Recent Microsoft Update Causes Microsoft 365 Access Issues

On March 8, 2023, at ~2:50 PM ET, Microsoft tweeted (@MSFT365status) that they were investigating an issue impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services.

For system admins and IT professionals with Microsoft admin center access, the Microsoft service incident number was MO525043, and for the general public Microsoft also stated that additional details could be found at the Microsoft Service Health Status page.  

We're investigating a potential issue with multiple Microsoft 365 services. Additional details can be found via https://t.co/AEUj8ujDVl, or under MO525043 in the admin center, if accessible.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) March 8, 2023

There were some Twitter responses from the general Microsoft user community, with most of the users upset at yet another Microsoft service incident (the previous service incident was on March 1st, with Exchange Online mailbox access issues).

One community member on Twitter mentioned that on top of the Microsoft 365 services issue, even access to the Microsoft 365 status page was down.  So initially, for those without admin center access, no further information could be gathered during the outage.  Frustrating, to say the least.

Thankfully, within 60 minutes from their first reporting on the service incident, Microsoft made the announcement that they had identified and mitigated the issue.

We've identified and mitigated an issue within a recent service update that prevented users and admins from accessing Microsoft 365 services through https://t.co/ROdao98gYq apps and tiles. Additional details can be found under MO525043 in the admin center.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) March 8, 2023

There have been no subsequent tweets from Microsoft as to service incident MO525043 and the Microsoft Service Health Status page, as of 4:00 pm ET March 8th, was available and the status page was indicating no ongoing issues for any Microsoft 365 services.

The Importance of Microsoft 365 Monitoring

In a cloud-world, outages are bound to happen. While Microsoft is responsible for restoring service during outages, IT needs to take ownership of their environment and user experience. It is crucial to have greater visibility into business impacts during a service outage the moment it happens.

ENow’s Microsoft 365 Monitoring and Reporting solution enables IT Pros to pinpoint the exact services effected and root cause of the issues an organization is experiencing during a service outage by providing:

• The ability to monitor networks and entire environments in one place with ENow’s OneLook dashboard which makes identifying a problem fast and easy without having to scramble through Twitter and the Service Health Dashboard looking for answers.
• A full picture of all services and subset of services affected during an outage with ENow’s remote probes which covers several Microsoft 365 apps and other cloud-based collaboration services.

Identify the scope of Microsoft 365 service outage impacts and restore workplace productivity with ENow’s Microsoft 365 Monitoring and Reporting solution. Access your free 14-day trial today!