Microsoft 365 – SharePoint Tenant URL Rename – General Availability – New Feature / Feature Update

Hi All,

Greetings for the day!!!

Continue exploring Microsoft 365. Today new feature which was announced at Ignite 2022

Feature : SharePoint Tenant URL Rename – General Availability

Details

• Now, the ability to rename our SharePoint domain URL is generally available to organizations that have less than 10,000 total sites (including OneDrive and SharePoint sites)
• This is the scenario when we start our Tenant with test name like KnoweldgeJunctionQA and later want to change the tenant name – KnowledgeJunction so that we can also change the URL
• There is also case of merging two companies / acquisition  / rebranding and changing the Tenant name with some common name
• With the tenant rename capability, we will be able to have the SharePoint domain in all site URLs updated to the new name
• Currently this feature is only available to organizations that have no more than 10,000 total SharePoint sites and OneDrive accounts combined

First STEP – Adding new custom domain

We have detailed article for configuring and managing custom domains , please follow the steps. Preparing exam SC – 300 – Identity and Access Administrator – Configure and manage custom domains – Study material – Part 3

Next Step is Use Microsoft PowerShell to rename domain

Following are the detailed steps. Since currently I do not have test tenant to test rename feature, here sharing the steps. One option is to create a test Tenant under Microsoft 365 Developer Program – https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/dev-program and execute following steps

• Connect to our Microsoft 365 tenant using following PowerShell CMDLET – Connect-SPOService
• Run the “SharePoint Online Management Shell” in administrator mode. Make sure we have latest updated version of “SharePoint Online Management Shell”

Connect-SPOService -Url "https://knowledgejunction1-admin.sharepoint.com"

• We need to connect either through “Global Administrator” or “SharePoint Administrator” role
• Once we successfully connected, next step is renaming using PowerShell CMDLET – Start-SPOTenantRename

Start-SPOTenantRename -DomainName <DomainName> -ScheduledDateTime <YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS> [-WhatIf] [-Confirm]

Note – If we get error 773 “Not Implemented” when we try to domain rename, the feature isn’t enabled yet for our organization

• If in between we want to stop the renaming of our Tenant, we can use PowerShell CMDLET – Stop-SPOTenantRename

Stop-SPOTenantRename
    -Reason <string>
    [-Comment <string>]
    [<CommonParameters>]

Using Get-SPOTenantRenameStatus – Knowing the status of renaming of our Tenant

• We could verify our rename status by using the PowerShell CMDLET – Get-SPOTenantRenameStatus
• This command gets the status of the job to rename the SharePoint domain name for your organization
• To execute CMDLET – Get-SPOTenantRenameStatus – make sure we are opening new instance of “SharePoint Online Management Shell” and re-login again

Get-SPOTenantRenameStatus

Limitations

• This change affects only SharePoint and OneDrive URLs. It doesn’t impact email addresses
• This feature isn’t available for organizations that have set up multi-geo
• When we rename your SharePoint domain, we create a redirect at the previous address which will expire 1 year after the rename
• We can only rename our SharePoint domain once. If we need additional renames, we need to submit a support request by selecting Rename a SharePoint Tenant more than once
• Changing SharePoint domain name back to the original name after you rename it isn’t supported

To know / understand the impact on other Apps and SharePoint features (like Hub Site / Power Automate / Power BI / Project Online / Microsoft Teams / Deleted sites / previously created Public sites) please have a look on detailed article from Microsoft – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/change-your-sharepoint-domain-name

REFERENCES

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/change-your-sharepoint-domain-name
• Get-SPOTenantRenameStatus – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-online/get-spotenantrenamestatus?view=sharepoint-ps
• Get-SPOSiteRenameState – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-online/get-spositerenamestate?view=sharepoint-ps

Thanks for reading the article !!! Please feel free to discuss in case any issues / suggestions / thoughts / questions !!!

HAVE A GREAT TIME AHEAD !!! LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL 🙂