Thanks to the Office 365 for IT Pros Subscribers

In a time when some question the value of books, we deeply appreciate the support of the folks who subscribe to the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook. AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot can find and synthesize information scoured from across the internet to respond to questions, but so far generative AI cannot provide the context or insight that understanding technology often needs.

An ecosystem like Microsoft 365 can become terribly complicated through different combinations of products, licenses, and configurations. Throw in hybrid organizations and there’s enough to melt an administrator’s mind. We don’t pretend that we have more answers than AI can generate; we do say that our answers are based on hard-won experience and a ton of research into why Microsoft 365 works the way that it does. In other words, we ask “why” when AI just accepts what something is.

Heading for a July 1 Release

It’s just seven days to go before we release Office 365 for IT Pros (2026 edition), including Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell (2^nd edition). The writing team is still heads-down to make sure that the content is compelling, informative, and up to date, and that any of the issues raised by technical editor Vasil Michev are addressed.

We’ve received some questions about how we will release the 2026 edition. Thankfully, people want to know when they can subscribe to the new edition. With that in mind, here’s our plan.

The Release Plan

The first task is to complete all the updates to the chapters, resolve any open issues, chase down the last-minute glitches, and have a coffee. We can then proceed to do the following:

• Generate the PDF and EPUB files for the two books, check that everything is OK, and if all checks out, upload the new files to Gumroad.com. We then switch the shortcut URL for the current version from the 2025 edition to the 2026 edition.
• The 2025 edition files will remain online to allow subscribers to that edition to download the final updates. We made some small tweaks to the Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) files since releasing update #120 on June 1. The current update number for the 2025 edition is 120.4, dated 21 June 2025. We will start the 2026 edition at update 121.0.
• We will send an offer to current subscribers to allow them to extend their subscription to cover the 2026 edition and receive monthly updates for the next year. To reward the folks who renew subscriptions immediately a new edition is available, the price to extend a subscription in July 2025 is $18.95. After August 1, 2025, the price to extend a subscription increases to $24.95.
• Anyone who bought a full-price ($49.95) copy of the 2025 edition in June 2025 will receive a full discount code to extend their subscription for the 2026 edition.
• The update offer and codes are distributed via email to the addresses registered when people subscribed to the 2025 edition. If an email address is incorrect, you won’t receive anything from us. In this case, send email to contact@office365itpros.com to tell us what’s going on. If we can find you on our subscriber list, we’ll respond with the code.
• Some tenants consider email from Gumroad.com as spam. Our email isn’t and we have experimented with sending email using the Exchange HVE and Azure ECS solutions during the last year. HVE is now out of the picture because Microsoft has decided that it will only handle internal email, but anyway, mass mailings about new versions are always sent from Gumroad.
• New subscriptions for the 2026 edition cost $59.95. This is our first price increase since 2015. According to Copilot, the price should be $67.73, but accepting an AI recommendation without question is never a good idea. We believe that the increase is more than justified by the massive amount of information contained in the two books, which can be reasoned over by a Copilot agent if you want.
• The Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook is bundled with Office 365 for IT Pros and doesn’t have to be bought separately. People who subscribed to the first edition of the PowerShell book can download the second edition free of charge. It’s our way of saying thanks to those who bought the first edition while we built out the content.
• For those who like paper books, a version of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell is available in paperback from Amazon.com. This is the same text as the electronic version, except that hyperlinks are converted to footnotes. The paperback also has an index because it’s harder to search through paper. Regretfully, we haven’t found a way to update a paperback remotely, so buying a paper copy of the PowerShell book is like buying any other paperback.
• Anyone who received a free copy of the 2025 edition from us or another source (companies commonly buy multiple copies to give to customers) can use the code to extend their subscription for $18.95. Alternatively, ask the source for the free copy – maybe they have free copies of the 2026 edition to distribute.

2026 or Twelfth?

Some ask us why we name the book after the year ahead. We do so because we match Microsoft’s fiscal year. Their FY26 begins on July 1, 2025. We could call this release Office 365 for IT Pros (12^th edition). Maybe that would be clearer, but the date does help in terms of telling people how recent the content is.

Enjoy the 2026 edition!

Update #12 Available to Help People Figure Out Microsoft 365 PowerShell

As is our norm, we have released the monthly update for the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook some days before the end of the month to allow us to concentrate on working on the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook. The current version number is 12.2 and the updated PDF and EPUB files are available for subscribers to download from Gumroad.com. Please use the link in your receipt (which always fetches the latest files) or go to your Gumroad account, See our FAQ for more information about downloading book updates.

The Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook is available separately and as part of the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook bundle. The same update is available to all subscribers.

We also have a paperback version of the book available from Amazon.com. This version is proving to be more popular than we anticipated. I guess some people still like the tactile experience of reading a real book, and we are happy to oblige. Regretfully, we cannot provide monthly updates to the paperback edition as there’s no way to paste (literally) updated text into paper copies.

Focus Areas for Update #12

Most of the work in Update #12 focused on adding extra detail to the sections covering retrieving calendar information, messages, group-based license assignments, and sensitivity labels. Like always, a bunch of other changes were made to clarify thoughts or correct possible misinterpretations.

It’s the nature of a book like this that developments in Microsoft’s tools affect our content, so some Graph API requests that were used because of problems with Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK cmdlets are now replaced by cmdlets following the release of V2.28 of the SDK on May 10, 2025.

Should I Upgrade to V2.28 of the Graph PowerShell SDK?

So far, the experience with V2.28 is positive. However, this isn’t a massive endorsement because the previous versions were so buggy and poorly tested prior to release. I think it’s safe to say that V2.28 is at least as good as V2.25, which was the last good release.

This does not mean that V2.28 is bug free. I think it would be impossible to release even a 99% bug-free Graph PowerShell SDK. The number of dependencies on many different product groups, the complex interactions with other PowerShell modules and products like Azure Automation, and the errors and omissions in the Open API documents that describe the different Graph APIs all create the potential for problems like missing parameters or failure to process parameters properly. Throw in some Entra ID authentication problems, like the current bug that sometimes requires double authentication after running the Connect-MgGraph cmdlet to create an interactive session, and it’s easy to understand why there’s over 160 reported issues for the SDK.

Bugs are a fact of IT life, and the presence of some known bugs is no reason to avoid using the Graph PowerShell SDK. In fact, the SDK is more popular now than ever before because of the retirement of the AzureAD and MSOL modules (some people still ask why they can’t run Connect-MSOLService or Connect-AzureAD like they used to…). It does mean that you should:

• Pay attention to the known bugs reported to Microsoft.
• Report any bugs that you find that aren’t on the known issues list.
• Be prepared to use the underlying Graph API if a Graph PowerShell SDK cmdlet doesn’t work as expected (alternatively, if a parameter doesn’t work, try passing values in a hash table using the BodyParameter parameter).

Overall, I think it’s safe to upgrade to V2.28. Remember to upgrade modules used as resources by Azure Automation accounts too.

On to Update #13

Work has now started on update #13, which is planned for July 1. This version of the book will be part of Office 365 for IT Pros (2026 edition), which we plan to release on the same day. Happy coding!

Over 300 Pages of Microsoft 365 PowerShell Goodness to Read

The Office 365 for IT Pros writing team are pleased to announce the availability of update 11 for the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook. The eBook is part of the Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) bundle and is also available separately (PDF and EPUB formats) or from Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats. The current version is dated 29 April 2025 and has the version number 11.3.

We typically release an updated version of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell several days before the release of the monthly update of the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook. This approach makes it easier for us to manage the updates for the “big book.” We anticipate that monthly update #119 for Office 365 for IT Pros will be available on May 1.

Subscribers to the Office 365 for IT Pros bundle or to the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook can download the latest files by using the link in the receipt sent to them from Gumroad.com after their original purchase. See our FAQ for more details about how to download updated book files.

New Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK Version

Microsoft released V2.27 of the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK on April 20. This is an important update because it had to address the many woes inflicted on customers with the buggy V2.26 and V2.26.1 releases. Azure Automation runbooks remain an issue (stay with V2.25 if you want to use PowerShell V7.1 or V7.2 runbooks) that will be addressed when Microsoft ships support for PowerShell V7.4 for Azure Automation on June 15, 2025. Two issues must be cleaned up: a clash between the SDK and Exchange Online PowerShell and support for .NET 8. In the interim, V2.27 runs fine with V5.1 runbooks.

License Assignment Bug

After several days of intensive work with V2.27 in interactive and app-only modes, I haven’t noticed any of the obvious flaws that affected its predecessors. Some early cmdlet oddities were cleared up by rebooting my PC. These were likely due to some lingering older components hanging on in memory. Following the reboot, all is well. Then I heard about problems with the Set-MgUserLicense cmdlet (issue #3286) where new licenses cannot be assigned to accounts. It seems like the cmdlet has problems parsing the information passed in the AddLicenses parameter. However, passing the license data in a body parameter works:

$LicenseData = @{
	addLicenses = @(	
	@{
	     disabledPlans = @()
	     skuId = "f30db892-07e9-47e9-837c-80727f46fd3d"
	 }
      )
      removeLicenses = @()
}

Set-MgUserLicense -Userid $User.id -BodyParameter $LicenseData

Speaking of bugs, if you encounter a problem with V2.27, please report details of the issue and steps to reproduce the problem via the GitHub repro for the SDK. Reporting an issue doesn’t take long and it is really helpful to have issues documented. Microsoft engineering monitors the open issues list and does their best to respond to problems that might affect many customers (like the license issue described above). If you don’t report problems, don’t complain when an SDK cmdlet doesn’t work the way you expect it to.

On to The Next Update

The Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook is now well over 300 pages. That’s quite a change from the first version published in July 2024. There’s lots to cover in the next update, including a look at the newly-introduced Graph API usage report API. The API is still in beta and only covers certain parts of Graph usage such as Exchange Online and Teams messaging. The output lacks refinement and doesn’t throw any detailed light into how the Graph APIs are used within a Microsoft 365 tenant. Going forward, that situation is likely to change. It will be interesting to see the usage data generated by Microsoft and how that data is used.

Need some assistance to write and manage PowerShell scripts for Microsoft 365? Get a copy of the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook, available standalone or as part of the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook bundle.

Subscribers Can Download Files for Monthly Update #117 Now

The Office 365 for IT Pros author team is delighted to announce the availability of the March 2025 update for the Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) eBook. This is monthly update #117. Readers can check the update number of the book on the inside front cover. Details of the update are available in our change log.

This update also includes update #9 for the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell book, the most complete and comprehensive coverage of using PowerShell to create solutions based on Microsoft 365 data. Despite the recent quality problems for the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK, we still have strong faith in the usefulness of the PowerShell SDK and the ability it gives tenant administrators to access and use data across a wide range of workloads.

Subscribers can download the updated files from their Gumroad account or by using the download link in the receipt they received by email following their original purchase. The link in the receipt always accesses the latest files. See our FAQ for more information about how to download updates.

The Demise of Skype

The flux within the Microsoft ecosystem was dramatically illustrated by last Friday’s announcement that Microsoft will close down the Skype service on May 5, 2025. While the only impact on Microsoft 365 tenants will be the retirement of Skype interoperability with Teams (MC1019985, 28 February 2025), the demise of Skype is a sign of the ruthlessness that can happen when large corporations seek savings to invest elsewhere. Anything that doesn’t generate a good return is likely to be canned, which is what happened with Viva Goals late last year.

On a personal level, I don’t think I shall miss Skype too much. The app is installed on my PC and phone, but I don’t think I have made a Skype call in a year or more. Microsoft wants people to move to Teams personal (aka Teams for free), which I also have. However, I don’t use Teams personal for calling either because of the ubiquity of WhatsApp and the easy availability of low-cost data eSIMs around the world.

Some have pointed to the $8.5 billion price paid for Skype in 2011 and wondered if Microsoft got value for the purchase. I think that they did. The challenges of scaling up Teams to deal with the demand for online meetings when the pandemic happened were huge, and the experience of running the Skype backend was invaluable (according to Rish Tandon, who ran Teams engineering at the time). It can be argued that the pandemic made Teams and propelled its development to a point where it now supports 320 million monthly active users (the latest figure from October 2023). Without the success of Teams, would the Microsoft cloud now be at an annualized run rate of $163.6 billion? In that light, the investment in Skype seems like a rounding error.

Microsoft 365 Security for IT Pros

We are often asked about updates for the Microsoft 365 Security for IT Pros eBook. The facts are that we have nothing to do with this book. After sharing some of our processes and procedures to help the author team get up and running for the original edition in 2020, we have had no interaction with the book since. The latest edition appeared in 2023 and it seems like some difficulties have occurred in keeping the material updated.

We understand the book update challenge very well because publishing a monthly update takes a lot of time and effort. Muscle memory makes the task a little easier after 117 updates, but it’s still not as easy as some might think.

On to Update #118

Heading into March, we have started work on update #118. This will be the ninth update for Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 Edition), so it’s time to start thinking about the next edition. We typically publish a new edition on July 1 each year and I don’t anticipate any change to that cadence. But the writing team will get together at the Microsoft HQ in late March for the annual MVP summit and I am sure we’ll have a chat about the next version then. Stay tuned!

Stay updated with developments across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem by subscribing to the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook. We do the research to make sure that our readers understand the technology. The Office 365 book package includes the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook.

Updated EPUB and PDF Files Available for Download

The Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook is now at update #9. This is the March 2025 update. We release monthly updates for the PowerShell eBook around the middle of the preceding month to allow us the time to concentrate on preparing the monthly update for Office 365 for IT Pros.

The updated EPUB and PDF files are available to:

• People who bought Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell on its own.
• Subscribers to the Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) eBook.

Please use the download link in the receipt emailed after your purchase to access the updated files. Alternatively, you can get the updated files through your Gumroad.com account. The update number (and month) is shown at the bottom of each page.

Continual Expansion of Content

The original version of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell spanned about 120 pages. The book is now 300 pages (more in the paperback edition because it includes an index). When we removed the PowerShell chapter from the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook, we always knew that there was much more to say about using PowerShell with Microsoft 365. Over the last eight updates, we’ve added a ton of examples, mostly covering the use of Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK cmdlets with workloads like Entra ID, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Teams.

Update #9 continues the trend with new content covering topics like using the Sites.Selected Graph permission to control access to SharePoint Online sites, how to upload files to SharePoint Online, sending multiple attachments with Exchange Online, and using an upload session to process very large attachments. There are many other changes, rewrites, and enhancements scattered across the book, including a complete rewrite of our coverage of using Microsoft 365 PowerShell with Azure Automation.

Price, Price, Price

To reflect the increased value of the content included in Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell, we’ve increased the price from $12.95 to $14.95. Other books covering the use of PowerShell with Microsoft 365 are priced significantly higher, so we think that even the new price represents incredible value. We’re confident that no other book covers the number and variety of fully-worked out examples of how to use PowerShell to get work done with Microsoft 365.

We also increased the price of the paperback edition to $19.95. This is simply a function of the increased page count driving the cost we pay Amazon to print each copy on an on-demand. There’s nothing to stop anyone printing off the PDF version if you want a paper copy. The only issue you’ll run into is that the many hyperlinks (over 200 at the last count) we include in the book become unusable when printed. To get around the issue, we substitute plain-text links in the content of the paperback edition.

Subscribers of Office 365 for IT Pros don’t have to pay any extra for their copies of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell.

Onto Update #10

Work has already started on update #10. We’re waiting for Microsoft to release a new version of the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK. V2.25 has been around for about three months now, which is much longer than the usual monthly release cadence (Figure 1).

I don’t know why Microsoft has delayed the release of V2.26. It’s certainly not to deal with the problem related to plain-text passwords reported last week. No doubt we will hear in time. In the meanwhile, the interesting thing about the information shown in Figure 1 is the dramatic usage growth for the SDK from 1.18 million downloads of V2.24 to 3.49 million downloads for V2.25. That’s probably indicative of an uptick in interest as tenants work to get off the soon-to-retire MSOL and Azure AD modules. Maybe all those folks upgrading scripts to use the Graph SDK could do with a good book?

February 2025 Update for Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 Edition)

The Office 365 for IT Pros writing team is delighted to announce that monthly update #116 is now available. This is the sixth monthly update for Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition). Subscribers can download the updated files from their Gumroad.com account or by using the View content link in the receipt emailed after taking out a subscription (Figure 1). That link always downloads the latest book files.

Our change log lists the details of the changes made in update #116 and the other monthly updates. For more information about fetching updates, see our FAQ.

Update #8 for Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell

As previously announced, we released update #8 for the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook on January 27, 2025. Office 365 for IT Pros subscribers can download the updated PDF and EPUB files for the PowerShell book using the same link as they use to fetch the other book updates. Regretfully, we can’t update the print (paperback) version of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell that’s sold on an on-demand basis through Amazon. It’s kind of hard to take back print copies, remove all the updated pages, and paste new content into the book.

Dealing with Stamped PDFs

Some of our subscribers have reported problems downloading their copies of the PDF file from Gumroad.com. The symptom is that although the file is visible to them, the button to download the file is greyed out. This can happen for the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook or the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell book, or both.

Each PDF is stamped with the subscriber’s email address. This is done automatically by a background process run on Gumroad’s servers. We are a special case because we issue monthly updates, and each update requires Gumroad to restamp the PDFs. The problem appears to be caused by the background process failing to stamp copies for some subscribers, and because a stamped copy is unavailable, the download button is disabled in Gumroad’s UI.

We have reported the issue several times to Gumroad. Their head of development assures us that a permanent fix has been found and is being deployed. However, we know of at least one instance where a subscriber was unable to download the PDFs for update #116. If you encounter the problem, please send email to support AT Gumroad,com to report that you need help to download your PDF. In the message, be clear that the issue is with the stamped PDF being unavailable for download. The Gumroad support team is pretty responsive and will help you to get the files.

Agents Simpler to Create than Spreadsheets

Lots of change continues across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. I was taken by Satya Nadella’s assertion that Microsoft wants to make agents as easy to build as creating an Excel spreadsheet (remarks after Microsoft’s FY25 Q2 results). On the one hand, being able to create intelligent agents to get your work done sounds marvelous. On the other, I wonder how tenant administrators are going to cope with a flood of no-code or low-code agents created by users. It seems like we have been here before when Microsoft launched new tools without a full lifecycle framework to support creation, deployment, and ongoing management. Basic questions like what happens to agents created by a user account when that person leaves the organization remain unanswered. I sure hope that we’re not heading for choppy waters as the delights of AI-driven tooling unfolds.

Just another thing to keep on the to-do list for busy Microsoft 365 tenant administrators!

The Most Comprehensive PowerShell Book for Microsoft 365

The Office 365 for IT Pros team is delighted to announce the availability of monthly update #8 for the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook. The book is included with the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook and is also available separately, including in a paperback edition published on a print on demand basis by Amazon.

Updates for the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook are published monthly, just like the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook. However, we try to make the PowerShell update available a few days ahead of the main book because it allows us to clear the deck to work on chapter updates for the main book at the end of each month.

The Office 365 for IT Pros eBook contains many PowerShell examples. Originally, it also included a PowerShell chapter. Because the book is already quite large and we wanted to give more coverage to the important topic of the Microsoft Graph and how it can be used to process Microsoft 365, the decision was made to create the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook and to update its content on an ongoing basis, just like we do with Office 365 for IT Pros. The net result is that the book now spans five chapters and 280 pages of practical and useful information about how to use PowerShell with Microsoft 365.

Mastering the Graph

In particular, we’ve spent a lot of time working out how to exploit the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK. This is an incredibly important component that not only replaces the AzureAD and Microsoft Online Services modules (due for imminent retirement) but also opens up the possibilities of accessing data such as Exchange Online mailboxes, SharePoint Online sites, pages, and lists, Planner plans and tasks, and so on. The book also covers how to access Microsoft 365 data with Azure Automation.

The nice thing about mastering the maze of Microsoft Graph APIs, permissions, and SDK cmdlets is that once you understand how things work, the same techniques can be applied to all sorts of data.

If you’re still struggling to convert scripts from using the AzureAD and MSOL modules, you’ll find a lot of value in Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell. We can’t convert scripts for you, but we can give you the knowledge needed to smoothen and quicken the process.

The Print Edition

Due to the 1,200-page (plus) size of the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook, we’ve never been able to provide a print edition. Printing a book that’s updated monthly sounds like a bit of fool’s errand, but we have received many requests because some people like consulting print books for technical topics. Some even went so far as to print the PDF issued for each monthly update.

There are many print on demand services available for books. We decided to try Amazon, and people can now buy a paperback edition of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell. It’s impossible to update a print copy, so if you buy a printed book, it contains whatever content is current at the time of purchase. Two major differences exist between the print and electronic versions (PDF and EPUB). The print version obviously can’t support hyperlinks, so these become footnotes. The second difference is that we provide an index for the print version to replace the search capabilities that the electronic versions have.

The paperback has proven to be more popular than anticipated, so we’ll keep it going for those who want this option.

On to Update #9

In line with our regular cadence, monthly update #116 for the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook will be available for download on February 1, 2025. Subscribers can download the update #8 files for Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell now. We hope that you find the books useful. Let us know if we should cover other topics by adding a comment for this article.

Monthly Update #114 Now Available to Office 365 For IT Pros Subscribers

The Office 365 for IT Pros writing team is delighted to announce the release of monthly update #114. Current subscribers can download copies of the updated PDF and EPUB files for the Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) eBook from Gumroad.com through their account or by using the download link in the receipt emailed to them. For more details about how to get the latest files, please visit our FAQ. Details of the changes made in update #114 can be found in our change log.

Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell Gets an Update Too

The Automating Microsoft 365 for IT Pros eBook has also been updated and is now at version 6.0. We’re particularly pleased with the progress this book has made since its launch. It now spans some 270 pages and contains more content about using PowerShell to automate common Microsoft 365 processes than anywhere else.

Updated files for Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell are included in the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook bundle. Those who bought standalone copies of Automating Microsoft 365 for IT Pros eBook can also download updated PDF and EPUB files using the download link in their receipts. We’ve also updated the paperback edition of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell on Amazon.com. Obviously, paperback copies are one-off purchases that cannot be upgraded. If we had the technology to update paperbacks with new content, we’d consider using it, but no such facility exists.

Digesting Ignite 2024

As expected, Microsoft made a bunch of Microsoft 365 announcements at the Ignite 2024 conference. Many of the announcements were focused on making their AI tools more manageable and useable in customer environments. Disappointingly, many Microsoft 365 tenants won’t see the product of that work because they don’t have expensive Copilot licenses. Let’s hope that the results of the new technology show up for everyone in the future.

Most of the Ignite 2024 announcements haven’t shown up in production tenants yet and won’t appear for several months. That’s just the nature of marketing events, a category that Ignite is now firmly in. But we’ll keep a keen eye on developments and make sure that important changes show up in Office 365 for IT Pros as soon as features are available in production.

Speaking of AI, I received quite a response from the article published about the affect AI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot exert over sites that publish articles about technology. Companies like Microsoft will continue to publish documentation for their products. The danger lies that sites specializing in independent commentary and insight might cease operations because their sources of revenue are being choked.

We live in interesting times, or so we’re told. AI isn’t going to go away and will become more embedded in technology as years go by. The question is how knowledge sharing within the technology community will evolve. It would be a pity if knowledge started to be hidden behind paywalls, but that’s what might be necessary to stop AI reusing knowledge without payment.

Off to Stockholm

This coming week I shall be at the ESPC conference in Stockholm, Sweden. I’m speaking about decoding the Microsoft 365 audit log at 10:30am on Tuesday (session T7) and the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK on at 10:15am Wednesday (session W3). If you’re at the ESPC, please come along and say hi. I’d love to hear your comments about how we can improve the Office 365 for IT Pros and Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBooks. The great thing about eBooks is that we can respond to user feedback by tweaking the updates we incorporate into our monthly updates, starting with update #115, our first of 2025.

Monthly Update #113 for the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook

The Office 365 for IT Pros eBook team is happy to announce the availability of the November 2024 update (#113) for Office 365 for IT Teams (2025 edition). Current subscribers can download the updated files using the link in their receipt or through their Gumroad.com account. More details about how to fetch updates are available in our FAQ.  Details of changes made at the chapter level are available in our change log.

Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) includes the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook. The PowerShell book has also been refreshed and expanded in this update.

Microsoft FY25 Q1 Results

Closing off the November update coincided with Microsoft releasing its FY25 Q1 results. Normally, I publish a post to comment about the parts of the results that relate to Microsoft 365, but Microsoft’s current rush to apply artificial intelligence to everything means that their quarterly results feature less detail about Microsoft 365.

What we learned was that revenues for the Microsoft Cloud reached $38.9 billion (up 22% year-over-year), or an annual run rate of $155.6 billion. These revenues come with a very healthy 71% margin. In terms of seats, Microsoft has stopped talking about Office 365 seats and now discusses Microsoft 365 seats. That’s fine because Microsoft 365 includes Office 365. In any case, Microsoft said that the number of paid seats had increased 8% year-over-year, which puts Office 365 seats at or around 420 million. Most of the new seats come from frontline workers and small businesses, which might indicate that Office 365 is at saturation point within the enterprise.

In a response to analyst questions (see the earnings call transcript), CFO Amy Hood said that the new seats have “a lower RPU point” (lower average revenue per user). However, upgrades to E5 and Copilot help drive the ARPU and Hood said that she expects to see the impact of Copilot engagement in that number (which Microsoft doesn’t share) going forward.

The Impact of Microsoft 365 Copilot

Speaking of Copilot, Microsoft gave no firm numbers about the number of Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses they’ve managed to sell. They gave some meaningless statistics, like the number of people using Copilot doubled quarter over quarter and that 70% of the Fortune 500 use Copilot. With true numbers, this data is useless. They could be true if Copilot seats doubled from 2 to 4 and each Fortune 500 organization was testing with 100 seats (or less). Citing Microsoft 365 Copilot deployments like Vodafone (68,000 seats) and UBS (50,000 seats) is more impressive.

Microsoft said that the annual run rate of their AI business will get to $10 billion in the next quarter. It’s important to say that this number includes business like Azure OpenAI and isn’t interpreted as Copilot revenue.

The Meaningless Teams Data

Another example of meaningless Microsoft assertions is the statement that 75% of Teams enterprise customers use Premium, Phone, or Rooms. In their FY24 Q4 results, Microsoft said that 3 million users had Teams Premium licenses (less than 1% of the 320 million Teams installed base). The claim now being made doesn’t detail the number of seats sold to Teams enterprise customers or a breakdown of how many have Premium, Phone, or Rooms licenses, so it’s impossible to say whether this is an impressive or disappointing statistic.

On to Office 365 for IT Pros Update #114

What we learned from Microsoft’s results is that the number of paid Microsoft 365 seats continues to grow, albeit possibly more slowly in the enterprise segment. Microsoft’s focus on upselling customers to more expensive products and add-ons continues in the pursuit of higher ARPU. Not much has changed in those respects over the last few years. Meanwhile, the attention of the Office 365 for IT Pros team turns to monthly update #114, which we anticipate will be available on December 1, 2024.

Monthly Update #110 Available for Download

The Office 365 for IT Pros eBook team is delighted to announce that the first monthly update (#110) is available for the Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) eBook. Subscribers can download the files for the update using their Gumroad account or the link in the receipt they received via email. For more information about how to download updates, please see our FAQ. The update covers both the Office 365 for IT Pros and Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell books.

Change Log

Many of the changes made in update #110 are minor in nature because they’re grammatical or formatting updates found after the initial publication of Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) in July. Alongside the fixes, we have included a bunch of information about new functionality and changes Microsoft is making within the ecosystem, like the retirement of Office Connectors in Teams. See our change log for more information.

Reviews

It’s great to see so many nice reviews for Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 Edition). If you’d like to add a review for the book, please do so by following the Gumroad guidelines.

Kindle Versions and Paperbacks

We decided not to publish Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition) as a Kindle eBook. However, we do publish Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell in both Kindle and paperback formats. Publishing a paperwork edition means that every hyperlink in the eBook version must be converted into a footnote. When writing an eBook, you don’t think about the number of hyperlinks because you know that readers can access the hyperlinks in both the PDF and EPUB formats. As it turns out, the 250-page PowerShell book includes 199 hyperlinks.

The reaction to the paperback version of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell has been very interesting. People seem to really like it, so we’ll persist with the venture. Of course, you can’t update printed content, so people who buy copies of the paperback get whatever content is available at that time. We will update the printed content whenever we update the Kindle eBook, so multiple versions of the text will be in use.

Creating a print version of the main book is still beyond our means. The main challenge is that the book spans too many pages for online book publishers to handle. I guess we could split the book in half and publish two separate printed books, but that seems like a whole heap of work for an uncertain reward. Right now, I prefer to dedicate whatever time is available to making sure that the content of Office 365 for IT Pros is as up-to-date and accurate as possible.

Upgrading Office 365 for IT Pros Subscriptions

Every year, we offer subscribers the chance to extend their subscriptions to cover the new edition of Office 365 for IT Pros. The discounted price to extend subscriptions escalated over time as follows:

• Update before July 21 for $16.95.
• Update before August 5 for $19.95.
• Update after August 5 for $29.95.

The intention of the escalating cost to renew subscriptions is to reward people who have supported us over the years by renewing immediately each time a new edition appears.

People extend their subscriptions by using a special URL that we provide to subscribers. This year, I’ve noticed a bunch of people who used the special URL to take out a subscription who never subscribed before. When I asked how they obtained the code, I was told that they received the URL from a coworker or friend who thought that they’d like to benefit from the reduced price.

Although I appreciate the friendly gesture, this isn’t how the scheme is supposed to work. If you receive a special URL from us, it’s for your use only. Sharing the URL with others deprives us of revenue and undermines our ability to make discounted subscriptions available.

We haven’t yet decided what to do about those who used a discount code they weren’t entitled to. We could cancel the subscription and remove their access to book files. However, that’s a pretty hard-line attitude to take when people might have been unaware that they were abusing a subscription. So for now we’ll simply ask our loyal subscribers not to share URLs for discounts with others.

If you subscribed to Office 365 for IT Pros (2024 edition), please use the code we sent via email to extend your subscription by August 5. $19.95 isn’t a lot for the Office 365 for IT Pros and Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBooks, is it?

Monthly Update #108 Released to Subscribers

The team is happy to release the final update for the Office 365 for IT Pros 2024 edition. Monthly update #108 is the eleventh and last update for this edition as we will release the Office 365 for IT Pros 2025 Edition on July 1, if all our plans proceed as we hope.

Subscribers should download the latest files from their Gumroad.com account or use the link in the receipt they received after the original purchase. More information about obtaining updated files is available in our FAQ. We’ve updated the Kindle book files on Amazon.com too. Unfortunately, purchasers of the Kindle book must contain Amazon support to gain access to the updated files.

A Massive Source of Knowledge

The updated book contains a mixture of new information, changes, and deletions as we keep pace with the ongoing flood of changes for Microsoft 365 applications delivered by Microsoft. To give some idea about the effect on the book of tracking change, the July 2023 release spanned 1,352 pages (693,609 words). The current update spans 1,429 pages (733,864 words).

Since we released Office 365 for IT Pros 2024 edition, we’ve added 67 pages (net) with 40,255 words. Behind those raw statistics are a bunch of changes (which might not affect page or word count) and deletions (which create space for new material). A glance at our change log gives an insight into where the changes occurred. If anyone doubts the usefulness of a book that’s constantly updated to cater for ongoing change in a technology, they only need to look at our change log.

The New Version

A new version gives the writing team the chance to review the book end to end. We’re currently in the middle of a comprehensive technical edit process to improve material, identify outdated content that’s lingering and occupying space, address areas that need additional explanation, and even update screenshots to match current user interfaces. Microsoft developers appear to be fascinated by user interface tweaks. They change one or two words on a screen and don’t say anything, so we only find out about the need for a figure update if someone tells us or we notice the change.

The tasks listed above are the norm for us. The 2025 edition is the eleventh in a series going back to 2015. This time around, we plan to make some more fundamental changes.

No More Companion Volume after the 2024 Edition

First, we’re dropping the companion volume. This book was intended to be the place where we could move old content so that people who still needed the information could find it. However, the companion volume has become increasingly decrepit, and we doubt if many still use it. Another factor to consider is the improvement in Microsoft documentation over the years, meaning that those who need information about something like Microsoft Forms or Sway can find it online.

A New PowerShell Book

Second, as obvious from the numbers cited above, the main book is too big. We’ve thought about this a lot and concluded that the best way forward is to split off standalone books covering selected topics. At the end, we might end up with a group of six books under the Office 365 for IT Pros banner. For now, we will start with PowerShell and have created a standalone 200-page book called “Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell.” We plan to sell this book on its own as well as bundling it with Office 365 for IT Pros.

The main book still includes many PowerShell examples where they fit in context. However, the in-depth discussions about PowerShell, the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK, and using Graph API requests from PowerShell have a new home. The PowerShell book includes about 40% more content than the equivalent chapter in the 2024 edition.

It’s too early to say yet what the next standalone book will be. It could cover Groups and Teams, or maybe Compliance. We’re still noodling on that topic.

What is clear is that Office 365 for IT Pros subscribers will receive both the main book and any standalone books we create. You won’t lose access to any information. In fact, you’ll have even more information at your fingertips.

Subscribing to Office 365 for IT Pros 2025 Edition

We still have one more month to run before Office 365 for IT Pros 2025 Edition is available. We understand that people are unwilling to subscribe to a book that will soon be replaced. Our offer is that anyone who subscribes to Office 365 for IT Pros 2024 edition in June 2024 will receive a free upgrade to the 2025 edition when it is available.

As to our current subscribers, we thank you for your support. Without your backing we could not afford to spend the time we do to keep the book updated. After we publish the 2025 edition, you’ll be able to upgrade your subscription for a heavily discounted price. It’s our way of saying thank you.