Any process or configuration that is not outlined in the three license phases will be included here. Phases Deployment Sequence The Baseline phase is the first step in the three-phase approach: Baseline (A1) → Standard (A3) → Advanced (A5) The Baseline phase is the foundational first phase in the Microsoft Education Solution Guide deployment sequence, aligned with the Microsoft 365 A1 education license. Standard Phase - The Standard phase is the second phase in the Microsoft Education Solution Guide deployment sequence, aligned with the Microsoft 365 A3 education license. The Advanced phase is the third and most comprehensive phase in the Microsoft Education Solution Guide deployment sequence, aligned with the Microsoft 365 A5 education license. Sections Setup Tenant setup is key to establishing a secure and valid tenant. Setup goes through domain assignments, administration, and service management. Identity Establishing an identity via Microsoft Entra ID and establishing authentication methods, Single Sign-On, and user procurement methodologies. Applications Applications like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange Online is the core to a Microsoft tenant. Getting these applications setup are essential to allow users in education to access services and apps like Learning Accelerators. Security and Compliance Security via each phase is essential to maintain order and blocking access for bad actors. Along with security compliance/privacy considerations that are established to adhere to a multitude of local and government requirements worldwide. Devices Managed and unmanaged devices are another key to helping secure the network and potential cyber-security considerations that enter the network via these devices. How do you use ESG? ESG uses deployment guidelines for content that contain education scenario specifics. These prescriptive “Purple Boxes” allow education organizations the ability to see prescriptive guidelines and recommendations based on an edu scenario. ESG has a linked path for each modules based on the phase (Baseline,Standard,Advanced). Users can follow the deployment content to establish or redefine the tenant configuration in order to enable additional services and products. What’s Next Go to https://aka.ms/esg to access Microsoft Education Solutions Guide. Stage 2 – A custom agent to discover the tenant configuration settings and allow customers and partners the ability to qualify what is set to standard recommendation. This agent will also have the ability to access partner content and internal Microsoft resources. Using an AI Agent to discover tenant settings based on Graph API calls and Microsoft MCP Server for Enterprise to evaluate against known Microsoft recommended settings. Part 3 – Change management from discovery data baselines to access and deliver any updates/changes/modifications, daily/weekly/monthly.Hands-On Session: Teach Module in Copilot (available for all educators)
Join us on Wednesday, December 10th, 2025 @ 8am Pacific Time for an in-depth professional development webinar on the new AI-powered "Teach" module in Microsoft 365 that is fully rolled out and available to all educators. This will be a 45 minute hands-on webinar where the Product team will walk through the new updates in detail and you can follow- along at home with your own M365 account! Sign up for the session at this link. And don’t worry – we’ll be recording these and posting on our Microsoft Education YouTube channel so you’ll always to able to watch later or share with others! Here is our training agenda for the webinar 👇 How to use the new AI-powered "Teach" module in M365. Includes: ✅ Lesson plans ✅ Copilot Quizzes ✅ Standards integration ✅ Learning Activities ✅ Differentiate reading materials ✅ Teams EDU integration and Classwork ✅ First look at OneNote EDU and Teach Module integration We look forward to having you attend the event! Mike Tholfsen Group Product Manager Microsoft EducationCalling all IT Admins - webinar on configuring Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and new updates for 13+
Calling all IT admins — join us for a workshop where we’ll walk through how to configure Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, from your tenant all the way to the end-user experience. We’ll cover the latest features now available — including the new 13+ student configuration options, CSV, SDS and Powershell uploads, Copilot agents & extensibility, and updated licensing & security controls. By the end, you’ll be able to confidently deploy, manage, and optimize Copilot Chat in your environment so your users can safely harness AI productivity from day one. This webinar will be led by Bill Sluss and Jethro Seghers, Principal Product Managers from the Microsoft Education team When: Wednesday, October 29th @ 8am Pacific Time Register: https://msit.events.teams.microsoft.com/event/7b0cfbc2-e169-461b-9ea2-48effc009d4c@72f988bf-86f1-41af-91ab-2d7cd011db47What's New in Microsoft EDU - October 2025 (AI for all edition)
Join us on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025 for our latest "What's New in Microsoft EDU" webinar! This will be a special one where we go into depth about all of the AI powered tools for educators and students who use Microsoft 365 in Education that we just announced. These 30-minute webinars are put on by the Microsoft Education Product Management group and happen once per month, this month both 8:00am Pacific Time and 4:00pm Pacific time to cover as many global time zones as possible around the world. And don’t worry – we’ll be recording these and posting on our Microsoft Education YouTube channel in the new “What’s New in Microsoft EDU” playlist, so you’ll always to able to watch later or share with others! Here is our October 2025 webinar agenda: M365 Copilot and AI updates for Educators and Students Learning Zone public preview and the Copilot+ PC Microsoft 365 LTI for Learning Management Systems AMA - Ask Microsoft EDU Anything (Q&A) We look forward to having you attend the event! How to sign up OPTION 1: October 22nd, Wednesday @ 8:00am Pacific Time Register here OPTION 2: October 22nd, Wednesday @ 4:00pm Pacific Time Register here This is what the webinar portal will look like when you register: We look forward to seeing you there! Mike Tholfsen Group Product Manager Microsoft EducationWhat's New in Microsoft EDU webinar - August 2025
Join us on Wednesday, August 20th, 2025 for our latest "What's New in Microsoft EDU" webinar! These 30-minute webinars are put on by the Microsoft Education Product Management group and happen once per month, this month both 8:00am Pacific Time and 4:00pm Pacific time to cover as many global time zones as possible around the world. And don’t worry – we’ll be recording these and posting on our Microsoft Education YouTube channel in the new “What’s New in Microsoft EDU” playlist, so you’ll always to able to watch later or share with others! Here is our August 2025 webinar agenda: Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Chat for students 13+ M365 Copilot updates for Educators and Students Learning Zone public preview and the Copilot+ PC Microsoft 365 LTI for Learning Management Systems Learning Accelerator updates Microsoft 365 app updates AMA - Ask Microsoft EDU Anything (Q&A) We look forward to having you attend the event! How to sign up OPTION 1: August 20th, Wednesday @ 8:00am Pacific Time Register here OPTION 2: August 20th, Wednesday @ 4:00pm Pacific Time Register here This is what the webinar portal will look like when you register: Look forward to seeing you there! Mike Tholfsen Group Product Manager Microsoft EDUCopilot Agents in Education - join us for a webinar to learn more about AI agents
Join us for an session about AI Agents in Microsoft Copilot, tailored for educators. We'll delve into what Agents are, using them and even creating them. We'll highlight how educational institutions can use AI to enhance user engagement, teaching and learning, and productivity. Discover how the Microsoft Copilot Stack can empower educators and students alike.Managing Copilot Chat access for Faculty and Higher Education 18+ student
Exciting news for education audiences! Microsoft has announced availability updates for Microsoft Copilot and Copilot for Microsoft 365. Learn more about the expansion of eligibility and options for managing user access with commercial data protection.What’s New in Microsoft EDU | August 2024
Welcome to our monthly update for Microsoft Education and thank you so much for being part of our growing community! As many countries are getting ready for back to school in August of 2024, or already started, we have a set of updates to make your school day easier, productive and more personalized. Also, if you haven’t explored the 34 “Quick Guides” from MIE Expert Heather Aird, this blog had a ton of useful 1 page PDFs that are great for professional development.What’s New in Microsoft EDU webinar – July 2024 and ISTE recap
Join us on Tuesday, July 9th, 2024 for our latest "What's New in Microsoft EDU" webinar! These 30 minute webinars are put on by the Microsoft Education Product Management group and happen once per month, this month both 8:00am Pacific Time and 4:00pm Pacific time to cover as many global time zones as possible around the world.Expanded education partner opportunity with Copilot for Microsoft 365 | February 2024
Discover the expanded education partner opportunity with Copilot for Microsoft 365. Learn about the prerequisites, the CSP program, and the resources available for education partners to help customers become AI-powered organizations.
