M365Clarity Blog

Practical guides for IT professionals

Microsoft 365 security, configuration, and getting more from the licences you're already paying for.

Copilot · ROI · New

Are You Getting Value From Microsoft 365 Copilot?

M365Clarity now shows Copilot ROI — cost per active user, monthly wasted spend in GBP, and a colour-coded signal for whether your investment is justified. See exactly how many licences are unused and what they're costing.

MSP · AI Features · New

Natural Language Queries Across Your Microsoft 365 Client Portfolio

Ask plain-English questions across all your client tenants — "which clients have MFA issues?", "who needs urgent attention?", "show me a health score ranking." Answers draw only from your own portfolio data. Available on the Multi-Tenant plan.

Executive Reporting · AI Features · New

Microsoft 365 Executive Briefing: AI-Generated Board Report in One Click

M365Clarity generates a board-ready Microsoft 365 briefing in plain English — no jargon, no feature tables. Top risks with business impact, domain grades, and next steps. Download as PDF and share with your CEO or CFO.

AI Features · Remediation · New

Microsoft 365 AI Setup Guides and Conversational Remediation

M365Clarity doesn't just tell you what's wrong — it walks you through fixing it. Step-by-step guides built from your tenant data, with an inline AI assistant for when you get stuck on a specific step. From finding to fixed without leaving the dashboard.

Defender · Security · New

Microsoft Defender Posture Assessment: What M365Clarity Analyses

A breakdown of the 15 Defender signals assessed — Secure Score, XDR incidents, Safe Attachments, ASR rules, attack simulation — and what the AI posture narrative tells you that individual scores don't.

Comparison · Secure Score · New

Microsoft 365 Secure Score vs M365Clarity — What's the Difference?

Secure Score tells you what's configured. M365Clarity tells you whether anyone is using it — and what your users are doing when they can't. A plain-English comparison of what each tool covers and how they work together.

Digital Friction · MFA · Quantified · New

How Many Times Are Your Users Being Asked to Re-Authenticate? M365Clarity Now Tells You

The Digital Friction report now quantifies MFA re-prompt fatigue, device compliance gaps, and app activation rates — turning security findings into specific adoption impact numbers your users will recognise.

Adoption · Digital Friction · New

Digital Friction: Why Your Users Are Going Around Microsoft 365

Digital friction is when your IT configuration makes it harder to do the job than using a personal workaround. M365Clarity now identifies exactly where that's happening — and what your users are probably doing instead.

Licensing · Renewal · New

Your Microsoft 365 Renewal Brief, Written by AI

M365Clarity now generates a ready-to-send partner renewal briefing grounded in your tenant's active licences, inactive users, and AI Licensing Advisor conversations — so you go into renewal with the right data.

Licensing · Inactive Users · New

Which Users Should Lose Their Microsoft 365 Licence at Renewal?

M365Clarity now shows exactly which users haven't signed in for 90+ days — by name, email, and last sign-in date — directly inside the Licence Recommendations tab and inside your partner renewal brief.

Licensing · AI · New

Licence Advisor: Ask M365Clarity What You Need Before You Buy

M365Clarity now answers licensing questions grounded in your tenant's active licences and your agreement type — what to procure, per-user vs tenant-wide requirements, and how CSP, EA, and MCA affect your options.

Entra ID · Governance · New

Entra ID Governance Posture: What Good Looks Like for SMBs

PIM, access reviews, leaver lifecycle workflows, emergency access accounts — what Entra ID governance actually means for an SMB and why the most damaging breaches are identity governance failures, not zero-days.

SharePoint · Security · New

SharePoint External Sharing: The Setting Most SMBs Get Wrong

Anonymous links, default edit permissions, and no resharing restrictions — how to assess your SharePoint sharing risk, what the six key settings mean, and what to fix first.

Workload Adoption · Licence Management · New

Microsoft 365 Per-User Activity Detail: Who Isn't Using What

M365Clarity shows exactly which users are inactive in Teams, Email, and OneDrive, which mailboxes are near quota, and which licences have never been activated — named user lists sorted by highest risk first.

Teams Phone · Voice · New

Microsoft Teams Phone Configuration: What M365Clarity Checks

Voice policies, PSTN connectivity, meeting recording governance, guest access, and external federation — M365Clarity scans all six and generates an AI risk assessment from your live tenant data.

Microsoft Viva · Adoption · New

Microsoft Viva Adoption Health: How M365Clarity Scores Your Deployment

M365Clarity grades each Viva workload — Engage, Learning, Connections, Amplify, Goals and Loop — and generates an AI adoption health narrative. Find out which Viva features you're paying for but not using.

Intune · Device Management · New

Intune Health Report: What M365Clarity Scans and Why It Matters

A breakdown of every Intune health check — device compliance, WUfB update rings, BYOD and MAM coverage, config profile gaps, and the AI lost-device scenario that explains risk in plain English.

Licensing · Timely

Microsoft 365 July 2026 price increase — audit your licences before you renew

Microsoft raised prices 5-33% on 1 July 2026. Which plans changed, the new GBP prices in a single table, and the three things to do before your next renewal. Business Premium did not change — which changes the upgrade maths for a lot of organisations.

Change Management · New

How to run a Microsoft Teams adoption campaign without a dedicated change manager

Most Teams rollouts stall at 35% and stay there. A practical four-week campaign you can run as an IT admin or MSP — champions, use cases, measurement, and the one thing that actually shifts user behaviour.

Change Management · New

The 3-page comms plan for rolling out OneDrive and SharePoint

The announcement, the day-before reminder, and the week-one follow-up — three email templates you can adapt and send. Covers Known Folder Move, shared drive migration, and the three things that make users resistant to file changes.

Change Management · New

How to get user buy-in for Microsoft 365 security changes

MFA enforcement, Conditional Access, external sharing restrictions — each makes your org more secure and creates friction. How to frame each change so users understand it, and why communicating first is always cheaper than the support calls that follow.

Security · New

What "read-only" actually means in Microsoft 365 — a technical breakdown

The exact OAuth scopes M365Clarity requests, what each one reads, and why read-only delegated access is enforced by Microsoft's API — not just by convention.

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Identity Security · New

Microsoft 365 App Registration Audit — the attack surface most IT admins have never checked

Third-party enterprise apps with Mail.ReadWrite.All or Files.ReadWrite.All permissions are a silent breach risk. How to find them, what to do, and how M365Clarity surfaces this automatically.

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Intune · New

Intune Health Report — what M365Clarity scans and why it matters

Device compliance, WUfB update rings, BYOD MAM coverage, configuration profiles, and the AI lost-device scenario. Every check explained.

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Guide · New

Microsoft 365 has 15 admin portals — here is what each one does

Microsoft 365 is one product but it has at least 15 separate admin portals. Here is what each one does and why having this many dashboards makes visibility genuinely hard.

Microsoft Scout · New

Microsoft Scout — what it is and how to prepare your Microsoft 365 tenant

Microsoft's first Autopilot agent announced at Build 2026. What Scout does, what it accesses, and the configuration work your tenant needs before deploying autonomous AI agents.

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MSP · New

Microsoft 365 MSP multi-tenant management — audit every client tenant at scale

How MSPs can audit Microsoft 365 security and configuration across every client tenant without manual checks, spreadsheets, or per-client admin access.

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Defender XDR · New

Microsoft 365 Defender XDR — what's actually enabled in your tenant

Most organisations pay for Defender XDR but only have a fraction configured. Safe Attachments gaps, ASR rules, MDI sensors, attack simulation — the most common gaps across real tenants.

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Data Governance · New

Microsoft 365 data governance checklist — DLP, sensitivity labels, retention, eDiscovery

A practical checklist covering the full Microsoft Purview data governance stack. What to check, what the common gaps are, and how to fix them.

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Entra Governance · New

Microsoft Entra ID Governance — PIM, access reviews, and lifecycle workflows explained

A complete guide to Entra ID Governance. What PIM, access reviews, lifecycle workflows, and entitlement management do and how to configure each one.

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SMB Security · New

Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Business Premium — security gaps most SMBs don't know about

Business Basic tenants average 10+ findings on first scan. Business Premium averages 30+. Here's what to check and why SMBs are not immune to M365 configuration gaps.

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Identity Security · New

The 5 identity checks that matter most in Microsoft 365

CA governance score, PIM permanent assignments, at-risk users from Entra ID Protection, MFA method strength, and stale accounts. The identity gaps that are behind most Microsoft 365 breaches.

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Copilot Cowork · Just released · Action required by 1 July

Is your Microsoft 365 tenant ready for Copilot Cowork?

Cowork went GA on 17 June 2026. Admins must enable usage-based billing before 1 July or Frontier users lose access. Here is the 4-step readiness checklist covering licences, billing, and governance controls.

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Agent 365 & AI Governance · New

Is your Microsoft 365 tenant ready for Agent 365?

Agent 365 is GA. The governance control plane for AI agents only works if 7 tenant prerequisites are in place. Here is the readiness checklist — with a free scan to check them automatically.

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Copilot & AI · New

Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption analytics — measuring ROI after rollout

You've deployed Copilot. Now how do you prove anyone is using it? Track adoption by workload, identify drop-off, and build a defensible ROI case.

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Identity

Microsoft 365 Conditional Access explained — what it is and how to set it up

Conditional Access is the most powerful security control in Microsoft 365. Here's what it is, which licences you need, and the five policies every tenant should have.

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Security

How to block legacy authentication in Microsoft 365

Legacy authentication protocols bypass MFA entirely. Here's what they are, how attackers exploit them, and how to block them.

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Collaboration

SharePoint external sharing — what it means and how to lock it down

SharePoint allows unauthenticated file access by default. Here's how to review your sharing policy and tighten it without breaking collaboration.

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Devices · 7 min read

Microsoft Intune device health — what to check and why it matters

Compliance policies, WUfB update rings, BYOD app protection, config profile gaps, and the lost device scenario — the Intune checks that actually matter for MSPs and IT teams.

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Identity · Security · 7 min read

Windows Hello for Business — setup, adoption gaps, and common misconfigurations

WHfB replaces passwords with device-bound credentials. Here's the correct deployment model, what goes wrong in hybrid environments, and how to measure adoption gaps in your tenant.

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Devices

Microsoft Intune for IT Managers — what it does and whether you need it

Intune is included in Business Premium but most tenants never configure it. Here's what it does and how to get started in under an hour.

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Compliance

Microsoft 365 DLP — what it is and how to set it up

Data Loss Prevention policies stop sensitive data leaving your organisation. Here's how to configure your first DLP policy in Microsoft 365.

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Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot readiness checklist — is your tenant ready?

Before deploying Copilot, your tenant permissions and security settings need to be in order. This checklist covers everything to review first.

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Collaboration

Microsoft Teams governance — how to stop Teams becoming a mess

Without governance, Teams sprawls fast — orphaned teams, guest access leakage, app risks. Here are eight settings to get it under control.

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Compliance

Microsoft 365 audit logging — what it records and why it matters

Audit logs are essential for incident response and compliance. Here's what Microsoft 365 captures, how to search it, and how to ensure it's enabled.

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Security

Microsoft Defender for Business — what it adds over Windows Defender

Defender for Business is included in Business Premium but often not set up. Here's what EDR adds over standard antivirus and how to enable it.

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Email

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC in Microsoft 365 — a practical guide

Three email authentication standards that together prevent domain spoofing. Here's what each does and how to configure them in Microsoft 365.

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Guide · 20 Jun 2026

What is the M365Clarity Health Score?

Understand how your tenant's health score is calculated, what it means, and how to improve it.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Microsoft 365 Priority Actions — what to fix first

M365Clarity ranks your findings by impact so you know exactly where to start.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Microsoft 365 Executive Summary for leadership

Generate a plain-English narrative about your M365 tenant health suitable for sharing with leadership or clients.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Tracking Microsoft 365 configuration changes over time

Scan history lets you see whether your health score is improving and when specific changes happened.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Comparing Microsoft 365 tenant scan results

Pick any two scans and see a side-by-side diff of every feature that changed status.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Microsoft 365 Backup — what it is and why you need it

M365 Backup provides point-in-time restore for Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive. Here's what M365Clarity checks.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Microsoft Security Copilot — what it is and how to prepare

M365Clarity checks your Security Copilot entitlement and whether your tenant is ready to use it effectively.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Microsoft 365 admin account governance

Too many permanent global admins create unnecessary risk. M365Clarity shows you exactly what you have.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Microsoft 365 guest user management

Unmanaged guest accounts accumulate over time. M365Clarity shows you how many exist and whether policies are configured.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Privileged Identity Management (PIM) in Microsoft 365

PIM gives admin roles on a time-limited basis. M365Clarity checks whether it's configured for your tenant.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Finding and removing stale accounts in Microsoft 365

Inactive user accounts are a common visibility gap. M365Clarity identifies them and the licences they're consuming.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Auditing Microsoft 365 app registrations and permissions

Third-party apps with broad permissions are a common blindspot. M365Clarity shows you what's connected and why it matters.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Microsoft 365 licence utilisation — are you using what you pay for?

M365Clarity shows you exactly how many licences are assigned, active, and idle across your tenant.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Eliminating Microsoft 365 licence waste

Unused licences cost real money. M365Clarity identifies assigned-but-inactive licences and quantifies the wasted spend.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Microsoft 365 adoption gaps — features you're paying for but not using

M365Clarity identifies features that are configured but not being used by your team.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

M365Clarity AI Chat — ask questions about your M365 tenant

Ask natural language questions about your scan results without navigating through individual tabs.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Microsoft 365 SLA tracking for MSPs

Track health score commitments across client tenants and identify clients whose configuration has drifted.

Guide · 20 Jun 2026

Exporting Microsoft 365 findings to your helpdesk

Push M365Clarity findings directly to email, CSV, or Jira so your team can track and action them.

MSP

MSP Microsoft 365 onboarding checklist — what to check on every new client

A practical checklist covering 30+ settings to review when an MSP takes on a new Microsoft 365 client tenant.

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Compliance

Microsoft 365 and Cyber Essentials — what you need to configure

Cyber Essentials maps directly to Microsoft 365 settings. Here's what to configure across all five controls to pass your certification.

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Security

How to check your Microsoft 365 security settings

A plain-English walkthrough of the key M365 security settings every IT Manager should review — MFA, Conditional Access, external sharing, and more.

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Identity

MFA not enforced in Microsoft 365 — what it means and how to fix it

Account takeover is the number one cause of Microsoft 365 breaches. Here's why MFA alone isn't enough and how to enforce it properly.

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Configuration

Microsoft Secure Score vs M365Clarity — what's the difference?

Microsoft Secure Score is built in. M365Clarity is independent. Here's what each one tells you and why IT Managers use both.

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