Adding New Office 365 Users

Last Modified on 03/12/2019 3:27 pm GMT

Every person in your organisation who needs to sign in and access Office 365 services will need a user account. Each user will be assigned a username and password which they can use to access Office 365 services.

New users can only be created by other users with the relevant role. To add a user, you must have the User Management Administrator role or an equivalent or greater role.

Before you can add a user to Office 365, you must add the domain you want to use.

Add a Single User

If you have a single user you want to add, you can add them in your Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

  1. Log into your Microsoft 365 Admin Center: https://admin.microsoft.com
  2. Go to ‘Users > Active Users’ on the left-hand menu

  1. Select Add a User

  1. Enter the Name and Username for the new user

  1. Select whether you want to specify a password or have one randomly generated for the user
Note: If specifying your own password, it must show as a Strong password
Note: If you want to force the user to set their own password when they first login, leave the checkbox ticked for ‘Require this user to change their password when they first sign in’


  1. Press Next

  1. Select the location for the user

  1. Select the licence you want to assign to the user

Note: If you require additional licences on your account, you can purchase more in Cobweb CORE.

  1. Press Next

  1. If you want to give the user admin access, you can choose the required role on this screen
  2. Press Next
  3. Confirm the details shown are correct and press Finish Adding

If you chose to randomly generate the password, you will be shown it on the final screen after adding the user. If you do not record the password at this point, you will need to reset the password.

You can add a user without a licence if they do not currently need access to any Office 365 services or if they only need an account for administrative access.


Add Multiple Users

If you have more than a couple users to add at once, you can prepare a .csv file with user data to import in bulk. If you want to create the users and assign a licence at the time of creation, you should prepare a .csv file for each licence, as the same licence will be applied to the whole batch.

  1. Log into your Microsoft 365 Admin Center: https://admin.microsoft.com


  1. Go to ‘Users > Active Users’ on the left-hand menu


  1. Select Add multiple users

  1. Select Download a CSV file with headers only


  1. Open the .csv file in a spreadsheet application like Excel


  1. Complete the information in the columns as required. The two required fields are:
Username: The login email address for the user
Display Name: The name to show for the user. If using Exchange (Email) services, this will be the name attached to emails the user sends.


  1. Save the file

  1. Return to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and press Browse


  1. Select the .csv file you saved


  1. Press Verify


  1. Confirm the file is accepted


  1. Press Next

  1. Select the Usage Location and licence that needs to be assigned to the users


  1. Press Next

  1. Press Download results to download a spreadsheet of the initial passwords for the accounts


  1. If you want to email the initial passwords to anyone, tick Email the results files to these people and enter the required email address


  1. Press Close without Sending or Save and close

Passwords created for these users will always be temporary, requiring the password to be reset when the user logs in for the first time.

If you do not save a copy of the passwords and choose not to email them, you will need to reset the passwords.

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