The Top 9 Microsoft 365 Management Tools

Augmentt is a centralized SaaS security platform that enables Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to offer scalable managed security services for cloud applications, including Microsoft 365. The multi-tenant platform provides visibility across end-users, enabling easy auditing, protection, and detection of security threats for a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity.

The Augmentt platform comprises three tools: Secure, Engage, and Discover. Augmentt Secure focuses on M365 security by monitoring and configuring security policies, generating tickets for compliance violations, and setting real-time threat alerts. Augmentt Engage improves efficiency in user management and co-management, providing least privilege access for L1 technicians and simplifying workflows with embedded best practices. Meanwhile, Augmentt Discover addresses SaaS sprawl by offering a complete inventory of over 22,000 apps, enabling organizations to build compliance, governance, and understand Shadow IT and employee productivity.

By combining proactive and reactive approaches to security, Augmentt helps MSPs manage their customers’ Microsoft and cloud environments effectively, strengthening their overall cybersecurity posture.

ManageEngine’s M365 Manager Plus solution is a comprehensive Microsoft 365 administration tool that supports management, reporting, auditing, alerting, and monitoring for major Microsoft 365 services. With M365 Manager Plus, admins can provision users, manage password reset requests, configure MFA, as well as manage Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) groups and licenses. Actions can be completed in bulk or at a user level to save admins’ time and improve productivity. The platform allows you to build templates to ensure onboarding is consistent across the organization.

M365 Manager Plus supports comprehensive Microsoft 365 reporting. Administrators can schedule and export over 700 preconfigured reporting templates for Microsoft 365 services. This includes mailbox access, inactive users, email activity, and license details. Administrators can generate reports that demonstrate adherence with compliance mandates such as HIPAA, SOX, and FISMA.

M365 Manager Plus supports auditing various activities, such as to track creation, deletion, and changes to permissions and properties. It can also perform Content Search across multiple mailboxes on a granular scale to include attachments, contacts, message headers, and other attributes. These can be scheduled with customizable profiles to run at set intervals, with real-time alerts to notify admins of suspicious changes.

M365 Manager Plus performs detailed health and performance monitoring to detect security risks like phishing and ransomware. The platform provides detailed security reports and conducts automated security scans, further reducing staff workloads.

M365 Manager Plus can also backup Exchange Online mailbox contents such as emails, calendar entries, contacts, journals, notes, posts, and tasks for any duration of time and restore them completely or granularly when needed. The backups can be fully automated and scheduled to take place at set intervals.

Overall, M365 ManagerPlus is a comprehensive solution for Microsoft 365 management, reporting, auditing, alerting, and monitoring. We would recommend the solution for mid-sized organizations looking for a solution that will improve M365 security and productivity through automation.

AvePoint Cloud Management is a comprehensive solution for managing Microsoft 365 environments, streamlining administrative tasks, and enforcing security policies across an organization’s digital infrastructure. Its primary function is to provide automatic content and customization management tools, giving IT managers complete control over security, configurations, and policy enforcement.

With AvePoint, businesses can automate Microsoft 365 administration tasks and efficiently address policy violations or unauthorized security settings using the platform’s centralized management capabilities. This enables them to save time and resources while performing bulk operations. AvePoint also offers exceptional content management flexibility, allowing content to be moved, restructured, or synced on-demand or according to a set schedule, ensuring users receive the needed resources in a timely manner. Admins can migrate or consolidate content across Microsoft 365 tenants, ensuring consistent design elements and workflows, and restricting access to sensitive data in platforms such as SharePoint Online, Group team sites, and OneDrive for Business.

AvePoint simplifies IT audits, allowing for a quick response to audit requests with comprehensive reports on content, users, and configurations all in one place. The platform also offers tools for managing and optimizing security settings. By using AvePoint Cloud Management, organizations can streamline their processes, enhance security, and simplify Microsoft 365 administration tasks.

BetterCloud is a management and security solution for Microsoft 365 that helps to centralize users, groups, files, and settings, as well as offering powerful tools to automate user orchestration and enhance data protection. With BetterCloud, admins can streamline repetitive tasks and monitor their data security more effectively.

BetterCloud centralizes app administration, allowing users to manage all Microsoft 365 users, groups, files, and settings from a global, searchable directory. This eliminates the need for multiple admin consoles and provides a comprehensive cross-app view. Actions, such as adding members to groups, altering group settings, and adjusting file permissions, can be taken in bulk, resulting in increased efficiency and cost savings on unused licenses. BetterCloud also offers stronger data protection by continuously monitoring for potential security risks and enabling custom policy enforcement workflows. With advanced reports on OneDrive and SharePoint file metadata, users can search for files, with exposed settings and take prompt action to rectify security issues, such as unsharing files or removing collaborators.

Finally, BetterCloud automates user orchestration, allowing for flexible and efficient onboarding and offboarding processes. Automated workflows ensure seamless transitions for new or departing employees, with features including automatic license assignment, group management, and customizable access controls. This increased IT efficiency results in a positive employee experience as well as meeting compliance requirements.

CoreView is a Microsoft 365 management platform that helps IT teams optimize their Microsoft 365 investments by providing comprehensive visibility and enhancing operational efficiency. With over 15 years of experience, CoreView serves over 25 million users worldwide and is a trusted partner for IT and security leaders. As a Microsoft AI Cloud Partner, CoreView is available in the Azure Marketplace.

CoreView consolidates Microsoft 365 administration in a single portal, offers tenant segmentation capabilities, and provides a powerful reporting engine with hundreds of pre-packaged reports. This platform allows organizations to refine their governance strategies with features such as Best Practices Playbooks, automated governance with scheduled reports, and proactive alerting.

In addition to optimizing tasks and automating responses using drag-and-drop workflows, CoreView minimizes errors and ensures compliance by standardizing processes. Its easy-to-use license management dashboard enables IT teams to track and minimize waste efficiently. The platform also empowers workforces with workflow automation, delegation, and self-service options, enabling increased productivity and reduced reliance on support. Finally, CoreView maintains security and control by allowing the customization of permissions for local administrators.

CyberDrain Improved Partner Portal (CIPP) is an open-source solution designed to help Managed Service Providers (MSPs) optimize Microsoft 365 management. It offers a unified platform for managing various M365 tasks, helping to simplify operations and reduce the time spent on administrative tasks. This efficiency allows MSPs to focus on delivering expert services to their clients.

CIPP simplifies the management of Microsoft 365 tenants, users, and deployment of standard policies. The platform reduces the challenges typically associated with multi-tenant management and streamlines processes for MSPs. User management benefits include an easy-to-use interface for adding, editing, and deleting users, as well as adjusting calendar permissions and managing shared mailboxes. CIPP also provides built-in standards to ensure consistent implementation across the entire client base. Its features include industry best practices and alerting tools that allow MSPs to maintain high-quality Microsoft 365 multi-tenant management. Additionally, CIPP offers comprehensive reporting functionality and integrations to ensure the security of clients’ environments and data.

Finally, CIPP makes deployment more efficient by allowing MSPs to create templates based on existing policies, which can then be applied across all managed clients for consistency and adherence to established standards. By offering a centralized platform for Microsoft 365 management, CIPP helps MSPs save valuable time and resources while maintaining excellent service levels.

Microsoft 365 Lighthouse is a platform designed for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to efficiently manage and deliver M365 services to customers through a single portal. By offering standardized configurations, risk management, AI-driven sales opportunities, and improved customer engagement, Lighthouse allows MSPs to cater to their clients’ requirements and optimize Microsoft 365 investments.

Lighthouse streamlines onboarding for MSPs with delegated access, offering security configuration baselines tailored to SMBs and multi-tenant views across all customer environments. This enables service engineers to effectively manage their customers, detect risks, and take necessary actions to maintain security and stability. Additionally, AI-driven insights assist account managers in acquiring new customers, retaining existing ones, and expanding their business with premium offerings.

Microsoft 365 Lighthouse is available at no additional cost to partners enrolled in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program, including Direct-Bill and Indirect Resellers. Among its features are AI-driven recommendations, tenant deployment journeys for consistent tenant security and configuration, a default SMB security baseline, multi-tenant insights on device compliance, and tools for simplifying common tasks, such as password resets and multifactor authentication setup. The platform also offers protection against risky sign-ins, management of threats on Windows 10 devices, and insights into Microsoft 365 service incidents and advisories affecting customer tenants.

Nuvolex offers IT organizations a way to streamline user administration across all Microsoft 365 workloads using their ManageX SaaS administration portal. This portal allows IT organizations to efficiently manage users, tenants, licenses, and Microsoft 365 services, regardless of the number of tenants or services.

The ManageX portal simplifies common administrative tasks by employing advanced workflow automation. It also enables multi-tenant management, allowing multiple tenants, Microsoft 365 services, and Azure VMs to be overseen from a single dashboard. The platform supports hybrid identity management by concurrently managing on-premises AD and Azure AD identities across all tenants. It also includes license management, enabling IT organizations to track and manage license consumption and monitor service usage for Microsoft 365 and Azure.

ManageX promotes a secure and compliant environment through advanced role-based access control, which allows IT administrators to easily delegate granular access rights across all Microsoft 365 workloads. Additionally, the platform includes auditing and reporting capabilities to further ensure security and compliance for Microsoft 365.

ShareGate is a versatile tool designed to assist with bulk user management within Microsoft 365, enabling businesses to easily assign or remove user permissions, while increasing overall productivity. It offers customizable user provisioning, significantly reducing manual edits and repetitive administrative tasks.

The ShareGate platform focuses on external access control and data security, ensuring that only authorized individuals have access to sensitive information. It provides audit reports to help maintain compliance and automates security procedures to minimize breaches. In addition, ShareGate offers Microsoft Teams automation to quickly identify inactive teams, orphaned groups, and potential security threats while streamlining governance through built-in lifecycle management. ShareGate also simplifies content migration, whether it involves transitioning to the cloud, managing a merger or acquisition, or transferring a single Teams channel. It offers unlimited data capacity, making the process seamless. Moreover, by automating secure sharing reviews, the platform prevents user errors and ensures organizational security. It assists team and group owners in managing externally shared links and guest access effectively.

Finally, ShareGate promotes end-user adoption with its dedicated end-user app, which doesn’t require a separate ShareGate account or license. It empowers users to create and manage their teams independently, alleviating some of the workload for IT teams. By automating various policies and administrative tasks, ShareGate streamlines workflows in Microsoft 365 and enhances visibility in IT operations.