Creating Connections to Microsoft Office 365

Important: The FlexNet Beacon released with IT Asset Management 2018 R2 or later is required to use the Microsoft 365 connector. However, installing the FlexNet Beacon included in the 2019 R1 or later release provides maximum ease-of-use with the Microsoft 365 connector by including auto-populated values on the Create PowerShell Source Connection dialog (that otherwise need to be entered manually). In addition, Microsoft Office 365 (deprecated) will not appear as a Source Type connection on the Create PowerShell Source Connection dialog, and instead will remain Microsoft Office 365.

Important:Always use the 32-bit version of PowerShell for any PowerShell connections.

Note:The connector to SaaS Management supersedes and overrides both the Microsoft 365 connector and the Microsoft Office 365 (deprecated) connector. This means that if you implement the SaaS Management connector, any licenses that are created from imports through either of the Office 365 connectors are automatically given a status of Retired, so that they have no impact on license reconciliation calculations. Instead, new licenses are created from the SaaS Management imports, and these are included in license reconciliations as usual. For further details, see IT Asset Management Settings: Integrations Tab.

A separate connection is required for each tenant of Microsoft Office 365. (Typically, there is one tenant per enterprise; but your corporate history, particularly of mergers and acquisitions, may mean that your enterprise has multiple Microsoft tenants.) The inventory beacon requires this connection to import entitlements, users, and usage information from the Microsoft Office 365 online account. Each per-tenant import covers all subscriptions for that tenant.

When you use the Microsoft 365 connector, there are two ways of creating connections to the Microsoft Office 365 online service. Refer to the following sections for associated instructions:

Methods to Create Connections to the Microsoft Office 365 Online Service

Section	Description
Using IT Asset Management’s Multi-Tenant App to Connect to Microsoft 365	The Microsoft 365 connector uses a pre-registered multi-tenant app that has been configured by Flexera for the purpose of collecting Microsoft Office 365 data. This app is configured to allow our customers to collect data without the hassle of registering an app in their own instance.
Registering an App Using the Azure Portal to Connect to Microsoft 365	This second method registers an app within your own Microsoft Office 365 instance.

If you use the Microsoft Office 365 (deprecated) connector, refer to the instructions in Creating Connections Using the Microsoft Office 365 (Deprecated) Connector.