“We signed the lease—what actually has to happen before Monday?”

A new address deserves the same day-one discipline as a new hire.

Employee onboarding already gives a new person a checklist for accounts, access, and a known place to ask for help. A new office or a new site needs the same discipline applied to a location instead of a person—with the Microsoft 365 side kept clearly separate from the physical one.

Describe the move

Weeks before move-in

Confirm who actually needs access at the new address, and from when
Update any public-facing shared mailbox, distribution list, or contact details tied to the old address
Name a single point of contact for move-day questions
Order or transfer printers, scanners, and other office hardware through your equipment vendor

The week of the move

Confirm each person’s device and account access travels with them intact
Have the office network and Wi-Fi checked before the first full day, not after
Keep the named point of contact visible to everyone during the transition

The first week at the new address

Connect existing, already-configured printers to the people who need them
Watch for the same everyday requests as any other week: access, mail, Teams, files
Confirm guest or visitor access if the new site needs it

Name the owner before moving day

A checklist is only useful if each line has one owner.

Mixing Microsoft 365 account work with physical setup is the most common way a new-office checklist stalls.

Task	Usual owner
Physical network, cabling, and internet service	Network installer or internet provider
Printer and office-equipment hardware	Office-equipment vendor
Microsoft 365 accounts, shared mailboxes, and licence assignment	M365 Desk, once your business approves the change
Day-one troubleshooting once the site is online	M365 Desk
Lease, furniture, and physical office logistics	Your own office or facilities owner

A confirmed move date: The date people should expect to be working from the new address, separate from whenever the lease itself starts.
A people list for the new address: Who works there full-time, who splits time between sites, and who never sets foot there at all.
A named network and hardware owner: Whoever is installing cabling, Wi-Fi, and printers, so the desk knows who to point a Microsoft 365-adjacent symptom toward.
An honest address-change list: Every shared mailbox, distribution list, and public contact detail that quietly still points at the old address.

Common questions

Where the checklist ends and a vendor begins.

Does the desk set up the new office’s network?

No. Physical cabling, routers, and access points are network infrastructure—the same boundary published for Wi-Fi troubleshooting. The desk supports the Microsoft 365 accounts and access that run on top of it.

Can the desk add a shared mailbox for the new location?

Yes. A new or renamed shared mailbox for a new address is a routine access request, the same as any other shared-mailbox change.

What if we’re only adding a few remote employees, not a whole office?

That is closer to remote and travel setup than a new-site checklist—see that guide for the smaller-scale version of this question.

Related guides

A new site raises the same questions as a new person.

Employee onboarding and offboarding →Network health check for Microsoft 365 →

A new address deserves the same day-one discipline as a new hire.

A new site raises the same questions as a new person.

One place for everyday Microsoft 365 questions to begin.

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