Monthly Update #111 for Office 365 for IT Pros eBook

The Office 365 for IT Pros eBook team is delighted to announce that files are available for download for the September 2024 update of:

• Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) in PDF and EPUB formats.
• Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell in PDF and EPUB formats.

Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell is available as part of the Office 365 for IT Pros bundle and as a separate product.

Subscribers can download the updates files using the link in the receipt emailed to them after their original purchase or from the library in their Gumroad.com account. We no longer make a Kindle version of the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook available through Amazon. It proved too difficult to release updates to readers through the convoluted Amazon process. The Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell book is available through Amazon in Kindle and paperback versions. The paperback is our first attempt at delivering a printed book and the response has been interesting. I guess some folk still like to have text on paper as a reference.

See our change log for information about the changes in the September 2024 update and our FAQ for details about how to download updates.

Changes in the Ecosystem

To ensure that the book content is updated and remains current, we spend a lot of time tracking change within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Three issues that are causing people some concerns are:

• Microsoft plans to require accounts that connect to Azure administrative portals, like the Azure portal, Entra admin center, and Intune admin center or use the Azure PowerShell module and Cl, to use multifactor authentication. The requirement swings into force on October 15. In many respects, this is an excellent idea because the only accounts that access these sites are by definition administrators and all administrator accounts should be protected. But people assume that Microsoft will force all accounts to use MFA and that’s just not correct. More information is available here.
• This month Microsoft plans to update Exchange Online with a revised SMTP AUTH Clients submission report to help organizations understand if apps and devices are using SMTP AUTH with basic authentication to submit messages to Exchange. The plan is to remove basic authentication for SMTP AUTH in September 2025, and the signs are that some organizations will struggle with this deadline as they do not know how to upgrade hardware (devices like multifunction printers) or apps to support OAuth. Follow the discussion online and if you have concerns, voice them there. Ian McDonald from the Exchange development group is responding to queries as they arise.
• The new Outlook for Windows is generally available, and Microsoft is renaming the older Win32 version to be Outlook (classic). The rename process for the application is starting around now. Microsoft still plans to support Outlook classic until 2029 at the earliest so there’s no cause for immediate concern. The new Outlook is not ready to take over from Outlook classic yet and won’t be for several years. But it is the case that new functionality will increasingly be only available in the new Outlook (and likely OWA), and that’s something to take into consideration as Microsoft 365 tenants plan their client strategy for the coming years.

Other stuff is happening too – and all the time- but these are three of the big issues I hear discussed on an ongoing basis.

Discounted Subscriptions

We have traditionally allowed subscribers of prior editions to continue their subscriptions to cover new edition at discounted rates. The cheapest way to upgrade is always within three weeks of the release of a new edition. After that, we start to gradually reduce the discount. Our discount period finished today and there are no longer general discounts available for previous subscribers. Instead, we’re reaching out to people who have supported us over several editions to offer targeted discounts. We think this is a fairer approach to reward people who have helped us and to control the misuse of discount codes.

We know of about 70 cases where people who have never subscribed before having taken out subscriptions to the 2025 edition using codes that we made available to previous subscribers. Sometimes this happens because people pass their subscription to co-workers and sometimes it’s because people just like to share. In any case, our ability to offer discounted subscriptions is compromised when codes are misused, so we’re going to be a little more restrictive about how we issue discounts. I don’t think anyone’s doing anything particularly horrible here, but we’d like to take care of the folks who support us before anyone else gets the chance to use a discount.

On to Update #112

There’s no rest for the wicked and the Office 365 for IT Pros team is already working (or so they tell me) on update #112, which we anticipate releasing on October 1. No doubt lots will happen between this and then to add to the rich tapestry of life and the joys (!!!) of coping with constant change inside the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

Eleventh Edition of the Most Comprehensive Book About Office 365 and the Microsoft 365 Ecosystem

After some late nights finishing up the book content before building the PDF and EPUB files, the Office 365 for IT Pros team is happy to announce the publication of Office 365 for IT Pros 2025 edition. This is the eleventh book in a series going back to May 2015 and is the 109th monthly update issued in that time. The new book is now online on Gumroad.com.

We have emailed an upgrade code to subscribers of the 2024 Edition to allow them to upgrade for $16.95 (the same price as last year). We also sent a code to people who subscribed during June 2024 to allow them to claim a free upgrade. This is in line with our normal policy of offering anyone who subscribes in the last month of an edition the chance to automatically extend their subscription to cover the next edition.

A New PowerShell Book

Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 Edition) does not have a companion volume. We made the decision to discontinue the companion volume because the information it contains is now quite old. Please keep the 2024 companion volume if you wish to retain access to its content.

This year, we launched a new 240-page four chapter book called Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell. We have strong PowerShell content in the 2024 edition. Given all the changes in Microsoft 365 PowerShell modules and growing usage of Microsoft Graph APIs, it seemed like a good idea to create a book focusing on this area. There are still hundreds of PowerShell examples in the main book where they are used to explain how to accomplish specific tasks. The PowerShell book allows us to dedicate more in-depth coverage to this critical area, especially about using PowerShell with Microsoft Graph APIs and the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK.

The Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) subscription includes Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell in both PDF and EPUB formats. Like our other content, we will update the PowerShell eBook monthly.

In addition to including the new eBook in the Office 365 for IT Pros subscription, we sell Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell separately. People who don’t want to buy the full Office 365 for IT Pros subscription can purchase a copy of the PowerShell book from Gumroad.com or as a paperback version available from Amazon.com. This is the first time that we have produced a print book since the original edition of Office 365 for Exchange Professionals appeared at the Ignite conference in May 2015. At that time, Microsoft paid for 500 print copies, all of which were distributed at the conference. Anecdotal evidence since is that some of our readers have printed the PDF version to have a hard copy. The size of the main book (now about 1,220 pages) means that online print services can’t handle it, but splitting off a section to create a separate book allows opens up the possibility of print copies again.

In the future, we might split off other books, such as ones covering Teams or compliance, and make them available in the same way. That decision depends on how people like the PowerShell book.

Why New Editions Appear on July 1

Some ask why we choose to introduce new editions on July 1. We’ve done this since 2016 to align with Microsoft’s fiscal year. That might sound strange, but it’s an undeniable fact that many Microsoft engineering groups aim to ship new functionality before the close of their fiscal year. There’s a rush within Microsoft to finish new software and make it available to customers before June 30. Afterwards a relative lull sets in as many Microsoft engineers take vacation. In a strange kind of way, this helps us to frame a new edition in a way that wouldn’t be possible at the end of the calendar year.

CoreView is Our New Sponsor

After a terrific year’s support from CodeTwo Software, including some excellent t-shirts made by Szymon Szczesniak and his team, CoreView is the sponsor for Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 Edition). We like having an alignment with our sponsors and believe that this exists with CoreView, who are deeply involved with Microsoft 365 management and automation. We look forward to a great year working with the CoreView team.

Seven Books in One

We like to think that Office 365 for IT Pros is seven books in one:

• Exchange Online.
• Entra ID.
• SharePoint Online.
• Teams.
• Purview Compliance.
• Information Protection.
• Automation (Power Automate and PowerShell).

Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 Edition) strengthens our claim. The two books covered by the subscription contain a huge amount of knowledge. Our work isn’t perfect, but it’s our honest and best effort to communicate our experience of working with Exchange Online, Entra ID, SharePoint Online, Teams, OneDrive for Business, Planner, Stream, Purview, Power Automate, and associated technologies. The rate of change across these products means that the advantage of publishing an eBook is more evident now than ever before. In the 24 hours before publication, we updated five chapters of the Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 Edition) eBook and one chapter for the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook.

Stay tuned for our email announcing when the new book is released and available. Thank you for your support for the Office 365 for IT Pros project. We hope that you like the books as much as we enjoyed working on them. And stay tuned to what we publish here. You never know when we might say something valuable!