Last Chance to Avoid Service Disruptions Before Microsoft’s Authentication Changeover

You may have heard - Microsoft is deprecating Basic Authentication in Exchange Online on October 1, 2022 and moving to Modern Authentication (OAuth 2.0 token-based authorisation). Read this article for more details.

As a ServiceNow customer, this update may affect you if you are using a Microsoft Exchange Online integration. To avoid email service disruptions, follow the steps below.  

Will You Be Impacted?

In three simple steps, you will be able to check if your ServiceNow instance will be affected by the deprecation of Basic Authentication in Exchange Online. NOTE: You will need admin permission.

1. Go to your ServiceNow instance and search for ‘Email Account’ on the left navigation menu. Click on ‘Email Accounts’ under System Mailboxes.
   
    
   
   
2. Filter to display all ‘Active’ records to ensure you are validating the correct record.
    
   
   
   
3. Click on the record associated with Microsoft Outlook to see all attributes of the email account. Look for the ‘Authentication’ attribute and check the value. If the value of Authentication field is ‘Password’, then your instance could be impacted (see next section). If the value says ‘OAuth 1.0’ or ‘OAuth 2.0’ then your instance is compliant per Microsoft’s new policy and no further action is necessary.
   
   

Re-Authenticate Your Microsoft Exchange Integration

If your ‘Authentication’ value read ‘Password’, you’ll need to re-configure your ServiceNow instance. You can do that by following this article from ServiceNow - configuring your SMTP and IMAP email accounts with Microsoft Office365 using OAuth2

 Additional ServiceNow Knowledge Articles:

• ServiceNow documentation of OAuth Email Authentication
• Activate OAuth Email Authentication Plugin
• Enable OAuth 2.0 for email

Additional Microsoft Knowledge Articles:

• Deprecation of Basic authentication in Exchange Online

As the 1st of October 2022 looms closer, Thirdera wants to make sure the transition to Modern Authentication is seamless. In the past week, we have helped multiple clients re-configure their ServiceNow instances. If you have any questions about the steps outlined above or concerns about potential service disruptions, we are here to help!