O365 Education Eligibility

[Michael]

Morning all,

 

Can someone pinch me please as to what I'm doing wrong?

 

I've setup a new O365 tenancy, added the .sch.uk domain, confirmed it with a TXT record, but I'm still not eligible for educational A1 licensing.

 

Previously (and I've done loads of these now), once the TXT record is added, this normally is suffice to secure the tenancy and secure the licensing.

 

I can prepare the tenancy, populate the users and then transition the MX record in good time.

 

Microsoft it appears won't apply A1 licensing as the domain is currently being used in another 365 tenancy (to which I do not control), so how exactly am I supposed to transition/build the new tenancy with minimal downtime?

 

I've been onto support and they suggest I create a subdomain of the .sch.uk domain, but this won't work either as the .sch.uk domain itself isn't fully registered. By this it requires the actual MX record to be transitioned which I'm not yet ready to do.

 

What is it I'm overlooking or what can I possibly do? If anyone from Microsoft UK is reading this, I'll happily share the case number!

[Cache]

You shouldn't have been able to verify the domain in your tenant if it already exists in another tenant. Have you tried an Admin Takeover? https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/misc/become-the-admin?view=o365-worldwide

 

If you can't, you'll probably need to get through to someone to assist with an admin takeover:

[Michael]

Unfortunately I don't think the support agent fully understood my request or the reasons/relationship between the existing provider and why they want to jump ship and go independent. Yes it got that deep!

 

Registering a Google tenancy of the same domain was/is far more straight forward.

 

I think the lesson learnt is not to create the new O365 tenancy so early in preparation, but as I say, I've not had this issue before.

[localzuk]

As far as I know, the only way to do this is to set up your new tenancy without the domain you want. Configure everyone with a different domain. Prep your DNS records, by reducing the TTL. Then when you're ready to do the actual swap, you get the domain removed from the old tenant, and add it to your new one, swapping the DNS records.

 

Downtime is then only the time it takes for DNS to update - but that should be low due to the TTL change earlier.

[Boredguy]

Very strange, I've been able to setup 2 new tenancies and currently have them registered with a subdomain of our existing ones and was able to get A1 licences added without problems straight from the portal once I'd validated with the TXT file.

 

That is an option you try, that way your only downtime would be switching the DNS and actual domain name at the time, but during migrations it's best to use the onmicrosoft addresses anyway.

[Michael]

As far as I know, the only way to do this is to set up your new tenancy without the domain you want. Configure everyone with a different domain. Prep your DNS records, by reducing the TTL. Then when you're ready to do the actual swap, you get the domain removed from the old tenant, and add it to your new one, swapping the DNS records.

 

Downtime is then only the time it takes for DNS to update - but that should be low due to the TTL change earlier.

 

That's exactly 100% correct, however on previous migrations I could -

 

- Create all users with the temporary onmicrosoft.com domain

- License them all in preparation

- Use Powershell to switch them over once the real domain's migrated

 

This time I'm tempted to -

 

- Migrate the domain first

- Quickly create all mailboxes and license them accordingly

- No need to rename as they'll be on the native domain

[Michael]

Very strange, I've been able to setup 2 new tenancies and currently have them registered with a subdomain of our existing ones and was able to get A1 licences added without problems straight from the portal once I'd validated with the TXT file.

 

That is an option you try, that way your only downtime would be switching the DNS and actual domain name at the time, but during migrations it's best to use the onmicrosoft addresses anyway.

 

I agree - this is where it gets weird. If I try and register migrate.school.sch.uk it won't allow me to do so, as school.sch.uk is tied up with xyz.onmicrosoft.com tenancy.

 

Thanks all for confirming I'm not going mad!