Last updated: Sep 18, 2024

Microsoft Office 365

Sign into Office 365's suite of products and automate onboarding and offboarding processes

Overview

Microsoft Office 365 is an integrated cloud platform that delivers industry-leading productivity apps like Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, along with collaborative team solutions, intelligent cloud services, online storage, and world-class security. Easily implemented security and privacy controls protect business data and devices against malicious threats and help you to meet compliance requirements. Automatic updates ensure your employees always have the latest features and security updates. Get work done with productivity solutions that help you to stay connected with employees and clients whether working remotely or on-premises.

Office 365 continues to be the most popular application deployed using Okta for identity management. Thousands of satisfied customers have used Okta to dramatically shorten the typical deployment time of Office 365. Okta offers unique automation and user experience functionality that results in long term operational cost savings.

You're embracing the cloud with Office 365, but you need an identity and mobility strategy for successful adoption.

If your goal is complete cloud security, then it begins with a strategy focused on company communication. With over a billion Office 365 users across the globe, it’s quickly becoming the standard for keeping employees in the loop. When you start with Okta, you provide air-tight security while rolling out Microsoft Office to hundreds of employees spanning your entire enterprise, all in record time.

An identity foundation for Office 365 + all your apps

You’re embracing the cloud with Office 365. This is a big deal. You need to go live. But you don’t want to build infrastructure that will limit user access to future cloud applications. Meet Okta, the identity and mobility management solution that gets Office 365 live ASAP while opening up a world of future options.

Okta Office365

Modern identity management for Office 365 and all your applications

Is struggling with AD FS the most efficient use of your time? Okta is a modern identity service that works in real-time. It minimizes user disruptions and enhances security. And it will help you reclaim your time. Okta enables enterprises with Active Directory to quickly and securely extend employee identity to Office 365 without using ADFS or Azure AD Connect. Okta also easily integrates with your non-Microsoft applications. Stop struggling and get some real work done.

A single modern product delivering a complete solution

Okta is a complete identity management product. It is built as a single cloud-service and designed for both hybrid IT and cloud-first IT environments. The Okta service provides single sign-on, provisioning, multi-factor authentication, mobility management, configurable security policy, directory services and comprehensive reporting – all configured and managed from a single administrator console.

    The Microsoft approach

    office365 the microsoft approach1

     

    • Multiple systems
    • On-premises and cloud
    • Delayed sync

    The Okta approach

    office365 the okta approach

    • Single system
    • Cloud-centric
    • Real-time
    • Integrated identity management

    Identity management software has evolved over time. Previous generations of software were built to periodically synchronize data. Okta employs a modern, event-driven approach. This approach enables delegated authentication to AD at the moment a user attempts to log in. It also keeps that user profile data in sync between on-premises AD and Office 365 the moment it changes.

    Features specific to Office 365 with Okta

    Zero downtime
    Zero downtime and instant failover for Active Directory integration ensures continuous efficient operation without requiring IT to manage uptime. 

    Role assignment
    Automatic assignment of Office 365 administrator roles, with the option to not assign a user license to an administrative account, and the ability to add MFA specifically for administrators.

    Connect untrusted domains and forests
    Connects multiple untrusted Active Directory domains/forests to a single tenant of Office 365, enabling large enterprises or companies going through mergers and acquisitions to easily add all users without changing their directory architecture.

    Quick provisioning / deprovisioning
    Real-time provisioning and deprovisioning of user accounts, groups, and group memberships in Azure Active Directory. Rich profile synchronization to easily ensures employees receive access when they need it —and their access is automatically removed when they leave the organization.

    Automated configuration
    Easy, quick, and automated configuration of Single Sign-on using WS-Fed right from within Okta. This means there’s no need for scripts or the command line during configuration. 

    Granular license assignment
    Automatic assignment of user licenses specific to Office 365 applications, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online, reduces manual work and scripting and increases license usage efficiency and accuracy. 

    Multi-factor authentication
    Multi-factor authentication is fully integrated into the central Okta policy engine and centralized reports. This enables you to choose which factors users can enable, apply a flexible policy when enforcing a 2nd factor (such as by Active Directory security group), and access all reports from one place.

    Non-Microsoft apps
    A secure, application-neutral identity service that can integrate to 3rd party MFA products, a wide variety of VPNs and clients, and be leveraged just as easily and deliver the same set of benefits for non-Microsoft applications. 

    Easy, robust Active Directory integration

    To use Office 365, users in on-premises Active Directory (AD) must be connected to Microsoft Azure Active Directory in the cloud. Microsoft provides tools to accomplish this, but each tool requires carries the burden of having to deploy, configure and manage server resources.

    Okta takes a different approach – using a lightweight on-premises agent to integrate Office 365 to Active Directory (AD) and to Azure AD. It requires no changes to firewall settings and can run on any Windows machine with read access to the domain controller.

    A single agent handles all communication, in real-time, between Okta, Azure Active Directory, and your on-premises AD. It supports delegated authentication, provisioning / deprovisioning, directory sync, and AD password management. When Okta is configured for delegated authentication to Active Directory, no AD credentials are stored in the cloud, and passwords never get out of sync.

    Okta’s cloud-based platform simplifies and accelerates Active Directory integration, and makes it possible to deploy Office 365 6X faster.

    Seamless integration with Microsoft technologies and beyond

    Okta can provide seamless access to any of Microsoft’s newer online services beyond Office 365. By using Okta as your identity provider to Office 365, you also get the ability to join devices, use Windows Hello facial recognition, and get secure access to non-SSO applications using the Okta Windows Edge browser plugin. More than 900 Enterprises and thousands of users trust Okta for Office 365 every day.

    Okta's Identity Platform also manages identity, provisioning, and security for thousands of non-Microsoft applications, providing the broadest and deepest identity and access management solution for the Cloud.

    Get started with Okta for Office 365

    Office 365 Free Edition

    • Identity Management for Office 365
    • 12x5 phone support
    • Knowledge Base
    • Community Support

    Functionality

    Add this integration to enable authentication and provisioning capabilities.

    Provisioning


    Documentation

    Here is a section all about documentation, integration, and implementation.


    Workflows

    Add this application connector to your Okta Workflows, a no-code interface-driven platform for creating custom workflows using a library of integrated third-party applications and functions. Sequence action events together to automate identity-centric business processes.

    Microsoft Office 365 Connector actions
    A wide range of connectors from different apps can be linked to create automated Workflows.

    • Assign Role to User
    • Custom API Action
    • Read User
    • Read User Roles
    • Revoke User Sign In Sessions
    • Search Group Members
    • Get Licenses
    • Search Users
    • Create Cloud User
    • Search Groups
    • Create Group
    • Delete Group
    • Update User
    • Delete User
    • Create Contact
    • Remove User from Group
    • Search Contacts
    • List Contact Folders
    • Remove License from User
    • Read Group
    • Create Guest User
    • Enable User Account
    • Read User Manager
    • Update Group
    • Unassign Role from User
    • Disable User Account
    • Read Directory Roles
    • Add User to Group
    • Assign License to User
    • Assign User Manager
    Connector
    Azure Active Directory connector
    Connector

    Azure Active Directory

    Azure Active Directory connector
    Templates
    • Azure Active Directory connector Okta connector
      Template

      Create Office 365 Guest Accounts

      A no-code way to automate user creation and management for guest accounts.
    • Azure Active Directory connector Okta connector Google Workspace connector
      Template

      Generate Unique Emails

      Generate unique email addresses for all users that are onboarded into Okta.
    • Azure Active Directory connector Okta connector
      Template

      Onboard and Offboard with Office365

    • Azure Active Directory connector Okta connector Google Workspace connector
      Template

      Reset User Sessions in Okta, Zoom, Google Workspace, and O365

    • Azure Active Directory connector Okta connector
      Template

      Sync Okta Group Membership with Office 365 Unified Groups

    • Office 365 Mail connector Okta connector
      Template

      Encourage Stronger MFA Adoption

    • Okta connector Microsoft Teams connector
      Template

      Automatically activate and deactivate accounts with notifications in Microsoft Teams

    • Office 365 Mail connector Azure Active Directory connector
      Template

      Subscribe to Microsoft alerts and notify admins of potential security issues

    Okta Verified
    Okta Verified
    The integration was either created by Okta or by Okta community users and then tested and verified by Okta.