First Release: First look at MDM Mobile Device Management in Office 365

Office 365 Mobile Device Management is now available for early adopters and those tenants who have elected to opt into the First Release Program. I can’t tell you when you’ll get these features or if they are already released if you’re not already in the First release program. I’m not telling you to move up your tenant, but if you want to tell if you are or if you want to change, here you go:

How do I join First Release or get in Office 365 preview?

First Release program simply go to Admin > Service Settings > Update then switch it to “On”

This is not a beta program, just an early preview of new features. Note First Release in Office 365 primarily relates to SharePoint Online and Exchange Online.

There are other programs to get access to early bits such as the client or on premises servers:

Office 2016 Preview – For office 2016 client

Office Preview Programs – program span across the full family of Microsoft Office client, server and cloud services

Getting Started with Office 365 Mobile Device Management

You can tell if you have MDM features by going to the Office 365 Admin and selecting Mobile Devices in the left hand navigation. Click Get Started to kick it off.

Admin > Mobile Devices > Mobile Device Management

Looks like a simple wizard to get started, but in my experience this is something you need to do before you get started.

Check back in a few hours!?? After 15 minutes I checked and my hello kitty Office 365 Admin screen looked like this.

There are some recommendations from Microsoft on what to do next. You’ve completed Step 1 which didn’t do anything yet other than give you the ability to Manage them. Seems to me like EVERYONE should do that first step.

Step 2. Click “Manage Settings” on Mobile Device Management for Office 365

 

Detailed Steps for these are here: Manage Mobile Devices in Office 365

Required Steps: Next you can configure domains for MDM, then you can setup the Apple Push Notifications Certificate to manage the iPhone and iPads to connect. (Second isn’t required unless you’re using iOS devices)

Recommended Steps: Then consider Multifactor Auth options and security policies.

 

 

Secure and manage the mobile devices that connect to my organization?

Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets play a big part in helping people get their work done. Mobile Device Management for Office 365 helps make sure that your organization’s information is protected on these devices. Learn more 

How to set up Mobile Device Management for Office 365
How to create policies to secure device access 

 

Blacklist or Whitelist Users and Devices for Exchange based on Security Groups

 

Ok. Here’s the Richness of Options:

Mobile Device Security Policy

Then there are these additional options

The default settings are really pretty good. If you simply agree you’ll get this… Seriously if this is your first time, I suggest you not go past this, and at first only do this for a specific security group so you can tell you setup the APNs properly. There’s a lot of good reasons to roll this out slowly. Imagine how upset you’d be if you couldn’t get your email. These kinds of rollouts really should be connected with announcements to affected users AHEAD of TIME.