Tell HN: Microsoft 365 domain name hell | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Microsoft 365 domain name hell

21 pointslaurensr11 comments

Over the last days I've been trying to enroll my company's domain name <ourproduct.com> into Microsoft 365. This should have been an easy thing to do. However, the domain name was, within Microsoft 365, still associated with <othercompany>.onmicrosoft.com - a link that can only be removed by MS Support or <othercompany>.

<othercompany> probably held the domain name in the past.

I've had to spend 4 hours getting MS attention: - the only support option I get was phone. No online ticketing - my first two calls were interrupted after 30 and 40 minutes, respectively - my third and last call, which lasted more than an hour, resulted in a ticket number

It seems to me that a previously expired domain name being enrolled into MS 365 should be a common use case with a more streamlined support process.

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I work for a very large Germany-based multinational, and <ourname>.onmicrosoft.com was registered by a school our founding family started in an Eastern European country where we have a factory.

We gave up and established <verygenericword>.onmicrosoft.com, and that is still our tenant. However, we were able to get <ourname>.com validated as our main domain. Very eventually, and only because said school cooperated, we got control over <ourname>.onmicrosoft.com.

Get your TAM involved if your ticket isn’t handled in the next few days.

perform a domain takeover: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/misc/be...

That seems related to Azure AD and Power BI. Are you certain it applies to Microsoft 365 as well?

yes

here is a more detailed docs link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/ente...

Thank you. I will explore the documentation you provided.

Unfortunately this only applies to "unmanaged" tenants which are no longer associated with another active tenant. My case is different: the previous domain name owner still exists as a MS 365 tenant.

> It seems to me that a previously expired domain name being enrolled into MS 365 should be a common use case with a more streamlined support process.

I think part of the issue is that the subdomains are hard allocated, and it’s only within the last month you have even been able to change your own subdomain.

Our company has been on oldcompanyname.onmicrosoft.com because it has been impossible to change it until 1 month ago.

If I am reading this correctly your domain name .tld is the issue here and not the .onmicrosoft.com naming convention. If this is the case check where the DNS is pointing, and re-validate inside of 365. I assume that you are not going to switch your MX record until everything is validated, and then demonstrate to Microsoft with a DKIM record that you control the domain.

They should allow the switch of the .tld domain to your new tenant.

They should indeed allow the switch of <ourproduct.com> to our .onmicrosoft.com tenant (instead of the previous domain name holder) but unfortunately this is a manual process as demonstrated by my experience.

We were indeed asked to add a TXT record (ms=....) to our domain which we did but this was not enough to be able to link the domain name through the admin panel ourselves because it was still linked to another tenant which held the domain name in the past.

Isn't this the point of domain verification through DNS TXT record creation? I haven't handled a ton of domains names without tenants, maybe 30, so there's a chance they've never been added and verified on other tenants before. Best luck.

there are two things you could do

you should be getting in each support email information about the person's manager and their contacts. this is the case with Azure support.

if you do have an Azure support email then try contacting the manager of that person who emailed you even if the case isn't related.

admittedly I do have worse experience with office 365 support but azure support is extremely helpful and also help you connect with the correct person within office 365.

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