Exam MS-100: Microsoft 365 Identity and Services – Study Guide & Exam Prep

Salaam, Namaste, Ola and Hello!

I have recently taken and passed my MS-100 certification exam, so I thought it would be helpful to create this blog as a study guide where I will share the following:

• Study Resource I used
• Topics you need to cover
• Exam tips

For those who are not aware, the MS-100 exam is part of the requirements for obtaining the ‘Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator Expert’ certification. You can find the full list of requirements for this certification path at the following link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/m365-enterprise-administrator.

STUDY RESOURCES: To start my learning I utilized the free resources available at Microsoft Learn – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/ms-100. These resources covered the following learning paths:

• Protect Identity and access with Azure Active Directory: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/m365-identity
• Manage identity and access in Azure Active Directory: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/manage-identity-and-access/
• Microsoft 365 – Modernize your enterprise deployment with Windows 1 and Microsoft 365 Apps: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/m365-getmodern/
• Stay current with Window 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/m365-stay-current
• Manage your enterprise deployment with Microsoft 365: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/manage-enterprise-deployment-m365/

I found the Microsoft Learn content a good starting point which gave me a foundation for the rest of my journey on this specific certification, and if I am honest I tend to start with these resources with all my exams. First of all its free, and secondly its a good mixture of reading. The second resource I used for this certification was the Skylines Academy course by David Hood – https://courses.skylinesacademy.com/p/ms-100 . With all my certifications I tend to use either Skylines Academy or Plurasight as I find that they are very well structured, and this was no different. Within the same portal I was able to find a set of practice questions as well so once I completed the course, I was able to test my knowledge to see if it had sunk in or not!

TOPICS YOU NEED TO COVER: It would be easy enough for my to regurgitate the information you are given on the Microsoft Certification page or this exam – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/certifications/exams/ms-100 , however I will share the subjects/topics I actually had in my exam. I recommend learning Azure AD in a lot of detail as my exam covered a lot of this, including adding domains as well as user & group management and also guest user access. Another heavily covered topic in my exam was Azure AD Connect and the different type of Synchronizing your objects from Active Directory on-premises, including ‘Password Hash’, Pass-through Authentication (PTA) and Federated (ADFS). Some other topics which I remember coming up in the exam included DLP policies and External guest access.

EXAM TIPS: As I understand it, during COVID Microsoft have removed the lab element from the role based certifications. My recent experience from this exam would back that, so I would not expect any labs if you plan on doing this exam within the next 6 months at least. I had 39 questions in total, 29 based on standard multiple choice, 5 scenario based questions and 1 case study with 5 questions where you can refer back to the case study. I used the same technique for this exam as I did with my previous ones when it came to the Case studies. Rather then read the whole case study I ready each questions and found the specific piece of information required to answer it. This saved me time and meant I didn’t clog my brain with a lot of useless information.

Hope you find this helpful, if you would like any more information feel free to tweet me @shabazdarr or ask a question in the comments section below! I am planning on doing the MS-101 exam next so will follow that up with another post!