15.1 Creating a Microsoft 365 Support Request
Key Takeaways
- Open Microsoft 365 service requests from the Microsoft 365 admin center Help & support experience (or Support > New service request) while signed in with an admin role that can create tickets.
- Official Learn tells you to check Service health first; if the problem is not already listed, describe one issue per request and choose phone or email from Contact support.
- If every subscription was purchased through a partner, Microsoft’s published path is to contact that partner — you need at least one Microsoft-bought subscription to reach Microsoft support from the admin center.
- A standard licensed user cannot open a tenant ticket; they use public help or their administrator. Severity is a business-impact description, not a memorized worldwide response-time chart.
Quick Answer: Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center (
admin.microsoft.comoradmin.cloud.microsoft) with an admin role that can create tickets. Check Health > Service health. If the outage is not already posted, open Help & support, describe one issue, and use Contact support to choose phone or email. If all subscriptions came from a partner, call the partner — Microsoft support in the admin center requires at least one Microsoft-purchased subscription.
The April 30, 2025 MS-900 outline asks you to describe how to create a support request for Microsoft 365 services. This is a “which portal, which role, which first click?” skill. You will not be graded on writing a perfect case note or on quoting unpublished worldwide Sev A response hours. You will be graded on knowing that a tenant ticket lives in the admin center, that a licensed employee with no admin role cannot open it, and that Help & support is the published starting point.
Where the request actually starts
Official admin documentation is blunt: you must be an admin for a business subscription to use these Microsoft 365 support methods. A user who only opens Word at office.com belongs on the public Contact us page or with their own IT team. The Admin tile and the admin center URL are the exam’s first filter.
Microsoft’s current worldwide article Get support walks the online path:
- Go to the admin center at admin.cloud.microsoft (the same console as admin.microsoft.com).
- If the page says you do not have permission, you are not an admin for that tenant.
- On the bottom right, select Help & support.
- Type the question. The Support Assistant returns articles, diagnostics, and suggested fixes.
- If those results do not solve it, select the Contact Support headset icon.
- Choose phone or email, confirm contact details, and select Contact me. The Contact support pane shows the expected wait time.
A second published path still appears in the same article’s older “open an online request” wording: Support > New service request. Treat both as the admin-center support desk. Do not send the candidate to Azure Help + support for a Teams or Exchange Online tenant issue, and do not send them to the SharePoint admin center’s site list.
Microsoft also asks you to open a separate support request for each issue. One case that mixes billing, a single mailbox, and a tenant-wide Teams outage slows routing. The exam stem that says “Adele cannot open one shared mailbox” is one request. “Exchange is down for the company and the invoice looks wrong” is two.
Check Service health before you file
The same official page starts with a step many candidates skip: check the current health of your services. If Microsoft already posted an incident for Exchange Online or Teams, opening a ticket does not make the service come back faster. You track the incident on Health > Service health (section 15.4) and use a ticket when the problem is not listed, when you need tenant-specific help, or when you must document impact for a later SLA claim.
If you cannot sign in to the admin center at all, Microsoft publishes a public service status page at status.cloud.microsoft for known sign-in blockers. That public board is a fallback, not a replacement for the tenant Service health dashboard you see after you authenticate.
Who can create the ticket
You need an administrator role that is allowed to create Microsoft 365 support cases. Official diagnostic-collection documentation lists a long set of Entra built-in roles that can open a case, including Helpdesk Administrator, Service Support Administrator, User Administrator, Exchange / SharePoint / Teams / Intune / Billing Administrator, and others. A smaller set — Global Administrator, Security Administrator, and Teams Administrator — can also create the cross-tenant access policy that lets Microsoft Support engineers read diagnostic data in your tenant.
MS-900 does not ask you to recite that entire role table. It asks the contrast:
| Person | Can they open a Microsoft 365 tenant support request? |
|---|---|
| Global Administrator, Helpdesk Administrator, Service Support Administrator, or another listed admin role | Yes, from the admin center |
| Standard user with a Microsoft 365 license and no admin role | No — they use public help or their admin |
| Consumer Microsoft account at outlook.com | No — that is not this tenant’s admin center |
You do not need Global Administrator just to file a ticket. Making everyone Global Administrator so “they can call Microsoft” is the same least-privilege trap you already saw in Chapter 9.
Phone versus web, and what “severity” means here
Online is the published default because the assistant can close many issues before a human joins. Phone is available when you need to speak to someone. Official Learn says technical support is offered in English 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with local-language coverage in some regions, while billing support hours are narrower (commonly business hours). Have account details ready. If you call from a number that is not registered on the organization profile, the agent sends a PIN to the registered email or phone; you must read that PIN back before they can work in the tenant.
Severity on MS-900 is conceptual. You describe business impact: which service, how many users, whether production work is blocked, and whether a workaround exists. Microsoft uses that description — and what the service telemetry shows — to prioritize the case. The Contact support pane shows the wait time for the channel you picked. Do not memorize a worldwide Sev A / Sev B / Sev C initial-response matrix for this exam. Microsoft does not publish that kind of grid on the worldwide Get support page, and a China-operated 21Vianet table is not the commercial worldwide SLA you will be tested on.
Volume-licensing contract questions (agreement numbers, VLSC-style administration) still start in Help & support; type a targeted phrase such as “manage volume licensing” so the assistant routes the request to the volume-licensing team.
The partner exception
This is the favorite commercial trap. Official wording: you must have at least one subscription bought through Microsoft to access Microsoft support. If you bought all your subscriptions through a partner, contact your partner for support. Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) customers live in that world: the partner is first-line for billing, subscription changes, and most technical cases, and they open Microsoft tickets on the tenant’s behalf (typically through Partner Center with a GDAP relationship). A Global Administrator in a 100-percent CSP tenant who cannot find a live Microsoft ticket button is not “doing it wrong” — they are on the published partner path.
Realistic exam-style scenarios
Shared mailbox. Helpdesk can reset passwords but cannot open one shared mailbox. A Helpdesk Administrator or Exchange Administrator signs in to the Microsoft 365 admin center, checks Service health (Exchange is healthy), opens Help & support, describes that single mailbox, and contacts support. They do not send the user to office.com Contact us as if it were a tenant case.
Everyone’s Outlook. The same morning, nobody in three offices can send mail. Service health already shows an Exchange incident. The admin watches that incident and tells the business what Microsoft posted. Opening a duplicate “Exchange is down” ticket is optional documentation, not the restore button.
All seats from a CSP. Contoso bought every Microsoft 365 license through a Cloud Solution Provider and has no direct Microsoft subscription. The published next step is the partner, not “keep clicking Help & support until Microsoft answers.”
Standard user. A project manager with no admin role cannot find Contact support in the admin center because they cannot open the admin center. That is expected. They use in-app help or ask IT.
Phone callback. An admin chooses phone, sees the wait time in the pane, and answers from a personal mobile that is not on the tenant profile. Expect a PIN to the registered admin email before the agent will work the case.
Exam traps
- office.com is not the ticket desk. Tenant requests start in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- No admin role means no tenant case. Licenses do not equal support permissions.
- Check Service health first. A posted incident is not “fixed” by a new ticket.
- Partner-sold tenants go to the partner when every subscription is partner-purchased.
- One issue per request. Do not bundle billing and a mailbox outage.
- Do not memorize a unpublished worldwide Sev A hourly grid. Describe impact; read the wait time in the pane.
- Azure Help + support is the wrong door for a pure Microsoft 365 tenant service request.
Official sources
- Get support — Help & support, phone versus email, partner-purchase rule, check Service health first
- Understand Microsoft 365 Support case creation and data access — which roles can create cases
- How to check Microsoft 365 service health — look before you call
- Study guide for Exam MS-900 — create a support request skill
An Exchange Administrator needs Microsoft’s help with one shared mailbox that will not open. Service health shows Exchange Online as healthy. Where does official Microsoft 365 guidance say they should start the support request?
A licensed project manager with no administrator role wants Microsoft to reset a coworker’s password and open a tenant service request. What is the correct MS-900 reading?
Contoso purchased every Microsoft 365 subscription through a Cloud Solution Provider and has no subscription bought directly from Microsoft. Who should the tenant admin contact first for support?
Users across three offices cannot send email this morning. What should the admin do first, according to Microsoft’s support article, and how should they talk about urgency if they later contact support?