What a coincidence, I just opened a support request to MS because main M365 web apps (outlook, onenote) require re-login every 6 hours of "idle" (read: closed tabs). So on average, I login 3-4 times a day just into those two services (even though they use the same account, you need to login for each app individually!). Now for free/non-business users it seems longer sessions are possible, but MS claims there are 6hour limits for M365 subscribers [0]. As I am the M365 admin, it seems this setting is also not adjustable, but I will wait for the support response.
My experience in transitioning from GWorkspace have been horrible - M365 seems to be a patchwork from various MS products, bundled together but not nearly as consistent as GSuite. In the setup of my single-user, two-domain Email Account I had to login into 3 separate Admindashboards (Main admin portal, Exchange Admin Dashboard, new Security Center dashboard) for basic tasks. I encountered various errors and redirection loops, plus super outdated documentation/tutorials (link leading to nowhere, or documentation referring to older dashboard/uis). It seems M365 is just a mess at this point.
I found with admin rules turned up I was getting the same. And you can’t have different rules per service, such as daily for email but every time for Admin console. So I did what I probably should’ve done, created two different accounts for myself.
The admin account I only need every so often, but my regular account with no admin privileges follows our regular user domain settings around MFA session times, etc. and I’m rarely prompted now and it is awesome.
I highly recommend this approach as a balance of practical security and quality of life.
Pretty sure it would be at most $5 - I’ll have to double check. We pay for premium Active Directory (almost exclusively to get the extra security features), so that might be why it works.
So the answer really is, yeah, it’s got to be paid for one way or another. If you’re using AD you’re paying per user whether or not you’re paying for the M365 suite or not.
That was my experience recently as well - one admin portal links you to another, sometimes the same setting or button can be accessed in multiple places, and who knows what is going on account wise behind the scenes.
My experience in transitioning from GWorkspace have been horrible - M365 seems to be a patchwork from various MS products, bundled together but not nearly as consistent as GSuite. In the setup of my single-user, two-domain Email Account I had to login into 3 separate Admindashboards (Main admin portal, Exchange Admin Dashboard, new Security Center dashboard) for basic tasks. I encountered various errors and redirection loops, plus super outdated documentation/tutorials (link leading to nowhere, or documentation referring to older dashboard/uis). It seems M365 is just a mess at this point.
[0]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/Enterprise/se...