Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert (MS-102)

Microsoft 365 environments create operational risk when tenant administration, identity, security, compliance, and incident response are handled inconsistently across the team. This MS-102 course gives IT Directors and Training Managers a structured path for standardizing Microsoft 365 administration skills across admins who support cloud or hybrid environments.

The course is a realistic assignment for Microsoft 365 administrators, cloud systems administrators, security-focused admins, and Team Leads preparing staff for the Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert exam. The full curriculum is about 16 hours per learner, making it suitable for a focused onboarding plan, certification sprint, or quarterly upskilling initiative.

Teams work through tenant creation, domains, users, licensing, roles, Entra sync, authentication, secure access, Purview, Defender XDR, Cloud Apps, updates, backup, health, connectivity, and tenant decommissioning. CBT Nuggets Playlists and Team Reporting help IT leaders assign the right sequence and track completion across the team.

This training helps IT teams build repeatable Microsoft 365 administration practices instead of relying on tribal knowledge or one-off fixes. The curriculum maps to common operational scenarios across tenant management, identity, compliance, and security operations.

• Reduce access and licensing errors: Admins learn to manage internal and external users, contacts, groups, licenses, roles, role groups, and administrative units.
• Support hybrid identity operations: Teams cover Entra Connect Sync and Entra Cloud Sync, plus authentication and secure access implementation.
• Improve compliance readiness: Purview, DLP, information protection, and lifecycle management topics help teams understand how Microsoft 365 supports data governance.
• Strengthen security response: Defender XDR setup, exposure management, Secure Score, alerts, incidents, reports, threat intelligence, endpoints, Office 365 protection, and Cloud Apps are addressed in one training path.

Knowledge

• How Microsoft 365 tenants are created, configured, monitored, and decommissioned.
• How domains, organization settings, and security settings fit into Microsoft 365 administration.
• How user, contact, group, license, role, role group, and administrative unit management affects daily operations.
• How Entra Connect Sync and Entra Cloud Sync support hybrid identity scenarios.
• How Microsoft Purview, DLP, information protection, and lifecycle management support governance.
• How Defender XDR, Defender for Office 365, Defender for Cloud Apps, and endpoint protection contribute to security operations.

Ability

• Create and manage Microsoft 365 tenants, users, groups, contacts, licenses, and administrative roles.
• Implement authentication and secure access controls for Microsoft 365 environments.
• Configure identity synchronization between on-premises and cloud environments.
• Work with Purview capabilities for data protection and compliance workflows.
• Review Defender XDR alerts, incidents, reports, exposure data, and security posture indicators.
• Support Microsoft 365 updates, adoption activities, backup considerations, health, and connectivity troubleshooting.