Create a Microsoft 365 Tenant - Timo Strüber IT-Consulting

Table of Contents

1 Introduction
2 Plan Comparison
3 Start the Trial
4 Microsoft 365 Admin Center
5 Summary

Introduction

My blog has been quiet for a few months now. I was focusing on my personal life, not on my blog. My marriage has been my last big project, and I’m glad I gave it my full attention. I recently read a book that taught me a valuable lesson: it’s okay to take your time (Slow Productivity). You can’t rush certain things. We all have a limited amount of time each day to spend. It’s okay and sometimes necessary to prioritize certain projects in your life. There’s no need to stress if you haven’t reached a new milestone on a project.

Now, back to the article. Because I work for a big company, I almost never went through the Microsoft 365 Tenant Creation Process on my own. In today’s blog, I’ll show you how to create a Microsoft 365 tenant based on the Business Basic License, starting with free trial licenses. I figured this might be useful for someone to cover. In the next few articles, I’ll go into more detail about the first steps to take in a freshly created tenant to set it up and basically secure it.

Plan Comparison

You start on the following Microsoft page where you can compare the different Microsoft 365 Business Plans:

Compare Microsoft 365 Business Plans and Pricing | Microsoft 365

To not generate excessive costs in case I miss to cancel my subscription I choose the Busines Basic License that does not include the desktop versions of the office products. This license also lacks enhanced security features that are only included in the Business Premium license. When creating a tenant for a company I would always recommend choosing the Business Premium license because of the included security features! In a separate article I will cover the different license plans and how to compare them.

Start the Trial

Once you click on “Try free for one month,” you’ll need to decide how many users you want to create the tenant. In my case, it’s just me:

Then you’ll need to enter your email address. If you don’t have a Microsoft account linked to that email address, you can set one up here. In my example, I started with a new email address without a Microsoft account.

Then you’ll need to provide some personal info about you and your company. I didn’t take a screenshot of this page because I’d have to blur almost everything.

After another security check using an SMS code sent to my mobile phone, I can now choose the username for the initial user account and the Microsoft 365 Tenant domain name. This step is really important because the domain name you choose here will be the domain name for your Tenant. You can change it later, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Take your time to come up with a good domain name and make sure it’s free.