Calculating the Licensing Requirement for Entra Conditional Access Policies
After the discussion about the licensing gap prompts shown in the Entra admin center, here’s a PowerShell script to compute the set of user accounts that should have Entra P1 licenses. The information comes from the conditions property of conditional access policies with group and directory role membership expanded to find individual accounts. The set is checked against the set of users licensed for Entra P1 to find the accounts that need to be licensed. https://office365itpros.com/2026/08/18/find-entra-p1-accounts-to-license/Entra Admin Center Flags Licensing Problems with Conditional Access
The Entra admin center is flagging licensing gaps for conditional access. The messages are informational, not the beginning of a new automated billing procedure to charge tenants when Entra ID notices that some accounts use conditional access policies when they don’t have a license. In this article, we discuss the product license insight and how Microsoft measures conditional access usage, and show how to use PowerShell to find who’s using conditional access. https://office365itpros.com/2026/08/13/licensing-gaps-entra-id/Entra ID Drops the memberOf Rule Operator for Dynamic Groups and Dynamic Admin Units
MC1448379 (5 August 2026) announces the retirement of the MemberOf rule operator from Entra ID in early November 2026. The removal of the rule operator might affect the membership rules used for dynamic groups, dynamic administrative units, and auto-assigned entitlement management policies. If a tenant doesn’t act, Entra ID will stop processing the rules and memberships will become increasingly inaccurate. And that’s a bad thing! https://office365itpros.com/2026/08/07/memberof-rule-operator/Entra ID Enables Blocking for Nested Security Groups
A new Entra ID feature enables the ability to block nesting for security groups. In other words, you can’t include other groups as members of a group. That might not sound important, but it is to those who manage permissions, especially when the time comes to figure out who exactly has access to something confidential. The new feature isn’t fully implemented yet, but it should be very valuable when it’s fully deployed to tenants. https://office365itpros.com/2026/08/03/blocking-for-nested-security-groups/Using User Assigned Managed Identities with Microsoft 365 Automation7
A user assigned managed identity (UAMI) is a secure method to authenticate with many important endpoints, including the Microsoft Graph. It’s like a system assigned managed identity (SAMI), but the big difference is that a UAMI is an Azure resource that isn’t tied to an automation account. It can be used in multiple areas of Azure and a UAMI might be a better option for large organizations that make extensive use of Azure resources. https://office365itpros.com/2026/07/20/user-assigned-managed-identity/Microsoft to Stop Providing Telephony-Based Authentication Methods for MFA in February 2027
In an important announcement for all tenants, Microsoft revealed that Entra ID will no longer provide SMS one-time codes or voice calls for MFA challenges after February 1, 2027. Tenants can continue to use telephony-based authentication methods after that date, but only by purchasing a service from a telecom provider. This is arguably the biggest change in Entra ID authentication since mandatory MFA for administrative interfaces – and we have a PowerShell script to help identify the affected accounts. https://office365itpros.com/2026/07/14/entra-sms-one-time-code/Using Graph Delta Queries with Entra ID Groups
Delta queries are a Microsoft Graph mechanism to allow applications to query resources to find objects that have changed since a baseline was established. The technique is most useful for applications that need to synchronize a local store with online content. It’s not an appropriate method to use for reporting changes to Entra ID groups because knowing that an object changed doesn’t mean much by itself. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/25/graph-delta-queries-entra-id-groups/
Moving Office 365 Mailboxes to IMAP Servers - What’s the Best Approach
I’ve recently been looking into scenarios where organizations need to move mailboxes from Microsoft 365 to IMAP based email servers, and I noticed this is still a common requirement in many migrations. In most cases, the challenge is not just moving emails, but making sure everything like folder structure, old emails, and user data stays intact without creating too much disruption for users. From what I’ve seen, doing this manually can get very complex, especially when there are multiple mailboxes or large data volumes involved. That’s where migration tools usually come into the picture. Most tools simplify things by handling: 1. Secure connection to Microsoft 365 accounts 2. Bulk mailbox migration 3. Preserving folder hierarchy 4. Reducing downtime during the move 5. Avoiding duplicate data issues One thing I’ve noticed is that running a small pilot migration first always helps. It gives a clear idea of how the actual migration will behave before moving all users. Has anyone here worked on Office 365 to IMAP migration at scale? Would be good to know what approaches or tools worked best in your case and what challenges you faced during the process.Entra ID Tightens Conditional Access Processing for Baseline Scopes
Microsoft is closing a gap in conditional access policies where apps that only request baseline scopes with at least one exclusion are not processed. The rollout has already started and should be finished by mid-August. For most tenants, the change shouldn’t be an issue, but it is possible that some apps are in use that fit the profile and cannot handle conditional access. If MC1223829 appeared in your tenant, it’s time to check. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/19/baseline-scopes-ca/Microsoft Tightens Security for Self-Service Password Reset
Microsoft plans to improve the security of the Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) facility in September 2026 by requiring users to register at least one authentication method. SSPR will then use the registered authentication method to verify user accounts when changing passwords. The change aligns SSPR with user sign-ins and improves security by removing fallback on directory attributes, which might be altered by attackers. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/17/sspr-authentication-methods/
