Service Health & Incident Management
Monitoring & TroubleshootingService Health & Incident Management

Service Health & Incident Management

20 mins

Understanding the Concept

Microsoft 365 Service Health dashboard provides real-time status of Exchange Online and other services. It shows active incidents, advisories, and planned maintenance that may affect your organization.

Service health notifications can be configured to alert administrators via email when incidents are detected. Organizations should subscribe to relevant service health communications and integrate with their IT service management tools.

When Exchange Online experiences issues, administrators should first check Service Health to determine if it's a Microsoft-side issue before troubleshooting locally. Understanding the difference between organization-specific issues and platform-wide incidents saves troubleshooting time.

Key Points

Service Health dashboard shows real-time Exchange Online status
Incidents are platform-wide issues affecting multiple tenants
Advisories provide information about service changes or minor issues
Planned maintenance notifications for scheduled changes
Service Health API enables programmatic monitoring integration
Post-incident reviews (PIRs) explain root cause and remediation

Why This Matters

Distinguishing between platform-wide Microsoft issues and organization-specific problems is critical for effective incident response. Checking Service Health should be the first step in any Exchange Online troubleshooting workflow.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Not checking Service Health before starting local troubleshooting
Not subscribing to service health notifications for proactive alerts
Ignoring post-incident reviews that often contain valuable prevention information

Interview Discussion Points

💡Describe your incident response process for Exchange Online issues
💡Explain how you differentiate between Microsoft and organization issues
💡Discuss how to communicate service outages to users and management

MS-203 Exam Tips

📝Know where to find Service Health in the Microsoft 365 admin center
📝Understand the difference between incidents, advisories, and planned maintenance
📝Be familiar with service health notification configuration options