As the admin for your organization, you’ve signed up for Office 365 Small Business or Office 365 Small Business Premium. Now what?
Before you set up Office 365 for everyone in your organization:
- Your Exchange Online services, including your email in Outlook Web App, your calendar, and People, where your personal contacts are stored
- Your SharePoint Online services, including Newsfeed, SkyDrive Pro, and Sites
- Links to the Office store and Office.com
- A link to the Admin home page where you manage Office 365 for your organization
- Links to your personal SharePoint profile, Sign out, your personal Office 365 settings (
), and Help.
After you set up your own computer, phone, and tablet, it’s time to set up your organization. At the top of the page, click Admin. The Getting Started pane and this article are designed to help admins, like you, get your organization, and all your users, up and running quickly.
(Not seeing the Getting Started pane? You may be using Office 365 pre-upgrade. Try Set up Office 365 for professionals and small businesses pre-upgrade to find the information that applies to you. Am I using Office 365 after the service upgrade?)
Set up your organization
| What do you want to do? |
Location on the Admin home page |
How long does it take? (estimated) |
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Add a few test users and try out Office 365
Use the email address that comes with Office 365:
someone@yourcompany.onmicrosoft.com
Add a few users, and you’re ready to try out Office 365.
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2-3 minutes to add each user.
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Customize your email address and add the rest of your users
Change your email address to your own domain name (domain name: A unique name used to identify an Internet location. Used for web sites (for example, fourthcoffee.com) and as part of an email address (for example, bob@fourthcoffee.com).):
someone@yourcompany.com
See Set up and manage domains, Video: Customize your email address in Office 365, and Training: Set up your custom domain in Office 365
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45 minutes, plus the time it takes for changes to show up on the Internet (15 minutes to several days).
Allow another hour if you need to purchase a domain name.
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Assign admin permissions and licenses
After you add rest of your users, you can assign admin permissions, as needed.
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2-3 minutes each for each user. |
Get started with SharePoint Online collaboration tools In the office and on the go, everyone can create and share Office documents using Office Web Apps, SkyDrive Pro, and team sites.
See Start using SharePoint sites and SkyDrive Pro to share documents and ideas, Video: Access Office documents anywhere with Office 365 and Video: Manage projects with Office 365.
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30 minutes to get set up, and over time, you and your team can develop the working style that’s best for your business. |
Manage mobile access In Office 365, everyone in your organization can set up their mobile phones and tablets to use Office 365 email unless you turn off the option.
See Manage how users use email and IM on their phones.
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2 minutes to review the default settings and change them if you need to. |
Set up Lync Online Get started now by reviewing Lync Online service settings and Start using Lync for IM and online meetings.
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Just a few minutes. Most people don’t need to change the initial Lync settings, at least not right away. |
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Lync tasks you can do now or later:
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A total of 1 hour over the course of 2 weeks. |
Get started with your public website If you don’t have a public website already, create one here using the new website editing tools in SharePoint Online.
See Get started with your public website.
Already have a website? See Use a custom domain name for your SharePoint Online public website address.
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10-20 hours to create your website from scratch.
To use a custom domain name, you can do it when you customize your email address.
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Get everybody ready Help get people up and running with help and training resources.
See Get everybody ready to use Office 365.
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30 minutes to share resources. |
Get help or more information
If you have a question, you’ll find answers and online support in the assistance panel on every page in the Office 365 admin portal, on the Support overview page, and in the Office 365 Community. Here are resources specifically for admins:
