In this blog post, I am going to teach you all what you need to become a Microsoft 365 Certified Enterprise Administrator Expert, and I am going to show you what is the best certification path that fits your job role and skills set. After reading this blog post, you will have the necessary knowledge to start planning your certification journey towards the Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator Expert certification.
To do that, I will help you answer three simple questions:
- What does it mean to have such certification? Which helps you decide if this is the right certification for you or not
- What exams you need to pass, because there are dozens of exams and it can be confusing at first.
- Which certification path you should take to achieve this certification? Because keep in mind, there are different certification paths and I am going to help you find the best path that matches your skill set. So let’s get started.
Microsoft Certifications Overview
Before we start, I want to give you a quick overview about the new Microsoft certification program, as it took me a while until I figured it out. So I want to save you time by telling all about it in five minutes.If you want to take one of Microsoft certifications, and you are wondering which one to take, You could look at this situation from two perspectives or view. First, what is your role? and how many years of experience you have managing Microsoft 365 services.
Start with identifying your job role and how this maps to the Microsoft 365 services. Are you a security engineer who is responsible of protecting Microsoft 365 workloads? Are you responsible of managing the modern desktop and deploying Windows? Or perhaps you are responsible of teamwork, SharePoint and productivity in your organization.Next, how many years of experience do you have managing Microsoft 365 services? You might be new to Microsoft 365 and looking to get a certification to learn more about the M365 products, or you might have 2 or more years of deep experience working on Microsoft 365 services and you want to validate your skills by taking couple of certification exams.
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First – What job role fits your skill sets?
Now, to help you decide which Microsoft 365 job roles are available in Microsoft certification program, this below figure lists them all. There is the Administrator Role which is a security role, so if you are managing security in Microsoft 365, this would be your role in the Microsoft certification program. Now inside this Administrator role, you can focus on getting the Microsoft Security Administrator Associate badge and we will talk later what a badge means.If you are an Exchange guy, then the Messaging Administrator Role fits your persona, and you can focus on getting the Microsoft 365 Messaging Administrator Associate badge. If your job fits the Modern Desktop Administrator Role, you can focus on getting the Microsoft 365 Modern Desktop Administrator Associate badge. Now, what if your job fits the Teamwork Administrator Role, in this case you can focus on getting the Microsoft 365 Teamwork Administrator Associate badge
And finally, if you are a senior technical person with more than 2 years of Microsoft 365 experience and you are managing enterprise level Microsoft 365 services, which is a broader role than all other roles we talked about, then you fit the Enterprise Administrator Role, and this is why you might want to get the Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator Expert badge which this blog post is all about. Also notice that we have four associate badges and one expert badge in the Microsoft 365 certification program.Image may be NSFW.
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Microsoft certification program gives you three level of expertise as shown in the below figure. If you are new to Microsoft 365, then you can go after the Fundamental Certifications. If you have two years of comprehensive working experience in a specific role, then you can focus on getting the Associate Badge of that role, like the Teamwork Administrator Associate badge.
But if you have 2 to 5 years of deep technical experience in Microsoft 365, then you should or could focus on getting the Expert Level badge (Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator Expert Certified). You can also see in the below figure the number of stars on each badge. The fundamental badge has one star while the expert badge has three.Image may be NSFW.
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I would not think of badges as specific tests or exams, so there is no exam called Teamwork Administrator Associate or Enterprise Administrator Expert. In fact, when you pass one or more exams in a certification track, Microsoft thanks you for your time and effort passing these exams and as a reward for proving your skill set in mastering a specific role, Microsoft issues a badge for you, which you then can share anywhere (in your social media or LinkedIn) and other people would know what you went through to get that badge, which again authenticates your skill set in a specific technology and a specific role.
What your certification badge tells about your skill sets?A badge as I mentioned, is your reward after completing one or more exams and it shows two things about you. It shows your area of expertise (your job role), and your level of experience in that area (fundamental badge, associate badge or expert badge).
So let’s take John for example who works on deploying Windows 10 in his enterprise with 1 to two years of comprehensive experience deploying a modern desktop. His Microsoft 365 role that fits his experience is the Modern Desktop Administrator Role. Now according to his years of experience, he should go for an Associate level badge. Together, this means the best badge he should go after is the Modern Desktop Administrator Associate Badge.
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When he took whatever exam or exams that qualify him for getting this badge, other people can quickly identify his job role and level of experience managing the modern desktop.
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But if John has more than 2 years of experience deploying modern desktop and he is responsible of migrating, deploying and managing Microsoft 365 in an enterprise, then his Microsoft 365 job role could be an Enterprise Administrator and his years of experience qualify him to go after an Expert Level badge. then perhaps after taking the Modern Desktop Administrator Associate badge, he you should also go after the Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator badge.
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Enterprise Administrator Expert Qualifications
If you get the Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator Expert badge, then this tells other people that your work as a Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator is to evaluate, plan, migrate, deploy, and manage Microsoft 365 services, and that you proven to have the following skill set:
- Design and implement Microsoft 365 services.
- Manage user identity and roles.
- Manage access and authentication.
- Plan Office 365 workloads and applications.
- Implement modern device services.
- Implement Microsoft 365 security and threat management.
- Manage Microsoft 365 governance and compliance.
How to get certified?
Now that you know this expert level badge is something you want to get, let me help you understand how can you get it and which path most fits your skill set. Keep in mind that there are different ways (different certification paths) that lead to getting this expert badge. You might pass three exams and get this badge, or pass four exams to get this badge. It all depends on both your job role (area of expertise) and what level of certification you are holding right now.
The first thing you need to know is no matter what certification path you are going to get the Microsoft 365 Certified Enterprise Administrator Expert badge, you MUST pass BOTH these two exams no matter what:
IN ADDITION to passing the MS-100 and MS-101 exams, you should get or have ONLY ONE of the following:
- Get Only ONE of the Microsoft 365 Associate badges
- OR, be a holder to the MCSE Productivity Solution Expert certification.
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If you already have the MCSE Productivity Solutions Expert certification, then you only have to pass both MS-100 AND MS-101 exams. After passing them, you will get your Microsoft 365 Certified Enterprise Administrator Expert badge.
If you don’t have the MCSE Productivity Solutions Expert certification, then you can go and try to get one of the Associate certifications in Microsoft 365. There are four associate badges in Microsoft 365 and you only need to get one of them. Each of these associate badges has different set and number of exams needed to get the badge.
How to get your Modern Desktop Administrator Associate Badge?
To get this badge, you need to pass BOTH the following two exams
How to get your Teamwork Administrator Associate Badge?
To get this badge, you need to pass BOTH the following two exams
OR you need to pass ONE TRANSITION exam:
How to get your Security Administrator Associate Badge?
To get this badge, you need to pass ONLY ONE exam:
How to get your Messaging Administrator Associate Badge?
To get this badge, you need to pass BOTH the following two exams
- Exam MS-200: Planning and Configuring a Messaging Platform
- Exam MS-201: Implementing a Hybrid and Secure Messaging Platform
OR you need to pass ONE TRANSITION exam:
- Exam MS-202: Microsoft 365 Messaging Administrator Certification Transition [Retires: September 30, 2019]
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Watch it on YouTube
You can watch all about how to become Microsoft 365 Certified Enterprise Administrator Expert in my YouTube video here.
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