Exchange Management Tools

The integration of on-premises and cloud environments offers numerous benefits. But in terms of Exchange management administration, it also adds some confusion.

This article will show you how to manage Exchange in the most efficient way possible when running a hybrid Microsoft 365 installation.

Exchange Management Consoles

To manage Microsoft 365 mailboxes using standard tools, you’re facing a mixed bag of tools:

  • Active Directory Users & Computers is needed to manage a lot of synchronized attributes
  • On-premises Exchange Admin Center is necessary to manage mail attributes in your AD
  • Exchange Online Admin Center is required to manage some of the Microsoft 365 mailbox properties
  • Microsoft 365 Admin Center (or the Azure/Entra ID Portal) is needed to manage Microsoft 365 licenses (enable/disable mailboxes)
  • And even PowerShell is required to manage some settings (like calendar delegation and Outlook auto-mapping)

With third-party tools like EasyEntra, you can significantly simplify your Microsoft 365 Exchange management. 

Exchange Administration with EasyEntra

EasyEntra is a stand-alone application that consolidates Active Directory Users & Computers, Admin Center Portals, and PowerShell into a single intuitive UI.

With EasyEntra, Exchange management becomes an integrated part of your standard AD user management.

The layout in EasyEntra closely mimics AD Users & Computers for easy adoption:

With EasyEntra, you can assign Microsoft 365 licenses, manage mail addresses (proxyAddresses), configure mailbox delegation, synchronize Microsoft Entra Connect, and much more.

As an example, with EasyEntra, it only takes a few seconds to create a  hybrid shared mailbox:

The synchronized user is available in Entra ID immediately, without waiting for synchronization with Microsoft Entra Connect.

Review all EasyEntra features here.

To try this simplistic approach to Exchange management, download the fully-functional 30-day trial of EasyEntra here.

Exchange Administration Using Standard Tools

Without EasyEntra, you need to navigate a significant number of tools to manage your hybrid Microsoft 365.

The following sections will outline the tools required when using the standard approach to Exchange Online management.

Exchange Management – Active Directory Users & Computers

AD Users & Computers is needed to manage your on-premises users and groups.

In a hybrid environment, many Exchange Online-related attributes are synchronized from your on-premises AD.

Your local AD is said to be “authoritative” for these attributes, and therefore, you need to manage the attributes in your local AD.

You can manage many attributes directly (such as proxyAddresses), but it’s not recommended, as mistakes can be challenging to troubleshoot.

With EasyEntra, you get a lot of benefits, like proper GUI access to modify the proxyAddresses attribute, AD search results as-you-type, and consolidated management of cloud-only group membership and MFA directly from AD user properties.

Active Directory Users & Computers

Exchange Management  – Exchange On-Premises Admin Center

The Exchange on-premises Admin Center provides a more friendly way to manage your Exchange-related attributes in your local AD.

However, many admins consider it a significant drawback to have to maintain an on-premises Exchange Server after having migrated all mailboxes to Microsoft 365.

Additionally, Exchange on-premises remains a popular target for zero-day exploits and ransomware attacks, as evidenced by the massive Hafnium attack in early 2021.

With EasyEntra, you can save money and reduce risk by removing your on-premises Exchange Server.

Exchange Admin Center (EAC)

Exchange Management – Exchange Online Admin Center

With the Exchange Online Admin Center, you can manage some of the mailbox settings like delegation, size restrictions, and more.

In a hybrid environment, you need to remain conscious of whether attributes are authoritative in your local AD or Microsoft 365.

If you try to configure settings in the wrong place, you’ll be met with error messages like this: 

The operation on mailbox failed because it's out of the current user's write scope. The action Set-Mailbox EmailAddresses can't be performed on the object because the object is being synchronized from your on-premises organization. This action should be performed on the object in your on-premises organization.

With EasyEntra, you don’t have to worry about attribute authority, as EasyEntra will always update attributes in the proper place and keep your hybrid environment properly synchronized.

Exchange Admin Center Online

Exchange Management – Microsoft 365 Admin Center

The Microsoft 365 Admin Center allows you to manage Office 365 licenses.

User mailboxes are provisioned by assigning an Exchange Online license to the user, so this is the tool you need to enable or disable mailboxes.

With EasyEntra, you can easily manage Microsoft 365 licenses as part of your AD user management: 

Microsoft 365 Admin Center user and mailbox management

Exchange Management – The Azure Portal

The Azure Portal is another web console that can be used to manage Microsoft 365 licenses.

Like the other Microsoft 365 web consoles, it shows a lot of attributes that are synchronized from your local AD. These are greyed out and can only be edited in your on-premises AD:

With EasyEntra, you never have to worry about which tool you need to manage which attributes. Everything is done via AD user properties in EasyEntra (or via Entra ID user properties for cloud-only objects).

Exchange Management – PowerShell

In some cases, you even need PowerShell to manage mailbox properties.

One example of this is the configuration of calendar delegation.

To configure calendar delegation, you first need to identify the localized unique identifier of the calendar folder in the user’s mailbox. This may look like this:

tycho.brahe@azure.skrubbeltrang.com:\Calendar

You also have to remember to use one command to add new permissions (Add-MailboxFolderPermission) and another command to configure existing permissions (Set-MailboxFolderPermission).

With EasyEntra, you get easy GUI access to manage calendar delegation for your users:

Easy365Manager Powershell Scripting Automation

Summary

In a hybrid environment, Exchange management is a puzzle made up of several web consoles, your local AD, and PowerShell.

If you want to manage your hybrid environment easily or remove your on-premises Exchange Server, you should consider third-party tools like EasyEntra.

EasyEntra will save you and your colleagues a significant amount of time every day.

EasyEntra is available as a fully functional 30-day trial, which can be downloaded here.

The easy installation requires no infrastructure changes and will have you up and running in less than one minute: