Office 365 Help Desk Troubleshooting Guide
Update February 2016: I've had a bunch of folks reach out in the last month to tell me that this three-year-old post is out of date. Of course! There is an updated Help Desk Troubleshooting Guide on the FastTrack site here: https://fasttrack.office.com/resources. Three years from now it may not be in the same place ;)
<Note: All of the content below is available in the Help Desk Troubleshooting Guide document that is provided as part of the Office 365 Change Management Guide for the Enterprise . Download that kit for some great templates to enable your rollout of Office 365>
This resource is for first-level help desk agents who support Office 365. It provides easy access to help topics and KB articles that will help you quickly resolve the most common issues that we’ve found Office 365 users encounter. You’ll also find tools and resources for additional troubleshooting.
How to Use this Guide
When you receive a call from a user who has an issue, first identify the issue user is having or the task he or she is trying to accomplish. Then find the appropriate section in this document and use the tables to pinpoint the specific issue or task. Click the links for recommended articles that will help troubleshoot and resolve the user’s problem.
Click a category below to see the common issues and tasks for that area:
- Sign-in
- Office 365 Email and calendar
- SharePoint and SkyDrive Pro
- Office 365 ProPlus desktop programs
- Lync and Web conferencing
- Advanced Office 365 Troubleshooting Tools
If you are an Office 365 administrator, for more information about support options see Get support for Office 365.
Sign-In
Common issues and tasks related to Office 365 sign-in are listed in the following table. If a user needs help with one of frequently mentioned scenarios listed below, click the link to display an article that provides troubleshooting or how-to steps.
Common Issues |
I’m having Outlook connection problems after an Office 365 upgrade |
I see an error message "Your organization could not sign you in to this service" |
How Do I… |
Office 365 Email and Calendar
Common issues and tasks related to Office 365 email and calendars are listed in the following table. If a user needs help with one of frequently mentioned scenarios listed below, click the link to display an article that provides troubleshooting or how-to steps.
Common Issues |
I haven’t received the message that someone claims to have sent me |
My message is taking a long time to arrive at its destination |
SharePoint and SkyDrive Pro
Common issues and tasks related to Office 365 file sharing with SkyDrive Pro are listed in the following table. If a user needs help with one of frequently mentioned scenarios listed below, click the link to display an article that provides troubleshooting or how-to steps.
Common Issues |
How Do I… |
How do I password-protect a page on my site? |
Office 365 ProPlus Desktop Programs
Common issues and tasks related to Office 365 ProPlus desktop programs are listed in the following table. If a user needs help with one of frequently mentioned scenarios listed below, click the link to display an article that provides troubleshooting or how-to steps.
How Do I… |
How do I create an Outlook Data File (.pst) to save my information? |
How do I import Outlook items from an Outlook Data File (.pst)? |
Lync and Web Conferencing
Common issues and tasks related to Office 365 web conferencing and online meetings with Lync are listed in the following table. If a user needs help with one of frequently mentioned scenarios listed below, click the link to display an article that provides troubleshooting or how-to steps.
Common Issues |
How Do I… |
Advanced Office 365 Troubleshooting Tools
If more advanced troubleshooting is required, administrators should start with the autochecks available in OnRamp. The autochecks are designed to deliver the most robust diagnostic information for deploying Office 365 and replace the Deployment Readiness Tool. Once you have used the autochecks to evaluate your overall deployment, you can use the tools below to troubleshoot specific areas of your deployment.
Tools for Help Desk Personnel
Office 365 Troubleshooting Tools |
Description |
A guided walkthrough that helps you resolve connectivity or performance issues when you connect your Outlook client to an Office 365 mailbox. |
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A do-in-yourself troubleshooter that helps you find articles and tools related to a specific problem or question. |
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A downloadable tool for Help Desk personnel that analyzes several Office programs for common configurations that may cause problems. |
Tools for IT Administrators
Office 365 Troubleshooting Tools |
Description |
A set of tools that test Office 365 DNS, sign-on, Exchange, and Outlook connectivity. |
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A downloadable client program that identifies connectivity issues between email clients and Office 365 or Exchange Server. |
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A downloadable client program that determines whether Lync supports connections from Lync Windows Store app for Windows 8 and Windows RT, and from Lync mobile apps. |
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A set of tools that performs network diagnostics and collects system configuration, network configuration, and logging information for applications that are used to connect to Microsoft Office 365. |
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A tool for Active Directory administrators that performs discovery and remediation of identity objects in preparation for migration from on-premises Active Directory environment to Office 365. |
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A collection of Windows PowerShell sample scripts can be used to automate a number of Office 365 deployment tasks. |
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This wiki contains information about tools that you can use to help troubleshoot issues with Office 365 pre-upgrade. It also contains links to resources such as Microsoft Knowledge Base articles, troubleshooting videos, and TechNet Radio webcasts that show how the tools are used to diagnose and resolve specific Office 365 scenarios. |
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Fix Empty DisplayName Attribute for On-premises Mail-Enabled Groups |
A script that verifies displayName property for mail-enabled groups. |
Fix Duplicate User Principal Name for On-premises Active Directory Users |
A script that enables you to export Active Directory users that have duplicate or empty user principal names so that you can correct and import them. |
Information about new Office 365 tools: Client Access Policy Builder, Office 365 Federation Metadata Update tool, and DirSync Count Total Synchronized Objects. |
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Information about the IP addresses and URLs that are used by Office 365 for enterprises cloud-based services. |