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ManageEngine M365 Manager Plus vs Native Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 is a popular collaboration and communication tool used by many organizations. To effectively utilize it, you need to keep a close eye on all the activities and have access to precise, comprehensive data about the setup. Additionally, Microsoft 365 offers only simple reports that provide minimal data into the workings of Exchange Online, Azure Active Directory, and other services. The cloud platform has just two audit logs and doesn't provide many features to ensure intuitive or efficient management. There is no option to schedule repetitive tasks and reports, which is another shortcoming of the native Microsoft 365 setup.

Managing users and their activities from a single point could simplify your work, and this is what ManageEngine provides with M365 Manager Plus. It addresses areas and features where the native Microsoft 365 environment is lacking.

This document compares Microsoft 365 and ManageEngine M365 Manager Plus.

Reporting Auditing & Alerting Management Monitoring Security Other

Microsoft 365 Reporting

Understanding the current state of your Microsoft 365 setup is crucial for keeping your resources secure. The native Microsoft 365 Admin Center offers just 25 reports while M365 Manager Plus provides over 700 extensive, preconfigured reports, including audit reports, that enable you to gain detailed insights into the workings of Exchange Online, Azure AD, and other services. You can also schedule how often and when to run these reports, which you cannot accomplish with Microsoft 365.

Exchange Online

Keep an eye on your Exchange Online status and health with more than 125 reports, ranging from mailbox and mailbox usage to mail traffic reports.

Microsoft 365 Reporting
Report Category M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Availability No. of reports Availability No. of reports
General Mailbox Yes 18 Yes 2
Mailbox Size Yes 5 Yes 1
Account Status Yes 11 No 0
Mailbox Content Yes 16 No 0
Mail Traffic Yes 19 Yes 1
Non-Delivery Yes 4 Yes 1
OWA and Mobile Yes 15 Yes 3
Mailbox Usage Yes 9 Yes 3
Other Exchange Online Yes 39 Yes 7

Azure Active Directory

Verify the status of your Azure Active Directory environment with more than 100 preconfigured reports from M365 Manager Plus.

Report Category M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Availability No. of reports Availability No. of reports
General User Yes 18 Yes 1
Account and Password Status Yes 4 No 1
User Logon Yes 12 No 4
Azure AD Devices Yes 3 Yes 2
Report from CSV file Yes 1 No 0
General Group Yes 12 Yes 2
Groups Usage Yes 5 No 2
Group Types Yes 5 Yes 1
Member-Based Yes 14 Yes 1
General Contact Yes 9 No 0
General License Yes 14 No 0
Other Azure AD Yes 53 Yes 2

OneDrive for Business

Gain valuable insights into your OneDrive environment with more than 25 reports that include OneDrive usage and sharing activities reports.

Report Category M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Availability No. of reports Availability No. of reports
General OneDrive reports Yes 13 Yes 2
OneDrive Sharing Yes 6 No 0
OneDrive Usage Yes 7 Yes 2

Microsoft Teams

Understand your Microsoft Teams environment better with our 10 preconfigured reports.

Report Category M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Availability No. of reports Availability No. of reports
General Teams Yes 11 Yes 3
Teams Usage Yes 6 Yes 11

Yammer

Get to know more about your Yammer system with more than 15 reports that we offer to help you gain knowledge about the environment and usage.

Report Category M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Availability No. of reports Availability No. of reports
General Yammer Yes 10 No 0
Yammer Usage Yes 9 No 0

SharePoint for Business

Understand your SharePoint for Business setup better with our eight preconfigured reports.

Report Category M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Availability No. of reports Availability No. of reports
General SharePoint Yes 8 Yes 2
SharePoint Users and Groups Yes 2 Yes 2
SharePoint Permissions Yes 1 Yes 0

Security

Stay vigilant about your Microsoft 365 environment's security by utilizing up to 28 of our detailed reports.

Report Category M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Availability No. of reports Availability No. of reports
Mailbox Security Yes 5 No 0
Users Security Yes 7 No 1
Admin Activities Yes 10 No 0
Users Activities Yes 4 No 0
Conditional Access Policies Yes 2 No 0

Microsoft 365 Management

The Microsoft 365 admin center lacks essential management features that make managing Exchange Online, Azure AD, and other services much simpler. M365 Manager Plus provides administrative capabilities so you can easily manage users and mailboxes in bulk. The solution delivers efficient bulk task management actions to streamline repetitive tasks. With M365 Manager Plus, you can schedule tasks, a feature not found in the native Microsoft 365 environment. M365 Manager Plus also delivers template-based management task solutions so your work is maximally efficient.

Tasks M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Azure Active Directory M365 Manager Plus provides 59 tasks under Azure Active Directory.
Bulk create users Yes Yes
Bulk modify users Yes No
User creation templates Yes No
Bulk delete users Yes Yes
Bulk create groups Yes No
Bulk modify groups Yes No
Group creation templates Yes No
Bulk delete groups Yes Yes
Bulk create contacts Yes No
Bulk modify contacts Yes No
Contact creation templates Yes No
Bulk delete contacts Yes No
Bulk modify license Yes No
Exchange Online M365 Manager Plus provides 54 tasks under Exchange Online.
Bulk mailbox tasks Yes No
Bulk create shared mailboxes Yes No
Bulk configure shared mailboxes Yes No
Bulk shared mailbox tasks Yes No
Bulk modify public Yes No
Bulk modify mobile device Yes No
Bulk calendar permission tasks Yes No
SharePoint Online M365 Manager Plus provides 6 tasks under SharePoint Online.
Permission Management Yes Yes
Group Management Yes No
Site Collection Administration Yes No
Microsoft Teams M365 Manager Plus provides 10 tasks under SharePoint Online.
Bulk create teams and team channels Yes No
Bulk modify teams and team channels Yes No
Bulk delete team channels Yes No

Microsoft 365 Auditing and Alerting

To secure Microsoft 365 from threats, IT admins should track all the events happening in the Microsoft 365 environment. But native Microsoft 365 only offers you two audit logs:

  • Security and Compliance Audit log
  • Admin Audit log

With M365 Manager Plus' more than 400 built-in audit reports, you can access precise details on various activities, and also create and schedule to run customized audit profiles according to your auditing needs.

The alert features in ManageEngine's M365 Manager Plus ensure you are notified of crucial changes happening in your organization so you can rule out checking audit reports constantly for suspicious activities. Unlike Microsoft 365, M365 Manager Plus provides over 75 alert profiles that enable you to create personalized email alerts that you can schedule to run.

Microsoft 365 Auditing & Alerting
Feature ManageEngine M365 Manager Plus Native Microsoft 365
Reports for each action
Native console does not provide reports. You have to search for the required data form the logs
Long term historical data
Audit data can be stored for indefinite period of time
There are limits to how long the audit data will be maintained based on data being audited.
Profile based auditing
Group based auditing
Property-based filter
You can search for users in audit log in some records.
Business hours-based filter
You can create your custom views for the audit reports
Custom views
You can create your custom views for the audit reports
Business hours auditing
You cannot set any time-frame for retrieving audit details
Export data
Can be exported to PDF, CSV, HTML, or XLSX
Can be exported to CSV format alone.

Audit Profiles M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Availability No. of reports Availability No. of reports
Security and Compliance audit log Yes 11 Yes 1
Azure audit log Yes 17 Yes 1
Exchange Online audit log Yes 31 * *
Microsoft Teams audit log Yes 4 * *
OneDrive for Business audit log Yes 16 * *
SharePoint audit log Yes 19 * *
Power BI audit log Yes 1 * *

*: The activities are available, but profiles need to be created manually by the user.


Alert Profiles M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Availability No. of reports Availability No. of reports
Exchange Online Yes 22 * *
Azure Active Directory Yes 16 * *
OneDrive for Business Yes 16 * *
Microsoft Teams Yes 3 * *
SharePoint Online Yes 19 * *

*: The activities are available, but profiles need to be created manually by the user.

Microsoft 365 Monitoring

Keeping an eye on your Microsoft 365 environment's health is essential. But Microsoft 365's native health features are limiting and confusing. M365 Manager Plus provides you with comprehensive data in graphical displays that also enables you to drill-down for granular details. You can easily monitor your organization's health, including your services' features and endpoints, as well as visualize specific details such as the number of users affected by a performance issue at any given time.

Monitoring Profiles M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Graphical representation of data Yes No
Health details for each Microsoft 365 service Yes No
Schedule monitoring profiles Yes No
Create new monitoring profiles Yes No
Separate health details for features and endpoints Yes No

Other features

  1. Automation: Wrestling with repetitive tasks for your Microsoft 365 services is time-consuming and tiring. Performing multiple tasks manually is cumbersome and error-prone. M365 Manager Plus provides you with a powerful automation feature, a capability Microsoft 365 Admin Center doesn't offer, so you can automate your tasks and increase productivity while eliminating or reducing errors.
  2. Content Search: Securing your Microsoft 365 setup means keeping a vigilant eye on the email transactions of your organization. A difficult task with the limited content search capabilities of the native Microsoft 365 tool, M365 Manager Plus' full-featured content search feature enables you to search and retrieve emails. You can also create personalized content search profiles according to your organization's requirements.
  3. Help Desk Delegation: Assigning roles and tasks to people in your organization ensures administration is effective and uncomplicated. M365 Manager Plus' delegation feature enables help desk technicians to create custom roles, and delegate them to users, reducing an IT admins' workload. : Assigning roles and tasks to people in your organization ensures administration is effective and uncomplicated. M365 Manager Plus' delegation feature enables help desk technicians to create custom roles, and delegate them to users, reducing an IT admins' workload.
Features M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Automation Yes No
(Requires Microsoft Entra ID Governance)
Content search Yes
(Multiple templates, personalized profiles)		 Yes
(One template)
Help Desk Delegation Yes
(Delegate technicians default as well as create customized roles)		 Yes
(Limited, can only delegate technicians default roles)
Password expiry notification Yes
(Simple steps,customizable)		 Yes
(Email notification, scripting is required)
License restriction Yes Yes
(Limited Functioning)
Virtual tenant Yes No
SIEM integration Yes Yes
Notification templates Yes No

Microsoft 365 Content Search

M365 Manager Plus’ mailbox content search helps you keep an eye on the emails sent and received by your organization. M365 Manager Plus not only helps you retrieve emails and attachments lost among a growing list of emails, but also ensures email security and compliance.

Microsoft 365 Security
Monitoring Profiles M365 Manager Plus Microsoft 365
Instant content search Yes No
Keyword based search Yes Yes
Pattern based search Yes No
Condition based search Yes Yes
Export search result Yes Yes
Automated search Yes No
Search for mail attachments Yes No
Search message headers Yes Yes

Additional Features
Manage Multiple Microsoft 365 tenants Create, modify, and view details of multiple tenants simultaneously. Yes No
Technicians Ability to delegate users with administrative privileges Yes Yes
Customizable Dashboard Ability to choose the reports that you want to be displayed in the dashboard Yes No
(using Entra ID workbooks)
Export Search Result Embed Dashboard/ widgets to other webpages Yes No
Schedule and send selected reports via email Scheduler to create and send selected reports via email Yes No
Export reports for offline use Export reports to CSV, PDE XLSX, HTML Yes Yes
(Only CSV)
Virtual tenant creation Segment and group Microsoft 365 domains, user, groups, and other objects based on your administrative needs. Yes No
Notification templates Create custom, reusable notification templates that define the recipient list, message, and the module (report, alerts, monitoring, etc.). Yes Yes
(Only CSV)

* Comparison is done based on the information available in the competitor's website. The details may vary with the real product.

License and Pricing:

ManageEngine's M365 Manager Plus is available in Standard and Professional editions. The pricing of both is license-based. Click here to check our prices.

Conclusion:

The comparisons prove that the native Microsoft 365 tools lack many vital management capabilities, such as extensive reporting, precise auditing, and detailed monitoring reports. M365 Manager Plus overcomes these shortcomings and ensures managing your Microsoft 365 environment is more efficient and cost-effective.

 
A holistic Microsoft 365 administration and security solution
HighlightsReportingAuditingManagementMonitoringRelated products