Getting Started With Office 365
Summary: This wiki post describes some basic steps on getting started with Office 365, and especially on how to setup your email and first user.
Date: Around 2019
Refactor: 17 January 2025: Checked links and formatting.
In this post the following technologies are discussed:
Start Free Office 365 Trial
Note that after a month you need to convert your trial into a subscription. Don't forget or you might face data loss.
Follow these steps to start free trial: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=510938
Start the Registration by providing your business information
Now create your user ID. Note that is the name the contract is signed to. I recommend to use a common name like office365@company.onmicrosoft.com
Then provide your phone number to prove you're human
After successful verifying your human status the trial is created and you'll get info regarding the
sign in page and your user ID.
Go to the
sign in page and sign in. You'll notice that some services like OneDrive and SharePoint are still in the progress of setting up
You are now ready to start using the office 365 environment.
Migrate Existing Email Domain to Office 365
Note that I'm actually migrating my test domain warmetal.nl email towards Office 365 here.
* Log into the Office 365 admin portal and click on Setup and then Domains
Click on “+ Add Domain”
Start the New Domain wizard by filling in the email domain you already have and of which you want to move the email to office 365
Verify the domain by adding a text record in your
DNS registration (So perform these steps in the portal of your
DNS registrar if possible))
Add a TXT record
As text, fill in the “TXT value” as provided in the New Domain wizard and save the TXT record
It might take a while for the record to work but keep trying by clicking the Verify button. Note that it should take at least 5 minutes but depending on the registrar it could take up to 2 days. For me it took about 10 minutes.
Back at the wizard, after successfully verifying the domain click the “I'll manage my own
DNS records” in the “Set up your online services” part of the wizard and click Next
Only select Exchange for the online service and click Next
Add the displayed
DNS records at your
DNS registrar portal:
MX record: warmetal-nl.mail.protection.outlook.com
CNAME record: autodiscover: autodiscover.outlook.com
TXT record: v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all
And again verify the records. When the records are succesfully verified the wizard is ready and you have added the domain to Office 365
Setup a User to use the new Domain
In the office 365 admin portal go to Users → Active Users → Add a user
Fill in the required info. Make sure to select the newly added domain under Domain and select the correct license.
Click Add to create the user
Setup email aliases
Click the account you just created so a new blade appears
Under Aliases click “Manage email aliases”
Add aliases as required and click “Save Changes”
You can now logon using outlook.office.com or using the outlook desktop client or mobile app.
Create Admin User
In the office 365 admin portal go to Users → Active Users → Add a user
Fill in the required info. Make sure to use the onmicrosoft domain under Domain, assign the global administrator role and select the user to not use a license.
Try to login with the admin account, if successful you can now remove the license from the account which you used to create the Office 365 subscription.
Create Shared Mailbox
See here for more information about adding a Shared Mailbox
Create, after creation you can add email addresses by going into the properties → Email address → Click +