M365 Applications Specialist
Purpose of the Role
The M365 Applications Specialist is responsible for the design, configuration, support and continuous improvement of the Microsoft 365 application estate that the customer's staff and partners use every day. This includes Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams (including Teams Phone where applicable), OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online (in collaboration with the SharePoint Specialist), Microsoft Loop, Planner, Forms, Stream, Viva, and the integration layer between these workloads and Power Platform, Dataverse, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Fabric.
The role sits at the intersection of operations and solutioning. On a typical day the post-holder will close P3 service requests in the morning (mailbox provisioning, Teams policy changes, sharing rule adjustments), spend the afternoon designing a Power Automate flow tied to a SharePoint list for a business unit, and finish by reviewing release notes for the next M365 monthly update and authoring a change request for CAB.
Requirements
Key Technical Responsibilities
Microsoft 365 Tenant Administration
* Administer Microsoft 365 tenants across all in-scope programme areas via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, Exchange Admin Center, Teams Admin Center, SharePoint Admin Center, and corresponding PowerShell modules.
* Manage tenant-level configuration: domains, DNS records (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, autodiscover), licence assignment (group-based licensing), service plans, organisation-wide settings, and cross-tenant access for B2B.
* Operate Exchange Online including mailbox lifecycle, shared / resource / room mailboxes, transport rules, connectors, anti-spam / anti-phishing policies (Defender for Office 365 Plan 1/2), eDiscovery (standard and premium), retention policies and labels, journaling, and hybrid mail flow where applicable.
* Administer Microsoft Teams: messaging policies, meeting policies, app permission policies, Teams templates, channels, private channels, shared channels (Teams Connect), live events, voice (calling plans / Direct Routing if in scope), Teams Rooms devices, and Teams telemetry via Call Quality Dashboard.
* Administer OneDrive for Business including storage quotas, sharing controls, retention, restore, OneDrive sync issues (ODSyncReport), and Known Folder Move.
Application Solution Delivery
* Design and deliver business solutions using a fit-first approach across the M365 stack: SharePoint lists / libraries, Lists, Planner, Forms, Power Automate flows, and Power Apps where appropriate, before recommending custom development.
* Build Power Automate cloud flows (automated, instant, scheduled, business process flows) including approval flows, integration with Dataverse, SharePoint, Outlook, Teams adaptive cards, and HTTP / custom connectors.
* Develop and maintain Power Apps canvas and model-driven apps, including Dataverse table design, business rules, security roles, and ALM through Power Platform Solutions.
* Integrate solutions with Dataverse, Dynamics 365 (existing CRM estate), legacy and current SQL Server versions, and Azure resources via on-premises data gateway, dataflows, and APIs.
* Author SharePoint Framework (SPFx) web parts and extensions, custom Teams apps, Microsoft Graph–integrated solutions, and Office Add-ins where requirements exceed low-code capability.
Microsoft Fabric and Power BI Integration
* Support Microsoft Fabric workspaces including OneLake, Lakehouse / Warehouse models, semantic models, and Power BI report distribution; coordinate with the Azure Specialist on capacity sizing.
* Operate Power BI Pro / Premium tenant settings, gateways, dataset refresh schedules, RLS / OLS, deployment pipelines, and workspace governance.
Application Lifecycle Management and Governance
* Apply the Microsoft Power Platform Center of Excellence (CoE) Starter Kit to enforce environment strategy, DLP policies, connector governance, maker auditing, and orphaned-app management.
* Use Power Platform pipelines (or Azure DevOps with Power Platform Build Tools) for solution deployment between development, test, and production environments.
* Maintain solution documentation, technical design documents (TDDs), and operational runbooks for every application in production.
* Operate change management for application changes through CAB; deliver pre-change validation, rollback plan, and post-change verification.
Service Operations
* Resolve M365 application incidents and service requests at L2/L3 within the contractual SLAs (P1 1h/4h; P2 4h/1WD; P3 1WD/3WD), liaising with Microsoft Support (Premier / Unified) for vendor-driven analysis at Level 4.
* Author and execute service requests including conditional access policy adjustments for application access, new Power Platform non-Production environment provisioning, Teams policy changes, mailbox provisioning, and DLP policy refinements.
* Support adoption and change management, including delivery of training collateral, champion programmes, and Microsoft Adoption Score interpretation.
* Contribute to monthly service reports with application KPIs (Teams call quality, Exchange Online availability, mailbox size trends, Power Platform consumption, app inventory).
Mandatory Technical Skills
* Microsoft 365 service administration across Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Teams, and Defender for Office 365.
* Power Platform development with Power Automate (cloud flows, business process flows, AI Builder familiarity), Power Apps (canvas and model-driven), Dataverse modelling, and Power BI.
* PowerShell across ExchangeOnlineManagement, MicrosoftTeams, PnP.PowerShell, Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK, and the Power Apps for Makers / Admins modules.
* SharePoint Online deep configuration including modern site collections, hub sites, site designs / scripts, search architecture, content types, term store, and permissions.
* REST and Microsoft Graph API integration; OAuth 2.0 application registrations, delegated vs application permissions, certificate-based auth, and rate-limit handling.
* ALM for Power Platform: solutions, environment strategy, pipelines, source control with Git, and managed vs unmanaged solution discipline.
* ITIL v4 incident, problem and change management on a Microsoft estate.
Desirable Technical Skills
* SharePoint Framework (SPFx), TypeScript, React; experience packaging and deploying SPFx web parts and extensions.
* Microsoft Copilot Studio (formerly Power Virtual Agents) and Copilot for Microsoft 365 readiness.
* Microsoft Loop, Viva Engage / Insights / Topics.
* Dynamics 365 (Customer Service, Sales) configuration.
* Microsoft Fabric capacity, OneLake, Lakehouse, and Direct Lake mode.
* Azure Logic Apps and Azure Functions (.NET / Node) for advanced integrations beyond Power Platform connector limits.
* Robotic Process Automation using Power Automate Desktop.
Required Certifications
* Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert (MS-102) — mandatory.
* Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate (PL-200) — mandatory.
* Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Developer Associate (PL-400) — preferred.
* Microsoft 365 Certified: Teams Administrator Associate (MS-700) — preferred.
* Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate (PL-300) — desirable.
* ITIL 4 Foundation — preferred.