Microsoft 365 and cloud management

Microsoft 365 and cloud management software gives an MSP one console to provision users, assign licences, apply security baseline templates and manage conditional access across every client's Microsoft 365 tenant, instead of an admin logging into each tenant's own portal one at a time. Automated offboarding removes access and reassigns licences when a user leaves, and shadow SaaS discovery surfaces unauthorised third-party applications connected to a tenant that nobody approved. Delegated admin access, often through Microsoft's GDAP model, is how the multi-tenant console gets access to each client's environment without a separate admin account per tenant. This category does not back up Microsoft 365 data itself, though several products integrate with a SaaS backup tool; that is a separate category.

Pricing is per tenant or per user per month, depending on the vendor. Some products price the base console access per tenant with a smaller additional charge per managed user within it.

Tenant and user provisioning plus licence assignment cover the operational day-to-day, and security baseline templates matter for applying consistent settings across clients rather than configuring each tenant by hand. Conditional access management and shadow SaaS discovery add security visibility beyond basic administration. Automated offboarding reduces the risk of an ex-employee retaining access, and Microsoft Graph API integration matters if you want to build custom reporting or automation on top of the platform. Reporting and QBR exports matter for showing clients the value of ongoing tenant management.

GDAP support is the integration that determines whether the console can manage client tenants at all under Microsoft's current delegated admin model, so confirm a product supports it rather than an older, deprecated access method. PSA integration and backup integration matter for tying provisioning and offboarding work into ticketed, billable work and ensuring a newly provisioned mailbox gets backed up automatically.

Ask about the contract term, whether pricing is per tenant or per user, and how the product handles GDAP relationship changes if Microsoft updates its delegated access requirements again. Ask what happens to configured security baselines and automation if you switch vendors.

A small MSP managing a handful of Microsoft 365 tenants might manage manually through Microsoft's own admin centre for a while before the time savings justify a dedicated tool. A larger MSP managing many tenants needs the multi-tenant console specifically to avoid the operational overhead of logging into each tenant separately, and benefits more from automated offboarding and shadow SaaS discovery at scale.