CoreView Review: 4 Must-Know Microsoft 365 Features for IT Teams

0:00 MSP Mike, how are you? One word, disaster. Oh no, Mike, what's happened? One of our clients has had their Microsoft 365 tenant compromised. The hackers, they've gone in and changed so many settings in Intune, Entra, and Defender everywhere. I don't think they've still got access anymore, though. We've managed to wrestle that back, but it's going to take me and my team weeks to sort this out. is a complete and utter mess. Oh, Mike, that's awful. It really is. But haven't you got a backup of your Microsoft 365 tenant and its configuration? What do you mean? Well, Mike, you've got to think of your Microsoft 365 like a glass

0:45 of water. The glass is your Microsoft 365 tenant. The water is your data. Have you just drunk some data? I did. Yeah, but just ignore that bit. I was thirsty. Now, we all know the value of backing up your Microsoft 365 data, don't we? Yeah, we back up Microsoft 365 data. But Mike, what happens if your glass has a crack in it? Or worse still, what happens if it smashes? You've lost me. What I'm saying, Mike, is that Microsoft doesn't actually back up your Microsoft 365 tenant or its configuration. So, with your Microsoft

1:32 365 data backup, you back up the water and not the glass. And now you're faced with a world of problems because a hacker has got into your customers Microsoft 365 tenant and they've changed loads of configuration settings. It's going to take you and your team weeks, even months to get this sorted. If only, Mike, you'd have had a Microsoft 365 configuration backup. I didn't even know Microsoft 365 tenant and configuration backup was a thing. No, not many people do. That sounds like just a thing we need. What kind of companies offer this service? Well, actually, there's a company called Corview. They have a feature that backs up your Microsoft 365

2:19 configuration. Plus, their platform does so much more. And guess what, Mike? Corview at today's takeover Tuesday. Do you know what's wild? Microsoft 365 doesn't back up your configuration settings, not your enter ID policies, not your Intune setup, not even your Defender rules. So if something breaks or someone breaks it, you're rebuilding Microsoft 365 from scratch. And that can take you and your team days or even weeks. Now Core view fixes all of that with its automated configuration backup and recovery. It takes regular snapshots of your Microsoft 365 environment. You

3:05 get a full version history and if something goes wrong, you just roll back to a previous state. Easy peasy. So whether it's human error, whether it's a row script or just like Mike, you've had some kind of cyber attack, Call View has got your back. Now, would you like me to show you all this in action? Okay, let's take a look. So we're inside of car view and we're looking at backing up the configuration for our tenants. Now when it comes to backing up the configuration, we've got to have a closer look at the issue here and the scale of it. If you're looking at things like Entra, Teams, SharePoint, Intune, Defender, Purview, Microsoft 365 has

3:50 about 10,000 different configuration elements within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. As it stands at the moment, these aren't getting backed up. You might have a data backup for Microsoft 365, which is great and you absolutely need that, but the issue of backing up the configuration is really important. Okay, I just want to emphasize that. So, we're here in Call. How would we back up a tenency? Well, first we go to the top here, look, and say add, which is fairly straightforward. We then put in the tenant name. And once we've done that, we can click on add. And then it's going to ask us for the global admin for this tenency. Click on yes. Enter the global admin username. Enter the password. We'll need to satisfy the MFA. We need

4:38 to consent and click on accept. And that will then install. Okay, our tenant has been added. And you can see here, look, the first sync or the first backup is now in progress. So we're backing up the configuration of our Microsoft 365 tenency. Of course, from here you can manually initiate a backup if you want by clicking on sync next to any of the tenants. Or you've got a settings tab here. Okay. You got a a sync schedule. So this tenant, for example, is scheduled to sync every 24 hours at 8:00 a.m. every day of the week. Okay. What's more, we can look at all the last backups. So if I go into this tenency here, there's a full log of the sync

5:24 history. Okay. And we can see exactly what ads and what changes have been made. For example, here, look, there's been four changes to this tenency since the last backup. And if I go over to here, we can see what those changes are. So, these were just distribution groups. Okay. We can look at other changes. So, this one here again, some changes here, we can see what exactly has happened. So, I'm sure you'll agree when it comes to backing up the configuration of your Microsoft 365, it's a very simple process and it gives us the information that we need. But what about the other side of the coin? Okay, backing up our configuration in our tenant is just one

6:11 side of it. So, what happens if something happens to our tenant? Okay, maybe it's someone in the IT department makes a change and it's it's accidental but it causes a massive problem or what happens if like in Mike's case um his tenant gets hacked and the cyber criminals go in there and they change lots of configuration settings and Mike's job now is to rebuild the tenency. How can call view help us then? So, we've got the backup. Let's go over now to the reconcile manager. Okay, first of all, we select a tenant. So I'll select the core view PSA tenant. Here I've selected all these features here. So we've got Azure defender enter ID exchange. So all the configuration

6:57 settings here. I then click on compare with and then I click on the dropdown and I'm going to compare it with another tenency. Okay. Okay. And in this case, I'm going to compare it with the same tenency, but instead of looking at the master, these are a list of all my syncs. Okay. So, I can go back as far as I want. Okay. I'll go back quite far because I just want to show you the power of this. So, I'll go back to here. What I'll do then is click on apply. Okay. And then it shows me the backups. Okay. And we can see these in a fairly intuitive way. Okay, we've got four tabs along the top. So the first tab here only in core view master. So these

7:43 configurations exist in today's tenency but don't exist in the backup that I selected. So these are kind of net new changes. Now this is just a test teny. You can see we've got quite a lot of changes and the backup is fairly old. Okay, it goes back to September last year. So these numbers might not be as big in your life tendencies but you can see the changes. Okay, maybe go to enter ID groups and you can see that these groups have been created. Okay, but they don't exist in the backup. We can look at enter ID users here. Look, and you can see that these users, if I just scroll down a bit, have been created and don't exist in the backup. In tune apps, you see a

8:31 VPN has been added and don't exist in the backup. So what I can do now if I'm not happy with this perhaps I can roll back. So I can deselect that and I can hit the reconcile tab. This will go through an approval process. Okay. So different people might have to approve it based on how you set it up and then that change will be rolled back. Okay. It really is as simple as that. Okay, the next tab here, available from the backup. So, these things exist in the backup but no longer exist in the teny today. So, look here. Look, we had a

9:17 conditional access policy that exists in the backup but doesn't exist today. I know I've heard stories about cyber criminals coming in and changing or deleting conditional access policies, things like roles and administrators. All these existed in the backup and don't exist today. So for example, if we want to go back to the backup, we can simply select that again, reconcile it. It will go through an approval process and that in this example, that conditional access policy will be reverted back to how it was in the backup which now takes us on to the third column. These are called conflicting. Now these settings exist in both tenencies. So they exist in in in

10:04 the live version and the backup from from September 2024 but they exist in differing states. Okay. So that's why it's coming up with conflicting. So for example conditional access policies it exists in both the live tenency and the backup but it's a slightly different state. And then we can go into it and it gives us more information as to what has changed. So with this policy require multiffactor authentication for all users in the master tenant we've got a group that's been excluded. Okay, this group here. Whereas in the backup we've got no groups excluded. Okay, so what I can do if I'm not happy with this is use the backup version. Okay, and I can push a

10:52 reconcile job over. Likewise, we've got some excluded users from this policy. Okay, in the live teny and in the backup over here, we've got fewer users that have been excluded. So again, we can change that if we need to. And of course, the final column should be self-explanatory. These are what exist in both today's tenency and also the backups. So you can see with core views configuration backup and the way you can restore it, the intuitive way you can restore settings, it can really help to protect your business. Now Mike along with lots of other people doesn't just manage one Microsoft 365 tenant. Life might be a little bit easier if we did.

11:38 Lots of MSPs and IT departments manage dozens or even hundreds of tenants. Now, how do we keep all these tenants secure and aligned with best practices? Well, it's a bit like hering cats. It's a bit like whack-a-ole. You get the idea. Well, Carview has another feature that can help here. It's called multi-tenant management. What can it do? Well, from a single interface, you can do so many things. Firstly, you can view and manage all of your Microsoft 365 tenencies. Secondly, you can apply consistent policies across all your environments. Thirdly, you can align every tenant with

12:26 CIS benchmarks or even your own security standards. And you can monitor compliance all from one place. It's a little bit like giving every tenant a security makeover. Now for MSPs, this means less risk. It means less manual work and way more confidence in the management of all your tenants. Should we have a look? Okay. Okay. We're back in the reconcile area. So if I choose my core view PSA tenant again. So we went through this little bit in the last section and then compare with. Now last time I selected another tenant but you can see I've got another option here and this is industry baseline.

13:12 So what call view have done is built several tenants with different industry baselines in there and what we can do. So in my example I'm going to use the CIS one and then I'm going to apply. So we've got a tenency which is aligned to the CIS cyber security framework. And what I'm going to do now is compare my core view PSA one to that tenency. And here we go. So we've got all these settings that are available in the CIS framework that aren't in my teny today. Okay. So if I want to quickly align a tenency to the CIS cyber security framework, I can do that. So with users, we've got various break glass accounts

13:58 and emergency access. If I wanted to add one of these accounts, this is just an example. Again, I can reconcile that. It can go through that approval process. Okay, as I mentioned before, we've got all these settings that are available in my teny and available in the CIS tenant. Okay, but they are conflicting. So, the settings are conflicting. So what I can do as a an IT administrator is I can work through these settings and I can quickly align my business to the CIS cyber security framework. So that is really powerful. But also with this feature there is something you can do as an MSP. So I'm I'm an MSP myself. What we do is we

14:46 align our tenencies that we look after to our own security standards. Okay, so my MSP integral IT has built out its cyber security standards when it comes to Microsoft 365. So what we can do with call view is I can spin up a teny, okay, a demo teny and I can put all our best practices within that teny. I can then add that to call view. Okay. And then when we on board new customers, I can quickly come in here and compare the two tenencies. And then over time, I can get all our new customers aligned to our cyber security best practices. Okay, without a tool like core view, how would you do

15:32 that effectively? Because there are so many settings and so many configuration options. So that feature alone I think is really really powerful. Now some of us have got clients in different countries. We've got multiple departments and we're working across multiple time zones. And all these people in our business want their own slice of Microsoft 365 without stepping on each other's toes. But let's face it, Microsoft 365 doesn't let you split a tenant into nice little pieces. So, we're often stuck trying to manage everything from one giant tenant or worse still using multiple tenants to achieve our goal. Now, Core View has got

16:19 a nice little feature and it's called virtual tenants. Can you guess what it does? With virtual tenants, you can do so much. You can segment users by country, department, or business unit. You can assign admins to manage just their group, nothing more. You can control what these admins can see, what they can do, and who they can do it to. And this isn't just theory. The NHS in the UK uses virtual teams in Call View, so they can manage everything from one tenant instead of a lot more than one tenant. It's a little bit like giving everyone their own office without having to lease a new building. Should we have

17:04 a look at virtual tenants in Carview? Okay, so here is the main Car View dashboard. Now, you can see at a glance it's a really expansive platform. It allows you to do so many things. Call View is essentially a management platform that sits on top of your tenant or on top of multiple tenants. Okay, if you look if you're an MSP or you're managing lots of tenants, you can easily flick between your tenences here very very easily, very straightforward. I've got a demo company here. And if I just demo the virtual tenants, if we go to settings and virtual tenants, you can see that this demo company has got all

17:50 these virtual tenants in there. And to add a new virtual tenant, you just simply click on add new. But just to show you an existing one, uh maybe France because that's a good example. You've got a company and you've got offices all around the world and you've got IT people all around the world. Okay. In some situations, all those IT people just could be managing one big tenant. Now, that could be a bit of a security risk. Uh they don't have the their own license pools and things like that. It's not really great. So, I know a lot of businesses sometimes who split it out into different tenencies. Okay? And that's not good either. So with Carview's virtual tenant feature, you can get around that by creating a

18:36 virtual tenant. So you can see here, look, this virtual tenant, we've got some general information about what it's called and things. And we've applied this virtual tenant to this tenency here. And you can filter, you can provide lots of different filters based on domains, based on distribution groups, etc., etc. In this example, the configuration that has been applied is if the country of the user is equal to France because this is a French virtual tenant, then this will be the virtual tenant. Okay. And then further down here, the operators who can manage this virtual tenant are listed here. So this is a very simple example of a virtual teny. If the users are based in France,

19:22 then they are in this virtual tenant. And these engineers are the ones that can administer that virtual tenant. Okay. But as you can see, we've got lots of different options as to how you can filter down your virtual tenencies. So virtual tenants, a great feature. Now, let's talk for a moment about the admin roles in Microsoft 365. Now, the built-in admin roles in Microsoft are either too broad or too limited. You want someone to reset passwords? Great. But now they can also delete mailboxes and spin up new teams. It's just not ideal. Now, Core View lets you create custom rolls. These custom rolls are tailored to the exact task each person

20:09 needs to do. So with custom roles in call view, you can do many things. You can define roles based on specific actions, not just job titles. For example, you can assign permissions like reset passwords or create users and nothing more. You can then scope these roles to specific tenants, specific departments, or even virtual tenants. Remember those? It's a little bit like giving someone the keys to the supply closet, not the entire building. Now, this means better security, fewer mistakes, and a lot less stress. Everyone gets just enough access to do their job. Nothing more and nothing risky. Should we take a look at custom

20:56 rolls in Carview? Yes. So, back in the car view portal. Now, I've said this before and I'll say it again. I think the future of managing multiple tenencies isn't in logging into tenencies using global admin details. I know far too many certainly MSPs who do that. You know, all their engineers use global admin and they log into multiple tenants every day. That's not the future of managing tenants. The future of managing multiple tenants is using tools like call view. The management the management shell over the top of it. And what you can do in core view is manage your users. Okay. So if I go over to reports and I go to users and active users, you can see in this demo tenency,

21:42 we've got a list of all our users. Okay. And what we can do, we can pop this out the side and we've got lots of management tasks that we can do. There's also some custom actions that you can build, but we've got all the general tasks that we can do with these users. Okay, we don't need to log into Microsoft 365. And what that does, it just makes our customers tenants that much more secure. Having said that, you might have a large MSP, you might have a large IT department, okay? You don't want to give people too many permissions, but you know, we're in the the world of zero trust, so it's the least amount of permissions you can give somebody. You

22:30 might employ someone who just resets people's passwords, which is fine, but you don't want to give them a role within Microsoft 365 that enables them to do more than just reset passwords. And again, that is where a tool like Call View can really come into its own. So again, if I go to the settings and I go to permissions, you can see here, look, we've got all these groups that have been created. Again, we can click on add new. To demo, I will go into here. Look, we've got a group called first level support. We've got a name for it and we can go and we can see exactly how this group has been built. Okay, so you can see that people in this group will be able to see the active users. Okay, they won't be able to see

23:16 any of these that are unticked. They can just see this here. We've got different things, but here, look, management actions. So, what can these users do? Well, again, look, all these are unticked. So, all they can do is manage the passwords and that is it. Okay, add add members to teams groups. They can't do very much. So, we're really restricting the permissions of those users. So they are custom roles within core view. So that is a little flavor of what core view can do for your business. As you've seen from the platform, it can do so much more. Now I've put a link below this video if you want more information on Call View. I hope you've

24:02 enjoyed today's video. Look forward to seeing you again