Office 365 MidSize Business and Exchange Online Archiving

Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) is now available as an add-on for Office 365 MidSize Business; this gives MidSize users unlimited archiving as well as legal hold capabilities.

It’s great to see Microsoft continuing to improve and add to their Office 365 platforms, and this move really helps SMBs to attain Enterprise levels of service.

The Ordering Process

Currently, EOA can only be added to MidSize Business licenses purchased via the Advisor model, that is via the Microsoft Online Portal. If you purchased via Open Licensing (so from your reseller partner – and you pay them rather than MS), you need to add just 1 license of MidSize Business via the Advisor Model. That way, you’ll then be able to attach EOA to that license but fear not, the subscription can be applied to all mailboxes on that tenant – including those purchased via Open.

The process is nice and simple, which is good:

1. Login to your Office 365 account as the Administrator.
2. Go to the “Purchase Services” tab in the Admin Console.
3. Click “Add” to purchase one additional seat of Office 365 Midsize Business.
4. You can add Exchange Online Archiving at the same time as you add the direct bill seat of Midsize Business:
5. Select the “Optional Add-ons” dropdown and enter the number of licenses of EOA you want to purchase.
6. Add to the cart and proceed to payment by clicking “check out.”
7. Follow the wizard to complete your payment with a purchase by credit card or other locally available payment method.