One of the requirements when you work for a Microsoft gold partner is to keep your qualifications up to date. Following the release earlier this year of the Office 365 exams, I decided to take 70-346 last week. This exam forms the first of two for the office 365 MCSA.

This entailed lots of frantic reading up, as I only gave myself a couple of weeks to study in before taking the exam.

There wasn’t a great deal of into regarding reading lists, so this list is a collection of the articles that i found useful while studying. This is by no means a definitive list but should hopefully prove valuable!

The headings are from the exam guide on the Microsoft Learning site (Which appears to have disappeared today with all the searches going to 404 – not found pages!)

Reading List

Provision office 365 (15-20%)

• Administering Office 365 Jump Start (Video) – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/video/administering-office-365-jump-start-03-dirsync-sso-and-adfs.aspx
• Create DNS records for Office 365 – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-suite-help/create-dns-records-for-office-365-when-you-manage-your-dns-records-ha102851099.aspx
• Plan an office 365 pilot – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh852499.aspx
  • Make sure you understand the tasks and phases in – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852404.aspx

Plan and implement networking and security in office 365 (15-20%)

• Administration roles in Office 365  – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852528.aspx
• Enabling Multi-factor authentication for Office 365 – http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/azure/dn383636.aspx
• Manage Azure AD using PowerShell – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj151815.aspx
• Network Security (more dedicated online tenancy focus?) – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj945178.aspx
• Administer Rights Management (RM)
  • Using PowerShell – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/jj585027.aspx
• Password Policy in Azure AD – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj943764.aspx
  • Note: DirSync accounts take the password policy from on-prem with them and overrides Azure AD policy!
• User account management in Office 365 – Platform Service Description – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/office-365-user-account-management.aspx

Manage cloud identities (15-20%)

• Setting a password policy for online accounts – http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365-suite-help/set-a-user-s-password-expiration-policy-HA102816546.aspx
• Setting Online accounts to non-expire passwords – http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365-suite-help/set-up-user-passwords-to-never-expire-HA102816049.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA102816546

Implement and manage identities by using DirSync (15-20%)

• Plan for Directory Synchronisation – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh852469.aspx
• Prepare for Directory Synchronisation – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj151831.aspx
• Implement password synchronisation – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn246918.aspx
• Prepare to provision users through Directory Synchronisation – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh852478.aspx
• Synchronise your directories – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj151771.aspx

Implement and manage federated identities (single sign-on [SSO]) (15-20%)

• Plan your ADFS Deployment – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/dn151324.aspx
• Checklist – Use ADFS to implement and manage single sign-on – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj205462.aspx

Monitor and troubleshoot Office 365 availability and usage (15-20%)

• Using the MOSDAL support toolkit – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/support/using-the-mosdal-support-toolkit-ha102892891.aspx
• Reporting features and troubleshooting in Exchange Online – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/exchange-online-reporting-features-and-troubleshooting-tools.aspx
• Service health features in Office 365 – http://technet.microsoft.com/library/office-365-service-health.aspx

Useful additional links

Manage Office 365 using PowerShell – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn568031.aspx

Exchange Online PowerShell Cmdlets – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj200780(v=exchg.150).aspx

Lync Online PowerShell Cmdlets – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj994021.aspx

SharePoint Online PowerShell Cmdlets – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp161364(v=office.15).aspx

I hope this proves useful.

Paul.