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Update February 2016: I've had a bunch of folks reach out in the last month to tell me that this three-year-old post is out of date.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:

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 trouble signing in to Office 365

I’m having trouble signing in to Lync

I’m having Outlook connection problems after an Office 365 upgrade

I forgot my password

I can't sign out of Office 365 web services

I see an error message "Your organization could not sign you in to this service"

How Do I…

How do I sign in to Outlook Web App?

How do I use the new sign-in page for Office 365?

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 can’t receive email

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

I’m having email issues after a custom domain was added

When I try to access someone's mailbox folder, I see the error "Unable to open default folders-you do not have permissions to logon"

How Do I…

How do I set up Outlook for Office 365?

How do I move email and contacts into my new Office 365 account?

How do I connect Outlook Web App to other email accounts?

How do I forward email to another email account?

How do I use my current Office desktop programs with Office 365?

How do I set up email in Outlook for Mac 2011?

How do I set up Office 365 on my phone or tablet?

How do I use the Windows 8 Mail app with Office 365?

How do I check spelling in Outlook Web App?

How can I recover a deleted item in Outlook?

How do I manage some else’s email and calendar in Outlook 2013?

How do I allow someone else to manage my mail and calendar in Outlook 2013?

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

I’m having trouble with the “Open with Explorer” command

I need to recover a deleted file

I’m running into storage limits

How Do I…

How do I update my profile to help people find me?

How do I post something to everyone?

How do I post something to a small group of people?

How do I share items in SkyDrive Pro?

How do I create a site?

How do I move a document from one library to another?

How do I synchronize a library to my computer?

How do I synchronize SharePoint content with Outlook?

How do I password-protect a page on my site?

How do I add an app to my SharePoint 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.

Common Issues

I’m having trouble installing Office 2013

I’m having trouble installing Office 2013

Downloading Office 2013 is slow

Office 2013 or Office 365 setup stops responding

I see the error "Activation Error"

I see the error “Microsoft Office Subscription Error” or “Office Subscription Removed” or “No Subscription Found”

I see the error “Can’t verify the signature” during installation

I see the error “Internet Connection Required”

I see the error “A program needed by the Office Subscription service is not running”

I see the error “Microsoft Office Repair Required”

I see the error "Windows cannot find 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\clientX64\integratedOffice.exe'"

I see the error "Something went wrong and we can't sign you in right now"

I see the error "Can't verify the signature"

I can’t install Office 2013 on Windows XP or Windows Vista

I can't install both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office 2013

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)?

How do I uninstall Office 2013?

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

I get an error when I try to sign in to Lync

I can’t connect to a Skype user

How Do I…

How do I set up Lync 2013 for Office 365?

How do I change my picture?

How do I add a contact in Lync?

How do I add an external contact in Lync?

How do I install and sign in to Lync for Windows Phone?

How do I install and sign in to Lync for iPhone?

How do I install and sign in to Lync for iPad?

How do I install and sign in to Lync for Android?

How do I call into a Lync meeting?

How do I make a Lync audio call?

How do I add audio to a Lync IM?

How do I set up a Lync meeting?

How do I change participant settings for Lync meetings?

How do I join Lync meeting with Lync Web App?

How do I join a Lync meeting?

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

Office 365 Outlook Connectivity Guided Walkthrough

A guided walkthrough that helps you resolve connectivity or performance issues when you connect your Outlook client to an Office 365 mailbox.

Office 365 Community troubleshooting tool

A do-in-yourself troubleshooter that helps you find articles and tools related to a specific problem or question.

Office configuration analyzer

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

Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer (RCA)

A set of tools that test Office 365 DNS, sign-on, Exchange, and Outlook connectivity.

Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer

A downloadable client program that identifies connectivity issues between email clients and Office 365 or Exchange Server.

Microsoft Lync Connectivity Analyzer

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.

MOSDAL

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.

IDFix

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.

Sample PowerShell scripts for Office 365 deployments

A collection of Windows PowerShell sample scripts can be used to automate a number of Office 365 deployment tasks.

Office 365 Troubleshooting & Diagnostic Tools

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.

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.

New Office 365 and AD FS/DirSync Information Available

Information about new Office 365 tools: Client Access Policy Builder, Office 365 Federation Metadata Update tool, and DirSync Count Total Synchronized Objects.

Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges

Information about the IP addresses and URLs that are used by Office 365 for enterprises cloud-based services.