Managing the Microsoft 365 tenant - Introduction to the admin centers
Microsoft 365 management is broken down into multiple admin centers. An admin center is a website used to manage part of the tenant. For example, there's an Exchange Online admin center that can help you manage the email portion of your Microsoft 365 tenant. Another SharePoint Online admin center to help manage the SharePoint Online part of your tenant.
Here's a list of all the Microsoft 365 admin centers you may need.
Microsoft 365 admin center
This is the primary admin center. You can access it by clicking the admin button from portal.office.com in the left pane.
You can access the admin center directly by going to https://admin.microsoft.com/. From the Microsoft 365 admin center, you can create users, and groups, assign licenses, contact Microsoft support, update domain names, view the service health, or access the other admin centers.
From the Microsoft 365 admin center, you can access the other admin centers. To access the other admin centers, perform the following:
- Click Show all in the left pane.
- Click All admin centers
Microsoft Defender for Identity admin center
The Microsoft Defender for Identity admin center can be accessed by going to https://portal.atp.azure.com/ and logging in with your admin credentials.
The Defender for Identity admin center is designed for hybrid environments where part of your organization is hosted in on-premises servers and part of your environment is hosted in Microsoft 365. Microsoft Defender collects, analyzes, detects, and alerts you to suspicious activity in your on-premises Active Directory environment. The Defender for Identity admin center is where you can perform the following:
- View all suspicious activity
- Protect user credentials stored in Active Directory (AD)
- Supply a timeline for clear incident information
Azure Active Directory (AD) admin center
The Azure Active Directory (AD) admin center can be accessed by going to https://aad.portal.azure.com/. Azure AD is the cloud version of your on-premise AD. It's like on-premise AD on steroids. It's where you can perform the following:
- Manage identity including users and groups.
- Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Configure self-service password reset
- Edit company branding
- View user sign-ins
- Configure conditional access policies
Defender for Cloud Apps admin center
The Defender for Cloud Apps admin center can be accessed by going to https://portal.cloudappsecurity.com. From the Defender for Cloud Apps admin center, you can manage unsanctioned cloud applications. From the Defender for Cloud Apps admin center you can perform the following:
- Discover unauthorized cloud applications being used within your organization
- Connect and manage authorized apps
- Configure policies to manage risk
- View and manage alerts
Microsoft Purview Compliance admin center
The Microsoft Purview Compliance admin center, also known as, Puview admin center or Microsoft 365 Compliance admin center, can be accessed by going to https://compliance.microsoft.com/homepage. The Purview admin center is where you can manage the compliance of your tenant. You can classify data, set retention policies, and recover data. From the Purview admin center you can perform the following:
- and Create sensitivity and retention labels to retain data for as long as needed.
- Review intelligent reports to view where labels are being used.
- Review a detailed view of the classification trends across your tenant.
Endpoint Manager admin center
The Endpoint manager admin center can be accessed by going to https://endpoint.microsoft.com/?ref=AdminCenter#home. The Endpoint manager admin center is where you can manage the end-user devices. It's where you can perform the following:
- Enroll and configure devices
- Distribute apps to your devices
- Monitor and set compliance requirements on devices
Exchange admin center
The Exchange admin center can be accessed by going to https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/. The Exchange admin center is where you manage email and everything about email. It's where you can perform the following:
- Manage user mailboxes
- Create and manage shared/resource mailboxes
- Create mail flow rules
- Perform message traces
Power Platform admin center
The Power Platform admin center can be accessed by going to https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/. The Power Platform admin center is where you can manage the automation of repetitive tasks. From the Power Platform admin center you can perform the following:
- Review Power Automate analytics
- Review Power Apps analytics
- Create integrations between on-premise, Power BI, Microsoft Flow, and PowerApps.
- Manage Dynamics 365 apps
Microsoft 365 Apps admin center
The Microsoft 365 Apps admin center can be accessed by going to https://config.office.com/officeSettings. The Microsoft 365 Apps admin center can be used to deploy settings and configurations to users that install the Office suite on their computers. Traditionally, the configuration found in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center would have been performed via group policy
- Deploy Office customization policies
- Receive and implement security policy recommendations
- Create an Office Customization to deploy Office with specific configurations
Microsoft Stream admin center
The Microsoft Stream admin center can be accessed by going to https://web.microsoftstream.com/admin. From the Stream admin center, you can configure options for Microsoft Stream. For example, you can limit who can host live events. There are a ton of options in the admin center. Some of which are:
- Set Stream admins
- Manage content on behalf of users
- Configure live events, comments, and restrict organization-wide channel creation
Power BI admin center
The Power BI admin center can be accessed by going to https://app.powerbi.com/admin-portal. The Power BI admin center is used to manage Power BI. From it, you can view usage metrics, and control how users interact with Power BI. From the Power BI admin center you can perform the following:
- Configure tenant settings
- Review usage metrics
- Configure sensitivity labels
- Enable Cloud App Security integration
Microsoft 365 Defender admin center
The Microsoft 365 Defender admin center can be accessed by going to https://security.microsoft.com/. The Defender admin center is used to get visibility, investigate, and manage the security of your Microsoft 365 tenant. From it you can perform the following:
- Manage and view alerts
- Launch simulation attacks
- Investigate threats
- Configure anti-phishing, anti-spam, attachment, and link policies
SharePoint admin center
The SharePoint admin center can be accessed by going to the Microsoft 365 admin center > Show all > All admin centers > SharePoint. From the SharePoint admin center, you can manage SharePoint sites and OneDrive sites. You can perform the following:
- Create and manage SharePoint sites
- Configure sharing and access control
- Manage tenant-wide settings
- Migrate data to SharePoint
Microsoft Teams admin center
The Teams admin center can be accessed by going to https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/. From the Microsoft Teams admin center, you can manage Microsoft Teams. From it, you can configure messaging, conferencing, and external communication options. You can perform the following:
- Review relevant information about your Teams deployment
- View and manage Teams users
- Manage your Teams
- Configure organization-wide settings
Yammer admin center
The Yammer admin center can be accessed by going to the Microsoft 365 admin center > Show all > All admin centers > Yammer. From the Yammer admin center, you can manage your Yammer network, for example, you can set usage policies and control external network settings. You can also perform the following:
- Configure Yammer tenant-wide settings
- Manage Yammer admins
- Configure usage policy
- Manage external network access
- Monitor keywords
- Configure security settings
- Export data