MS-203 Microsoft 365 Messaging

This course examines the key elements of Microsoft 365 messaging administration, including message transport and mail flow, messaging security, hygiene, and compliance, messaging infrastructure, and hybrid messaging. This course is designed for IT Professionals who deploy and manage the messaging infrastructure for Microsoft 365 in their organization.
The course begins with an examination of Microsoft’s messaging transport pipeline. You will learn how to plan, configure, and manage transport services to provide efficient communication between your Exchange Servers, Exchange Online, and other mail servers on the Internet. You will also learn how to manage and troubleshoot mail flow, as well as how to troubleshoot transport services when issues occur in different scenarios so that you can provide your organization with a healthy and reliable messaging infrastructure. You will then learn about the different messaging-related security and compliance service configurations and settings with Exchange Server and Exchange Online.
You will begin by examining the fundamentals of message hygiene with Exchange Online Protection and Exchange Advanced Threat Protection, as well as connection and spam filtering with Exchange. You will then examine messaging compliance solutions, such as retention and data loss prevention policies, as well as audit log investigations and eDiscovery search mechanisms from the messaging compliance perspective.
You will then transition to a study of the Microsoft messaging infrastructure. This includes managing organizational settings, mobile devices, role-based permissions, recipient objects and resources, and address lists. This section then examines public folders, including how to plan, implement, and troubleshoot your public folder hierarchy.
Finally, the course concludes with an introduction to the world of hybrid messaging. You will learn how to deploy a hybrid environment for your Exchange organization and how to migrate mailboxes to Exchange Online. You will begin by examining available mailbox migration options, and then focus on planning for a hybrid deployment. Finally, you will learn how to implement and troubleshoot a hybrid deployment.

Module 1: Managing the Transport Pipeline
In this module, you will learn about the different transport components of Exchange, how the message routing works, and how to configure the message flow for your organization. You will examine the tasks that messaging administrators must complete to configure message transport. You will review the message transport options and learn how to configure domains and connectors and how to implement an approval workflow for messaging. You will also learn how to manage transport rules, which are a very powerful configuration to control the message flow in your organization.
Lessons

Overview of Transport Services
Configuring Message Transport
Managing Transport Rules

Lab : Configure Message Transport

Create Connectors

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe the transport components of Exchange
Plan an effective message routing for your organization
Modify message flow for your organization
Describe which transport agents exist and what they do
Configure the different transport options
Plan and set up domains for your organizations
Understand how receive and send connectors work
Describe how message moderation for different recipients work
Understand what transport rules are
Describe how transport rules are working
Configure custom transport rules
Describe how transport rules can be used for data loss prevention

Module 2: Managing and Troubleshooting Mail Flow
In this module, you will examine the components of mail flow, and you will learn how to manage your mail flow, which is a crucial task for every Exchange administrator. You will study the differences between managing mail flow in Exchange Online, Exchange Server, and Exchange Hybrid deployments.
From managing mail flow, you will transition to troubleshooting mail flow issues such as emails not being routed correctly in or outside your organization, or when secure connections cannot be established successfully. Yo will learn about the tools Microsoft provides to help you find the root cause of your issues and fix your mail flow. You will then transition from troubleshooting mail flow to troubleshooting transport issues, such as network-based issues, connector and agent issues, and architectural issues, as well as how to troubleshoot in coexistence.
Finally, you will learn how to check event, protocol, and tracking logs when all troubleshooting for service availability and message transport has finished and an issue still persists, or if you must find historical data about issues in the past,
Lessons

Managing Mail Flow
Troubleshooting Mail Flow
Troubleshooting Transport Issues
Troubleshooting with Logs

Lab : Conditional Mail Routing

Create Mail Flow Rules

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Manage mail flow in organizations
Understand mail flow for Exchange Servers
Manage mail flow for Exchange Online
Describe and manage mail flow in hybrid environments
Understand how to troubleshoot SMTP mail flow issues
Describe how to troubleshoot issues with a shared namespace
Describe how to troubleshoot encryption issues with TLS
Perform troubleshooting for network-based issues
Describe troubleshooting procedures for connector and agent issues
Plan troubleshooting for architectural issues
Understand how to perform troubleshooting in coexistence
Create searches for the message tracking log
Describe how to troubleshoot using the protocol logs
Understand how to work with the event logging for Exchange

Module 3: Managing Message Hygiene
In this module, you will learn about Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) features and functionality. You will also learn how to plan messaging routing for this service, which provides anti-malware and anti-spam policies that protect your organization against spam and malware and safeguards your organization from messaging-policy violations.
You will then review the anti-malware and anti-spam protection that Exchange Server and Online Protection provide, and you will learn how to configure SPAM and malware filters, policies, and settings to provide protection for your users. You will conclude the module by examining Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and how it extends the protection provided by EOP by filtering targeted attacks that could pass through EOP’s line of defenses, including advanced threats such as zero-day attacks in email attachments and Office documents and time-of-click protection against malicious URLs.
You will learn how Microsoft 365 ATP protects users from advanced threats through features such as safe attachments and safe links, and how it generates reports which provide administrators with insight into attacks targeting their tenants through email.
Lessons

Planning for Message Hygiene
Managing Anti-Malware and Anti-Spam Policies
Managing Advanced Threat Protection

Lab : Managing Messaging Hygiene

Create Hygiene Filters

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Explain the use and features of Exchange Online Protection
Plan message routing for Exchange Online Protection
Investigate the available EOP reports and logs
Understand the different message header fields relevant for spam and spoofing protection
Configure anti-spam and anti-malware filters in Exchange Server
Using additional features for outbound spam filtering and quarantine
Implementing protection features against phishing and spoofing
Create transport rules for custom requirements
Describe the features of Advanced Threat Protection
Describe the protection provided by Safe Attachment and Safe Links policies
Understand the spoof intelligence features
Know how ATP anti-phishing policies work

Module 4: Managing Compliance
This module begins by describing the different compliance features in the Security & Compliance Center (SCC) that messaging administrators can use to comply with legal and regulatory requirements. This module supports compliance in Exchange by examining the compliance features available in the Exchange Admin Center for Exchange Server and hybrid deployments. Because of the complex retention requirements of modern messaging environments, this module focuses on how archiving is performed with Exchange so that you can provide an efficient and compliant environment to your users.
You will also examine how additional archive storage is provided to your users, how messages are automatically processed and archived, and how audit logging in Exchange that provides information about administrator, delegate, and user actions in user mailboxes and your Exchange organization. Finally, because organizations must adhere to legal discovery requirements (related to organizational policy, compliance, or lawsuits), you will examine how eDiscovery for Microsoft Exchange can help you perform discovery searches for relevant content within mailboxes.
Lessons

Messaging Compliance in the SCC
Messaging Compliance in Exchange
Managing Exchange Online Archiving and Auditing
Managing Content Search

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe different policy and compliance features for messaging
Evaluate the different roles in the Security & Compliance Center
Plan retention policies for Exchange Online mailboxes
Configure data loss prevention (DLP) policies for data in Microsoft 365
Create message traces to understand the mail flow in your Exchange Online organization
Describe litigation and in-place holds in Exchange Server
Plan retention and deletion with Message Records Management (MRM)
Protect your mail flow with data loss prevention policies in Exchange Server
Investigate the message tracking log in your Exchange organization
Describe what in-place archiving is and how it works
Understand the differences between journaling and archiving
Know what the mailbox and administrator audit logs are used for
Understand content searches to search for messages in your organization
Describe eDiscovery cases and in-place eDiscovery for Exchange
Manage Advanced eDiscovery cases in the Security & Compliance Center

Module 5: Managing Organizational Settings
This module begins with an examination on how to manage authentication for messaging. This module focuses on how to ensure that user accounts are well protected and secure, and how to deploy multiple security features that do not introduce unnecessary complexity in users’ everyday work, which can result in lower business productivity and new security risks. You will then transition from messaging authentication to organizational settings, where you will learn how to configure settings that apply to the entire organization or to many users in the organization. Finally, you will examine how to configure organizational sharing.
Lessons

Managing Authentication for Messaging
Configuring Organizational Settings
Configuring Organizational Sharing

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Configure password policy options
Configure self-service password management
Implement multi-factor authentication
Plan password policies
Configure workload policies and throttling
Configure quota configurations
Configure Exchange Server and Skype for Business integration
Deploy Office 365 add-ins
Provide an overview of Exchange federated delegation sharing features
Describe federated sharing components
Explain considerations for designing and implementing federation trusts and certificates
Implement organization relationships
Implement sharing policies

Module 6: Managing Mobile Devices
In this module, you will begin by examining Mobile Device Management in Microsoft 365, as well as how Exchange ActiveSync and mobile device mailbox policies support this effort. You will then examine how to manage and troubleshoot mobile device access. This module then examines how to configure both access and infrastructure for mobile devices, understanding the implications of mobile device remote wipe, and learning about alternative methods for mobile device management.
Lessons

Mobile Device Mailbox Policies
Managing Mobile Device Access

Lab : Implement ActiveSync

Implement Active Sync for single and multiple mailboxes

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe how Exchange ActiveSync works
Configure mobile device mailbox policies
Understand Mobile Device Management in Microsoft 365
Configure access for mobile devices
Understand components of mobile device infrastructure
Tell how a mobile device remote wipe works
Describe alternatives for mobile device management
Troubleshoot mobile device access

Module 7: Managing Role-Based Permissions
This module examines how messaging administrators manage role-based permissions, which is an essential task for any messaging administrator. Since Exchange Server and Exchange Online both use the Role Based Access Control (RBAC) permission model, this module examines the basics of RBAC management. The module concludes by examining how a messaging administrator must plan and configure permissions carefully so as not to put their environment or their entire Active Directory at risk.
Lessons

Managing Admin Roles
Managing User Roles
Exchange Setup - RBAC and AD Split Permission

Lab : Manage Roles and Permission Policies

Manage Roles and Permission Policies

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe how RBAC is used to assign roles to users
Understand what management role group for administrative tasks are
Assign the built-in management roles for administration
Create custom management roles and assign them through role assignment policies to users
Troubleshoot RBAC management roles
Describe the built-in end-user roles
Configure role assignment policies
Create new custom roles and role assignment policies
Understand the differences between shared permissions and split permissions
Describe multi-forest permissions
Identify the differences between the permission models

Module 8: Managing Recipient Objects and Resources
This module examines some of the most common tasks that messaging administrators perform - creating and configuring email recipients, lists, and resources. This module examines the different types of Exchange Server recipients, including how they differ from each other. The module then focuses on the various tasks that require you to create and manage Exchange recipients in Exchange, including user mailboxes, resource mailboxes, shared mailboxes, mail contacts, and mail users. You will also learn how to manage permissions for recipients, and how to create and manage groups.
Lessons

Exchange Recipients
Creating and Managing Exchange Recipients
Managing Email Addresses, Lists, and Resources

Lab : Create Recipient Objects and Resources

Create Exchange Recipients
Create Groups

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe the different recipient objects in Exchange
Describe resource mailboxes
Describe shared mailboxes
Describe linked mailboxes and site mailboxes
Describe groups
Create and manage Mailbox settings
Create and manage Resource and Shared mailboxes
Create and manage Mail contacts and mail users
Create and manage Recipient permissions
Create and manage Groups
Describe address lists
Explain how to configure address lists
Describe address book policies
Explain how to configure offline address books
Describe email address policies

Module 9: Managing Public Folders
In this module, you will learn about public folders in Exchange, review the planning considerations for deploying public folders, and discuss alternatives to public folders. You will also learn how to implement and manage public folder mailboxes, public folders, and public folder permissions, as well as how to create and manage mail-enabled public folders. The module concludes by examining how to monitor and troubleshoot Public Folder-related issues.
Lessons

Planning the Public Folder Hierarchy
Implementing and Managing Public Folders
Troubleshooting Public Folders

Lab : Implement Public Folders

Create Public Folders
Manage Public Folders

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe public folders in Exchange
Plan a public folder hierarchy
Plan public folder mailboxes
Explain public folder quotas
Evaluate alternatives to public folders
Describe considerations for implementing Public Folders
Deploy public folder mailboxes
Manage public folder permissions
Create and manage mail-enabled public folders
Monitor public folders
Troubleshoot public folders
Troubleshoot public folder access

Module 10: Planning a Hybrid Environment
In this module you will examine the requirements necessary to implement a hybrid deployment, and you will learn about the features and components that are required when implementing a hybrid deployment. This module examines all planning aspects that are required before running the Hybrid Configuration Wizard. This includes the configuration options of the HCW, as well as the details on Organization Configuration Transfer (OCT) and the Hybrid Agent. The module concludes with a review of the mail flow options for a hybrid deployment.
Lessons

Exchange Hybrid Deployment Requirements
Planning to Run the Hybrid Configuration Wizard

Lab : Prepare Azure AD for Hybrid Synchronization

Prepare Azure AD for Hybrid Synchronization

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe connection options that are available for connecting on-premises Exchange to Microsoft 365
List and describe components of a hybrid deployment
Describe Azure Active Directory Connect (Azure AD Connect)
Identify Microsoft 365 identity options for Exchange hybrid
Compare Exchange delegated federation vs. OAuth
Plan for Exchange Hybrid configuration
Describe Organization Configuration Transfer
Explain Exchange Modern Hybrid and Hybrid Agent
Plan mail flow options for a hybrid deployment

Module 11: Performing Mailbox Migrations
This module examines the options that are available for migrating email to Exchange Online, such as performing a migration or using FastTrack to move mailboxes from your existing mail servers to Exchange Online. This module summarizes the migration and co-existence options and recommends when to use which option.
The module then examines the requirements for running an IMAP migration, the migration options that are available, and the steps that are performed during a migration. The module then examines how to plan and perform both a cutover and staged migration. It compares each of these two migration approaches, and you will learn about the requirements, planning activities, and migration process for each option. The module concludes by examining important additional migration tasks, such as migrating a PST file and the considerations for a Public Folder migration.
Lessons

Planning Mailbox Migrations
Performing IMAP Migrations
Performing Cutover and Staged Migrations
Performing Advanced Migrations

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe the migration and coexistence strategies with Exchange Online
Use FastTrack to move mailboxes
Describe the requirements for an IMAP migration and how it’s carried out
Move mailbox data using an IMAP migration
Describe the requirements for both cutover and staged migrations
Perform a migration and move mailboxes either with a cutover or staged migration
Import PST Files to Exchange Online mailboxes
Migrate Public Folders to Exchange Online

Module 12: Deploying and Troubleshooting a Hybrid Environment
In this module you will learn the key areas to plan for regarding Edge Transport servers. You will then learn about the requirements and best practices to configure a hybrid deployment, which is the first step for your Exchange organization, regardless of whether you want to connect your Exchange on-premises and Exchange Online organizations for long-term coexistence or as part of a cloud migration strategy. In this module, you will then examine how to manage a hybrid deployment and implement advanced hybrid functionality. You will cover the features that require a successful hybrid deployment such as Public Folder coexistence or OneDrive for Business attachment storage for on-premises mailboxes.
This module concludes with an introduction to troubleshooting techniques for a hybrid deployment. You will learn how to troubleshoot directory synchronization issues including pass-through authentication (PTA) and single sign-on, Exchange transport, and client access troubleshooting as well as mailbox replication service troubleshooting.
Lessons

Deploying and Managing an Edge Transport Server
Configuring a Hybrid Deployment using the HCW
Implementing Advanced Hybrid Functionality
Troubleshooting Hybrid Deployments

Lab : Deploy a Hybrid Environment

Set Up your Hybrid Deployment
Test your Hybrid Deployment

After completing this module, students will be able to:

Describe the purpose and functionality of Edge Transport servers
Explain the infrastructure requirements for Edge Transport servers
Describe EdgeSync
Plan for message flow with an Edge Transport server
Describe the prerequisites to run the Office 365 Hybrid Configuration Wizard
Explain best practices for implementing a hybrid deployment
Manage a hybrid deployment
Describe when you must configure Public Folder coexistence with Office 365
Explain how to configure Oauth for a mixed Exchange environment
Describe how to configure OneDrive for Business attachments for on-premises mailboxes
Troubleshoot Directory synchronization
Troubleshoot Pass-Through Authentication and Single Sign-On
Troubleshoot Transport with Exchange Online
Troubleshoot Client Access in Coexistence
Troubleshoot Mailbox Replication Service