Who's Performing Microsoft 365 License Audits For Their Clients?
If you’re an MSP or IT leader and aren't running these regularly, you might be leaving money on the table or letting your clients overpay by over 20% on average. Common quick wins we see all the time: Disabled user accounts that still hold active paid licenses. Inactive or dormant users that could easily be converted to free shared mailboxes. Over-licensed users who only need OWA/web access instead of full desktop suites. Paying for unassigned licenses sitting idle in the tenant. Doing a full, manual audit can feel tedious, but following a structured process makes it painless. If you want to run a complete audit via the Admin Center, PowerShell, or free automated tools, check out this comprehensive guide: https://www.gitbit.org/docs/microsoft-365-license-audit
Help on MS365 Business Std license issue
Hi Community - Issue with MS365 Business Standard license I have a ms365 biz standard subscription/license attached to my email (email address removed for privacy reasons) - Australian subscription. I am global admin to the account. It expired on 5/9/26. I bought a new one on 5/9/26 from a office supplies store (Officeworks, a large chain in Australia) I took help of MS telephone support to add the new product key. so far so good. However, it appears that the new subscription's license is not attaching to my id. under my id, Under 'Your Products' - it is showing both the expired subscription; and the new subscription. Under the 'Licenses' - it is showing MS 365 Biz Standard - 'Available licenses - 1' and 'Assigned licenses - 1/2' - if i click on MS 365 Biz Std - it tells me - 'Licenses - 2 purchased' - under Assigned Licenses - 1 ; and under its drop down - 'user's name' - 'Type' -> 'user' / Assigned licenses - blank / email - user's email. Under 'active users' -> my id -> 'licenses and apps' - it is showing MS 365 Biz Std - check - and 1 of 2 licenses available. After much engagement with MS telephone support; I am assured that everything that needs to be done has been done; the expired subscription will simply disappear after a time; and licenses has been properly applied. We did much poking around over Quick Assist - including unassign / assign license. However, the fact that that the account continues to show an expired subscription and active subscription at the same time; and the fact that there seems to be one license still available (there should technically be no extra license available - as old has expired and new one should be in use) is kinda bothering me. This is an id for my business, and I am naturally concerned of any abrupt disruption / data loss etc. Can someone please help to clarify / give suggestions that whether all is well, and i should have a peaceful sleep, as MS tele support suggests; or is there a cause for concern? Kind regards Manish
How much of your Microsoft 365 environment can you actually see at once?
Not how many users you have. Not how many sites, teams, apps or flows you have. How much of it can you actually see connected together? I've been working across Microsoft 365 environments for a while, and I kept running into the same thing. There is no shortage of information. If anything, there is probably too much of it. Users, groups, permissions, SharePoint, Teams, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Dataverse, OneDrive, Exchange, Intune, licensing, configuration... It's all there. But when you're actually trying to understand how everything fits together, it can be a different story. You open one blade. Find something. Open another. Cross-check it. Go back. Open something else. Before long, you're jumping between different parts of the tenant trying to build the bigger picture in your head. And if you're working with larger environments, that gets difficult pretty quickly. The information isn't necessarily missing. The relationships between the information are what can be difficult to see. That got me thinking about a slightly different question: Instead of "where do I find this information?" "Show me what's connected to this." That's where VisibleState started. Start anywhere. Follow the connections. Imagine starting with a single user. Instead of seeing that user simply as a record with a list of properties, imagine being able to explore the relationships around them: User → Groups → SharePoint → Teams → Power Apps → Power Automate → Power BI → Dataverse → OneDrive → Exchange → Intune Then the questions become different: What does this user have access to? Is that access direct or coming through a group? What resources are connected to them? What depends on something they're associated with? Which licenses are involved? Are there relationships that look unusual? If something changes, what else might be affected? Those questions aren't necessarily about finding another piece of information. They're about putting information that already exists into context. A report can tell you that something exists. A connected view helps you understand what it is connected to. Illustrative example below — not a real customer environment. I'm not suggesting Microsoft 365 doesn't already give us this information Quite the opposite. Microsoft 365 already gives administrators an incredible amount of information and tooling. The thing I've been thinking about is what happens when you want to look across those boundaries. Sometimes I don't want another export. I don't want another list. I don't necessarily want another dashboard. I want to start with something I'm looking at and ask: "What's connected to this?" And then keep following the trail. That's the idea I'm exploring with VisibleState. The interesting part is what happens when you change the viewpoint The same relationships can be useful for completely different reasons. For example: Administrators may want to understand access, permissions and dependencies. Security and governance teams may want to find unusual relationships or exceptions. Compliance teams may need to understand who can access something and why. People managing multiple environments may want a consistent way to understand what's there without rebuilding the picture manually every time. Leadership may not need to see the graph at all. They may simply want to know what's important, what's exposed and what could be affected. It's still the same underlying environment. You're just looking at it from a different angle. And that's where I think things get interesting. Where I'm at with it VisibleState started as something I was building to make my own work easier. I was spending a lot of time investigating environments, tracing access and putting information together for reports. The individual tasks weren't necessarily difficult. It was the jumping between different places and reconstructing the bigger picture that took the time. So I started building something that would let me approach the environment through the relationships instead. It's grown quite a bit from where it started, and I'm continuing to build it. I'm not posting this as a product launch, and I'm not looking for people to sign up. I'm genuinely interested in whether the problem I'm seeing is familiar to other people working with Microsoft 365. So I'm curious... If you could start with any object in your Microsoft 365 environment and immediately see what it's connected to, where would you start? Would it be: Users and access Groups and permissions SharePoint and Teams Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI and Dataverse Licensing and resources Governance and unusual relationships Something completely different Maybe you've already got a good way of doing this. Maybe you still find yourself jumping between different services and piecing things together manually. Or maybe I'm looking at the problem from the wrong direction. What's the one relationship in your Microsoft 365 environment that you wish you could see instantly?
Entra MFA for seniors using W365 Biz Basic
Entra MFA for seniors using W365 Biz Basic, these folks cannot and will not deal with mobile auth apps or keyfobs. This is a Historical Society. Need MFA bypass or non-technical solution that Senior Citizens with only enough knowlege to work MS Word can handle. There is zero risk of data loss or hackers or the like. We have nothing to lose as all is websearch and simple word docs. MFA without SMS or voice is going to put a lot of non-tech seniors out of their livelihoods. Need a simple non-tech solution. MS is so worried about CYA with regard to security, that they are pushing people out of technology. Do I have to go to Google Docs for a solution? Libre? It's not MS responsibility to remove all possibilities for poor decisions. Give us the tools for wise decisions, but quit binding us up. I need a solution or I'll have to move these folks off M365.AI agent ownership change
I was just in the M365 Admin Center because I needed to transfer ownership of an agent for a colleague – but it now suddenly looks like Microsoft has changed something in their permission structure. As a result, I can no longer transfer ownership of agents, and the system tells me that I don't have permission to manage that particular app. So, the question is: do I now also need the Application Administrator role in order to continue managing this? I get this message:
Sole Global Admin locked out - lost MFA device, SSPR phone verification returns error
Hello, I am the sole Global Administrator of a Microsoft 365 Business Standard tenant and I am completely locked out of the account. What happened: - My phone with Microsoft Authenticator was physically destroyed. - I installed Authenticator on a new phone. My personal account restored from cloud backup, but the work account only appears as a "connected account" - it shows no TOTP code and receives no push notifications. Push requests still go to the old device. What I tried while my admin session was still alive: - Entra ID > per-user MFA > "Require selected users to provide contact methods again" - saved successfully. - User > Authentication methods > "Require re-register multifactor authentication" - returned "Delete operation failed. Try this command again or delete them one by one in the user authentication methods blade." - The Authentication methods list for the user was EMPTY, and default sign-in method showed "No default". "Add authentication method" button was greyed out. - "Revoke sessions" - succeeded, but this also terminated my own admin session and signed me out of Outlook and OneDrive. - aka.ms/mfasetup cannot be reached because it requires a fresh MFA challenge. Self-service password reset (passwordreset.microsoftonline.com): - First verification via alternate email succeeds every time (I have full access to that mailbox). - Second verification fails: both "Text my mobile phone" and "Call my office phone" return "Sorry, we ran into a problem contacting you." I tried +370xxxxxxx, 370xxxxxxx and 8xxxxxxxx formats - same error every time. This looks like a service-side failure, not a formatting issue. - Sign-in Helper now also reports "Account blocked due to multiple incorrect password attempts." Error codes seen: 500121 and AADSTS50133. I have tried calling Microsoft support in several countries. The automated system either asks for an internal extension number or the AI assistant disconnects the call before reaching a human. There is no second Global Admin and no recovery codes. I can provide the tenant ID, user unique identifier, subscription order number and proof of access to the billing email address privately. Requesting escalation to the Data Protection team for admin account recovery. Any guidance on how to reach a human agent would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Unable to Access Admin Center - SMS and Authenticator Options Not Working for Account Recovery
I am currently unable to access the Microsoft 365 admin center because I cannot complete the account verification process. When I try to loggin to my account, the assistant only offers two options: using the Microsoft Authenticator app or receiving an SMS code. Unfortunately, I do not have access to the Authenticator app, and the system is not able to send me the SMS code either. This leaves me completely locked out of the admin panel. I have tried multiple times to use the SMS option, but I never receive the code. The recovery assistant keeps prompting me to use either the Authenticator or SMS, but neither method works. Because of this, I cannot regain access to the admin center. I have the correct password, but without multi-factor authentication (Authenticator or SMS recovery) I cannot access the Microsoft 365 admin center. Without access to the admin center, I cannot create or manage support requests directly from the admin portal. I also tried calling support by phone, but the AI does not understand what I am saying and does not transfer me to a human agent who can actually help me resolve the problem. I would appreciate any guidance on how to contact so a human for support or alternative ways to verify my identity and regain access to the Microsoft 365 admin portal. Thank you in advance for your help.
Stuck in an authenticator loop
I have a 365 Business account. Haven't logged in for a while due to reasons, i was just starting up as a sole trader. Anyway decided now is the time to resurrect it and get up and running, except Authenticator doesn't work because I changed my phone, and my back up email is out of date, and no longer exists. I have tried the support web chat which wants to send a code to authenticator or my back up email. Just called the help line that referred me to the web chat which doesn't work, I couldn't get past the bot. So I am stuck. Any recovery options does not recognise my log in details, i think this is because its been a while since I logged in (I still pay but ....) but I can't resurrect it because I don't have a way of getting a code due to authenticator/back up email as cited above. I am really at a loss as to what to do. I don't want to abandon it and start again as there are documents in my one drive that I need. Can anyone help please. (I think all that needs to happen is an update to my back up email and then I can get going). I am the sole administrator on my business account.
