Office 365 New Admin Center Preview

There is a new Office 365 Admin Center available in Preview. Wondering how to see that?

When we visit the Office 365 Admin Center (https://admin.microsoft.com/AdminPortal/Home#/homepage), there is an option "Try the preview", as shown below.

Figure 1: Office 365 - New Admin Center Preview : "Try the preview" option in current Admin Center

When we opt for this option, we are redirected to the new look of the Admin Center.

Figure 2: Office 365 - New Admin Center Preview

I have marked a few changes for highlighting its features.

Let us discuss some of the interesting changes.

"Essentials" cards are movable now directly on the home page and those are remembered

Here, "Essentials" cards or cards which we add are movable. Now, those are not necessarily in a specific order; we can play around with them. I'll move the "Billing" card to the left side of "User management card".

Figure 3: Office 365 - New Admin Center Preview - Cards are movable on home page it self

So, next time, when we log in, we could see the cards as shown in the above figure. Admin can rearrange the cards as per their preferences. Like "Billing" and "Message center" cards are the first two cards or on the top since those are the important ones.

In the current Admin Center, these cards are not draggable. We need to click on the top navigation "Customize your home" and then from there, we could rearrange and add new cards.

Figure 4:Office 365 - Current Admin Center - Option for "Customizing home page"

"Edit" option on Navigation on left side

At the left side of the navigation pane, when we click on "Edit" link, it opens the panel to edit the navigation menu:

Figure 5: Office 365 - New Admin Center Preview - Editing navigation - options for left navigation

This option is pretty handy because now we can decide what options should be visible by default when an Admin logs in. By default, "Users", "Groups", and "Billing" options are selected as shown in the above figure.

Also, by default, "Customized navigation pane" option is enabled but Admin can disable this option.

I couldn’t see this option in the current admin center.

"+ Add card" option is available in the top at the right side

At the right top, when we click on the "+Add card" option, the Cards panel opens from where we can drag and drop the respective cards.

Figure 6:Office 365 - New Admin Center Preview - "+Add card" option - drag and drop feature

This option at the right-top corner is not available in the current Admin Center but then there are other options available. This is the change in the new Admin Center. Also, the Drag-Drop feature is not available in the current Admin Centers, we need to click on the card to add.

"…Show more" option on Navigation on the left side at the bottom.

One more interesting link is "…Show more" in the left side navigation.

Figure 7: Office 365 - New Admin Center Preview - "...Show more" option in the left navigation

When we click on "… Show more" link, it opens all the menus but one new thing I'll like to highlight here is "Admin Centers".

Figure 8: Office 365 - New Admin Center Preview - "All admin centers" option

When we click on the "All admin centers" link, the Admin Center page opens (https://admin.microsoft.com/AdminPortal/Home#/alladmincenters) and those are nicely rendered in the form of cards.

Figure 9: Office 365 - New Admin Center Preview - All Admin Center page

This option is not available in the current admin center.

Finally, Admin could "Preview off" the preview any time from the same option available at the right side corner in the Top bar.