Overview of the Microsoft 365 admin center
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The Microsoft 365 admin center gives users a central location to take care of common admin tasks, such as:
Manage users: Add users and assign licenses at the same time, Delete or restore users, or Reset a user's password.
Get help with billing: Billing
See activity reports: Activity Reports
Admin center features and settings
Here are the features and settings you'll find in the left-hand navigation of the admin center. Learn more about admin tasks in admin help.
| Menu | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Home | This is the landing page in the admin center. You'll see where to manage users, billing, service health, and reports. |
| Users | Create and manage users in your organization, like employees or students. You can also set their permission level or reset their passwords. |
| Groups | Create and manage groups in your organization, such as a Microsoft 365 group, distribution group, security group, or shared mailbox. Learn how to create and manage groups. |
| Resources | Create and manage resources, like a SharePoint site collection. Learn how to create site collections. |
| Billing | View, purchase, or cancel subscriptions for your organization. View past billing statements or view the number of assigned licenses to individual users. Learn how to manage billing. |
| Support | View existing service requests or create new ones. Learn more in Contact support for business products - Admin Help. |
| Settings | Manage global settings for apps like email, sites, and Microsoft 365. Change your password policy and expiration date. Add and update domain names like contoso.com. Change your organization profile and release preferences. And choose whether partners can access your admin center. |
| Setup | Manage existing domains, turn on and manage multi-factor authentication, manage admin access, migrate user mailboxes to Microsoft 365, manage feature updates, and help users install their apps in Microsoft 365. |
| Reports | See at a glance how your organization is using Microsoft 365 with detailed reports on email use, Microsoft 365 activations, and more. Learn how to use the new activity reports. |
| Health | View health at a glance. You can also check out more details and the health history. See How to check service health and How to check Windows release health for more information. Use Message center to keep track of upcoming changes to features and services. We post announcements there with information that helps you plan for change and understand how it may affect users. Get more details in Message center. |
| Admin centers | Open separate admin centers for Exchange, Skype for Business, SharePoint, Viva Engage, and Microsoft Entra. Each admin center includes all available settings for that service. For example, in the Exchange admin center, set up and manage email, calendars, distribution groups, and more. In the SharePoint admin center, create and manage site collections, site settings, and OneDrive for Business. In the Skype for Business admin center, set up instant messaging notifications, dial-in conferencing, and online presence. Learn more about the Exchange admin center and SharePoint Admin Center. Note: The admin centers available to you depend on your plan and region. |
Two dashboard views
The Microsoft 365 admin center has two views: simplified view helps smaller organizations manage their most common tasks. Dashboard view includes more complex settings and tasks. You can switch between them from a button at the top of the admin center.
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Watch: The admin center in simplified view
Check out this video and others on our YouTube channel.
With the Microsoft 365 admin center, you can reset passwords, view your invoice, add or remove users, and much more all in one place.
Sign in to Microsoft365.com with your work account, and select the app launcher.
If you have permission to access the admin center, you'll see Admin in the list. Select it.
At the top of the admin center, review the top actions for you. You may see different actions depending on what you've already set up, such as creating new accounts, using Teams, setting up email, and installing Office apps.
Under Your organization on the Users tab is a list of people who can access apps and services, add new users, reset passwords, or use the three dots (more actions) menu. Select a person to view or edit their information and settings.
On the Teams tab, create a new team or manage existing teams. You can manage the members of a team or select the three dots (more actions) to change other Teams settings.
On the Subscriptions tab, add more products, add licenses, or use the three dots (more actions) menu to modify licenses or payment method.
On the Learn tab, browse videos and articles about the admin center and other Microsoft 365 features. To explore more advanced features of the admin center, open the navigation menu and expand the headings to see more. Select Show all to see everything in the navigation menu or use the search bar to quickly find what you're looking for.
If you need assistance, select Help & support. Search for topic you want help with and view the recommended solution or select the headset to contact support, and then enter your question and contact information.
Watch: The admin center in dashboard view
The Microsoft 365 admin center is where you manage your business in the cloud. You can complete such tasks as adding and removing users, changing licenses, and resetting passwords.
Specialist workspaces, like Security or Device management, allow for more granular control. For more information about how the admin centers work together, see What about the specific types of IT roles and other workspaces like Security, Device Management, or Exchange? in this article.
To get to the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to admin.cloud.microsoft or, if you're already signed in, select the app launcher, and choose Admin.
On the home page, you can create cards for tasks that you perform frequently. To add a new card, select Add card, then select the plus sign next to the card you want to add. When you are finished, close the window. You can rearrange the cards by selecting and then dragging them to where you want. To remove a card, select the three dots (more actions), and then choose Remove.
To view more admin tasks, expand the navigation menu. You'll find advanced configuration settings in the additional admin centers at the bottom.
One common task that you might perform in the admin center is adding a user. To do this, select Users, Active users, and then select Add a user. Enter the user's name and other information, and then select Next. Follow the prompts to finish adding the user. When you are done, select Finish adding, and then select Close.
You can sort your active users by columns, such as Display name or Licenses. To add more columns, select Choose columns, select the columns you want to add, and then select Save.
Select a user to see more options, such as managing their product licenses.
To enable more features that come with your subscription, select Setup. Here you can turn on sign-in security, mobile app protection, DLP, and other features included with your subscription.
If you need support at any time, choose Need help. Enter your question, then check out the links that appear. If you don't get your answer here, choose Contact support to open a service request.
For more information on managing billing, passwords, users, and admins, see the other lessons in this course.
Who is an admin?
By default, the person who signs up for and buys a Microsoft 365 for business subscription gets admin permissions. That person can assign admin permissions to other people to help them manage Microsoft 365 for their organization.
If you get the message "You don't have permission to access this page or perform this action," you aren't an admin.
Who has admin permissions in my business?
When looking for your admin to reset your password, delete an account, or do other tasks, here's who you should contact:
Universities and schools: Contact your technical support team. Usually you can find a link on your university site. At smaller schools, there may be just a few individuals who have admin permissions.
Large businesses: Contact your internal help desk / technical support.
Small businesses: Contact the business owner / co-owner. Often they give admin permissions to their IT consultant who does all the computer maintenance work for their business.
If you have no idea who to contact at your work or school for help, try asking the person who gave you your user account and password.
Note
Targeted release admins have first access to new features. New features later roll out to all admins. This means that you might not see the admin center, or it might look different than what is described in help articles. To be among the first to see new features, see Participate in the admin center, below.
Turn on Targeted release
Sign in at admin.cloud.microsoft, go to the navigation pane and select Settings > Org settings > Organization profile tab.
Go to the Release preferences card, and then select Edit.
Select either Targeted release for everyone or Targeted release for selected users. If you choose Targeted release for selected users, make sure that you add your admin account (and any other admins in your org who want to participate) to the list of selected users.
Admin center feedback
While in the admin center, you can give Microsoft feedback about your experience by selecting Give feedback right next to the Need help? button at the bottom of every page. Tell us what you like and what we could do better. In addition, you may get pop-up surveys from time-to-time asking about your overall impressions or a particular experience that's newly released. You can also give feedback at the end of this article by selecting Was this information helpful?
Frequently asked questions
Don't see your questions answered here? Go to the Feedback section at the bottom of this page and ask your question.
Which Microsoft 365 plans are available to trial or buy?
Microsoft 365 is a complete, intelligent solution that includes Microsoft 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security that empowers everyone to be creative and work together, securely. The following Microsoft 365 subscriptions are available in the admin center for you to try or buy now:
- Microsoft 365 for business
- Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3
- Microsoft 365 Enterprise E5
For more information, see Try or buy a Microsoft 365 for business subscription.
I found a bug or I want to request a feature enhancement. How do I let Microsoft know?
We love to hear from you! Reporting bugs and sharing feedback helps us make the Microsoft 365 admin center better. To give feedback, select the Feedback button on the bottom of the page and use the form to send us your thoughts. Select the checkbox and confirm your email address if you want someone from the Microsoft 365 admin center team to follow up on your comments. We can't promise to follow up on every piece of feedback, but we're going to try!
What about the specific types of IT roles and other workspaces like Security, Device Management, or Exchange?
The Microsoft 365 admin center is the common entry point for all teams and roles managing Microsoft 365. The experience, information, and controls are tailored and customizable for each admin and role. Additionally, specialist workspaces allow for deep, granular control. These specialist workspaces include SharePoint, Teams & Skype, Exchange, Security, Compliance, Device Management, and Microsoft Entra ID. You can find the specialist workspaces from the navigation pane in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
What language options are available the Admin Center?
The Microsoft 365 admin center is fully localized in 40 languages.
| Language | Locale |
|---|---|
| Arabic | ar |
| Bulgarian | bg |
| Catalan | ca |
| Czech | cs |
| Danish | da |
| German | de |
| Greek | el |
| Spanish | es |
| English | en |
| Estonian | et |
| Basque | eu |
| Finnish | fi |
| French | fr |
| Galician | gl |
| Hebrew | he |
| Croatian | hr |
| Hungarian | hu |
| Indonesian | id |
| Italian | it |
| Japanese | ja |
| Korean | ko |
| Lithuanian | lt |
| Latvian | lv |
| Dutch | nl |
| Norwegian | no |
| Polish | pl |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | pt |
| Portuguese (Portugal) | pt-pt |
| Romanian | ro |
| Russian | ru |
| Slovak | sk |
| Slovenian | sl |
| Serbian (Cyrillic) | sr-cyrl |
| Serbian Latin | sr |
| Swedish | sv |
| Thai | th |
| Turkish | tr |
| Ukrainian | uk |
| Vietnamese | vi |
| Chinese Simplified | zh-hans |
| Chinese Traditional | zh-hant |
Related content
What is a Microsoft 365 admin? (video)
Manage teams in the Microsoft Teams admin center
Assign admin roles (video)
Customize the Microsoft 365 theme for your organization (article)
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