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Writing

What we have learned, including the expensive parts.

No listicles and no predictions about the future of work. These are write-ups of things that happened on real projects, published because the useful detail is usually the part nobody else prints.

All topicsTenant migration 10Exchange Online 9Licensing 7Migration tooling 5NCE 4Security 4CSP 3Conditional Access 3Offboarding 3Shared mailbox 3Buyer’s guide 3Entra ID 2Break-glass 2Microsoft 365 2DNS 2Intune 2SharePoint 2Microsoft Teams 2Recovery 1OneDrive 1Domains 1MigrationWiz 1ShareGate 1AvePoint 1Procurement 1Enterprise Agreement 1Planning 1Postmortem 1Germany 1Works council 1

Guides

How-to, from the questions people actually ask

Written against the threads that recur for years in Microsoft’s own forums, verified against current documentation, with the exact order and the traps.

Guide · Licensing · 6 September 2026 · 6 min

New Commerce: when you can cancel or reduce a Microsoft 365 subscription, and when you cannot

Seven days, then the term is binding. What the three terms commit you to, how seat reductions work, what happens at expiry, and the two mistakes that cost real money.

LicensingNCECSP
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Guide · Security · 6 September 2026 · 7 min

Mandatory MFA for the Microsoft 365 admin centre: what breaks, and the fix for each

Microsoft now requires a second factor for its admin portals. The five things that break — starting with the six-year-old script running as a user — and the order to fix them.

SecurityEntra IDConditional AccessBreak-glass
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Guide · Offboarding · 6 September 2026 · 6 min

A leaver’s mailbox over 50 GB: shared mailbox, litigation hold, or something else

The standard advice stops working at 50 GB, exactly where the mailboxes you most want to keep already are. Four options, what each costs, and which fits which situation.

OffboardingExchange OnlineShared mailboxLicensing
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Guide · Tenant migration · 6 September 2026 · 7 min

Microsoft’s own cross-tenant mailbox migration: what it needs, and where it stops

Free, built in, higher fidelity than copying items, and with prerequisites that stall most first attempts. What has to exist before the batch runs, and what it leaves for other tools.

Tenant migrationExchange OnlineMigration tooling
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Guide · Recovery · 6 September 2026 · 7 min

Restoring a deleted Microsoft 365 mailbox or user: the three states and what to run

Whether the mailbox comes back depends on which state it is in and how many days have passed. How to tell, the commands for each, and the OneDrive clock that runs separately.

Exchange OnlineOffboardingRecovery
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Guide · Licensing · 6 September 2026 · 7 min

Finding the Microsoft 365 licences you are paying for and not using

Three reports Microsoft already gives you, an afternoon, and the same three findings every time. How to run it, and how to turn it into money at renewal.

LicensingNCEMicrosoft 365
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Guide · Tenant migration · 6 September 2026 · 6 min

DKIM and DMARC after a tenant migration: why Monday’s mail lands in spam

Nothing bounces and everything goes to junk. The DKIM records are tenant-specific and still describe the tenant you left. What each record does, the fix in order, and the five-minute test.

Tenant migrationDNSExchange OnlineSecurity
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Guide · Security · 6 September 2026 · 6 min

One password, four people: converting a shared-credential account into a proper shared mailbox

A licensed mailbox with a password everyone knows and MFA off is a licensing breach and the softest target in the tenant. The fix is free and takes twenty minutes.

SecurityShared mailboxLicensingExchange Online
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Guide · Tenant migration · 6 September 2026 · 7 min

OneDrive Known Folder Move: why the desktop is empty after migration, and how to prevent it

The files are all there and nobody can find them. What Known Folder Move does, how to deploy it weeks ahead, and the cutover sequence for OneDrive.

Tenant migrationOneDriveIntune
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Guide · Tenant migration · 6 September 2026 · 7 min

Migrating Microsoft 365 groups and their SharePoint sites between tenants

A group is an identity, a mailbox, a site, a membership and whatever sits on top, each with its own route or none. The sequence that works, and the five mistakes.

Tenant migrationSharePointMicrosoft TeamsMigration tooling
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Guide · Offboarding · 6 September 2026 · 7 min

What happens when you remove a Microsoft 365 licence, and how to keep the mailbox

Remove the licence and wait thirty days and the mailbox is gone. Three ways to keep it, the exact order, and the traps that catch people every week in Microsoft’s own forums.

LicensingOffboardingExchange OnlineShared mailbox
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Guide · Conditional Access · 6 September 2026 · 8 min

Locked out of Microsoft 365 by Conditional Access: recovery order, and the fifteen minutes that prevent it

When no administrator can sign in there is one supported path back, and it is slow. What to try first, how to reach Microsoft, and the emergency accounts every tenant should have.

Conditional AccessEntra IDSecurityBreak-glass
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Guide · Licensing · 6 September 2026 · 6 min

How to change your Microsoft 365 partner without losing anything

Your data lives in your tenant and the tenant is yours. Six steps, the one that costs money if you time it wrong, and what to check before you accept.

LicensingCSPNCE
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Guide · Tenant migration · 6 September 2026 · 8 min

Moving a domain between Microsoft 365 tenants: the exact sequence

A custom domain lives in one tenant at a time. What has to be true before the weekend, ten steps in order, and the DNS mistake that sends everything to spam.

Tenant migrationDNSDomainsExchange Online
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Guide · Tenant migration · 6 September 2026 · 8 min

Migrating Microsoft Teams between tenants: what moves, what does not, and what to decide first

A team is four services in one, each with its own migration path or none. What actually arrives when tools migrate chat, and the decision that saves most of the cost.

Tenant migrationMicrosoft TeamsSharePoint
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Write-ups

What we have learned, including the expensive parts

Tools compared · 5 September 2026 · 7 min

MigrationWiz, ShareGate, AvePoint, Quest, CloudFuze: which one

Every partner uses one of these five. What each does well, where each stops, and the honest pick for five situations — from a partner that resells none of them.

Migration toolingMigrationWizShareGateAvePointBuyer’s guide
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Buyer’s guide · 3 September 2026 · 8 min

How to choose a Microsoft 365 migration partner

Nine questions that separate people who have done this from people who have read about it — with the answers you should expect, and the things to ignore.

Buyer’s guideTenant migrationProcurement
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Buyer’s guide · 3 September 2026 · 7 min

Migration tool or migration partner: how to know which one you need

The tool vendors say no professional services required. Sometimes they are right. The honest test, the cases where it fails, and the middle option nobody advertises.

Buyer’s guideMigration toolingTenant migration
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Licensing · 3 September 2026 · 7 min

CSP or Enterprise Agreement: which one, and who is asking

The comparison without the reseller in the room. Where an EA still wins, the four things CSP does that an EA cannot, and the one question that actually decides it.

LicensingCSPEnterprise AgreementNCE
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Migration timelines · 3 September 2026 · 8 min

Why a Microsoft 365 migration takes as long as it takes

The schedule is set by concurrency limits, mailbox size distribution and throttling — not by budget. The arithmetic behind real timelines, and the two things that genuinely shorten them.

Tenant migrationExchange OnlinePlanningMicrosoft 365
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Postmortem · 3 September 2026 · 7 min

Three thousand users, one dead migration host

A relocation, 24 TB, no downtime allowed — and a failed virtual machine that put duplicate mail into live mailboxes. What broke, how it was fixed, and why the same fix would not work today.

PostmortemTenant migrationExchange OnlineMigration tooling
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Germany · 3 September 2026 · 7 min

Rolling out Intune in Germany: the works council comes first

Endpoint management falls under co-determination in Germany. Projects that treat approval as a formality get halted after deployment. What is in scope, how long it takes, and how to sequence around it.

IntuneGermanyWorks councilConditional Access
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Something you would like written up? Ask — almak@itpartnerhq.com. We would rather write about the question people actually have.

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