Microsoft 365 is a huge bundle of services, and it is easy to get lost in it. Entra ID, Admin Center, SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Exchange. What is what and how does it fit together? Let us make a map that turns the chaos into clarity. If you are looking for more of an introduction for a company, read the article Microsoft 365 for companies.

What Microsoft 365 is

Microsoft 365 (once Office 365) is a bundle of office applications and cloud services. It includes well-known programs like Word, Excel and Outlook, but also services running in the cloud that manage emails, files, identities and communication. It is the cloud services that are many and whose names confuse. Let us take them one by one.

Entra ID (formerly Azure AD)

Entra ID is identity and sign-in management. It is the heart of the whole of Microsoft 365, deciding who is who and where they may sign in. Here you manage users, passwords, access rights, two-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO). Important: Entra ID is just the new name for the former Azure AD, Microsoft renamed it, which is one of the main sources of confusion.

Microsoft 365 Admin Center

The Admin Center is the main administration of the whole bundle. From here you add and remove users, assign licenses, change settings and see billing. It is the administrator’s entry point, from which you also reach the more detailed settings of individual services.

Exchange Online

Exchange Online is email and calendars. It is behind the mail in Outlook, managing mailboxes, calendars and contacts. When you deal with company email, you deal with Exchange.

SharePoint

SharePoint is team storage and an intranet. It serves shared company files, document libraries and internal pages. It is the place where documents that several people should access live, unlike personal storage.

OneDrive

OneDrive is a user’s personal cloud storage. This is where one person saves their files, like their own folder in the cloud. The difference from SharePoint is simple: OneDrive is mine, SharePoint is ours.

Teams

Teams is the hub of communication and collaboration: chat, calls, video calls and teams. The interesting part is what it has under the hood. When you share files in Teams, they are actually stored in SharePoint, and the calendar in Teams runs through Exchange. So Teams is not a separate island, but ties the other services together.

How it fits together: the key to the chaos

When you put it together, it makes sense:

  • Entra ID says who you are (identity and sign-in).
  • The Admin Center is the place from which you manage it all.
  • Exchange handles email, SharePoint shared files, OneDrive personal files.
  • Teams ties communication together and under the hood uses SharePoint and Exchange.
  • Everything shares one account managed in Entra ID.

The most common confusions

  • SharePoint versus OneDrive: team versus personal files.
  • Entra ID is the same as Azure AD, just renamed.
  • Files from Teams are actually in SharePoint, there is no point looking for them elsewhere.
  • There are several admin centers (Microsoft 365, Exchange, Teams, SharePoint and Entra), each for its own area.

Security and licenses

Security rests mainly on two-factor authentication via Entra ID, which we recommend enabling everywhere, as we write in the article on a password manager and two-factor authentication. Licenses differ in scope (for example Business Basic, Standard and Premium for smaller companies, or E3 and E5 for larger ones), so it pays to choose a plan based on what you will really use. When an employee leaves, also remember to disconnect their access properly.

Are you getting lost in Microsoft 365 or want it set up properly? Get in touch, we will set it up and manage it for you as part of IT support for companies.