Creating an On-Prem Exchange Mailbox

Looking for steps on how to create a mailbox within an on premise Exchange setup?  These steps may help you and assume the user account is already created within the tenant!

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For a brief description of Exchange, Wikipedia describes Exchange as follows:

Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems.

The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the related Microsoft Mail 3.5. Exchange initially used the X.400 directory service but switched to Active Directory later. Until version 5.0, it came bundled with an email client called Microsoft Exchange Client. This was discontinued in favor of Microsoft Outlook.

Exchange Server primarily uses a proprietary protocol called MAPI to talk to email clients, but subsequently added support for POP3, IMAP, and EAS. The standard SMTP protocol is used to communicate to other Internet mail servers.

Exchange Server is licensed both as on-premises software and software as a service (SaaS). In the on-premises form, customers purchase client access licenses (CALs); as SaaS, Microsoft charges a monthly service fee instead.

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 Create On Premise Mailbox

Sign into your organization's Exchange Admin Center.

 

Select "Browse" and find the user you want to add

Click on OK, then click Save.

Repeat above steps as often as needed.

Wait an hour for processing, or from your Exchange server you may be able to speed up the process by forcing an AD sync by running the following admin PowerShell command:

    Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta

Migrate Mailboxes to Office 365

Sign into the Office 365 Admin Center

Select "Exchange"

Select "Migration" under Recipients

Select the "+" and select "Migrate to Exchange Online"

Click "Next" on the "Remote move migration"

Select the "+" and add the users you want to migrate, click OK then click Next.

Click Next on the domain shown

Name the migration, example "New Hires 4.2.18", then click next.

Select the "Automatically Start" and "Automatically Complete" options, then select NEW.

This process can take from 2 to 12 hours to complete, wait for email on migration to complete or keep refreshing for hours.  This process cannot be sped up via PowerShell or AD Sync.

 

Add Office 365 License to Accounts

Before you can license the user account, you MUST wait for the Migration to Office 365 to complete.

Sign into the Admin Center in Office 365

Search the user you want to assign a license to.

Click Edit in the Product License section

Select Location = United States

Select the license to assign, in this case "Office 365 Enterprise E3"

Click the Save button.

Adding Litigation Hold

If your organization uses litigation hold and need to enable it, follow these steps

Search for and select the user you want to assign the litigation hold to.

Select "Mail Settings"

Select "Edit" on the right side of the screen in the Litigation Hold section.

Select "Turn on litigation hold" by clicking on the toggle button

Type in "2555" for the maximum Hold Duration in Days.  This number can be decreased depending on what your organization needs are.

Click on the Save button.