Exchange Online

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Creating an Exchange Online connection

• OAuth
• Application Credentials

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Using OAuth

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Creating your connection

1. In the Blink platform, navigate to the Connections page > Add connection. A New Connection dialog box opens displaying icons of external service providers available.
2. Select the Exchange Online icon. A dialog box with name of the connection and connection methods appear.
3. (Optional) Edit the name of the connection. At a later stage you cannot edit the name.
4. Click Exchange Online to authenticate using OAuth.
5. Sign in using your credentials.

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Using Application Credentials

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Obtaining the credentials

1. Follow the instructions in the following link to set up app only authentication.
   • Make sure that the application has the Exchange Administrator role.
   • Save the certificate that you uploaded to Azure. It cannot be downloaded again!
2. Once your application is authorized, you should have a certificate stored as a .pfx and .cer file.
3. Extract the public and private key of the certificate in a Base64 encoding:
   1. In a bash terminal, install the openssl package if it is not installed already.
   2. Public key: openssl pkcs12 -in <your certificate file>.pfx -nokeys
   3. Private key: openssl pkcs12 -in <your certificate file>.pfx -nodes -nocerts | openssl rsa
   4. Both commands will have a Base64 encoded key, surrounded by =====<TEXT>===== tags. These are the values that need to be used for the Blink connection.

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Setting API Permissions

1. Navigate to Azure Portal and select your app registration.
2. Configure API Permissions:
   • Go to API permissions in your app registration.
     
   • Click Add a permission to open the API permissions dialog.
     
   • Select APIs my organization uses tab, then search for and select your Office 365 Exchange Online application.
     
   • Choose Application permissions (not Delegated permissions).
     
   • Add the following permissions:

     API	Permissions name	Type
     Exchange	Exchange.ManageAsApp	Application permission
     Other permissions	full_access_as_app	Application permission

3. Grant Admin Consent for all configured permissions:
   
   • Confirm the admin consent when prompted.
   • After granting consent, the status should show green checkmarks indicating “Granted for [Your Organization]”.

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Setting Roles

Step 1: Create a Security Group

1. Navigate to Microsoft Entra admin center.
   
2. Create a new security group:
   • Go to Groups > Overview.
     
   • Click New group.
     
   • Fill the form with the following details:
     
     • Set Group type to Security.
     • Enter a Group name (e.g., Exchange).
     • Add a Group description.
     • Set Microsoft Entra roles can be assigned to the group to Yes.
     • Add the required users as Members.
   • Click Create.

Step 2: Assign Compliance Administrator Role

1. Navigate to the created group.
   • Go to Groups > All groups > Select your group.
2. Add role assignment:
   • Click Assigned roles in the left menu.
     
   • Click Add assignments.
     
   • Fill the form with the following details:
     
     • Select Compliance Administrator role.
     • Set Assignment type to Eligible (for permanent access, choose “Active”).
     • Configure the assignment duration:
       • Assignment starts: Set current date and time.
       • Assignment ends: Set end date (can be set to permanent by checking “Permanently eligible”).
   • Click Assign.

Step 3: Verify Role Assignment

1. Navigate back to Groups > All groups > Your group.
2. Go to Assigned roles.
3. Verify that “Compliance Administrator” appears with status “Granted for [Your App Name]”.
   

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Creating your connection

1. In the Blink platform, navigate to the Connections page > Add connection. A New Connection dialog box opens displaying icons of external service providers available.
2. Select the Exchange Online icon. A dialog box with name of the connection and connection methods appear.
3. (Optional) Edit the name of the connection. At a later stage you cannot edit the name.
4. Select Certificate as the method to create the connection.
5. Fill in the parameters:
   • The App ID that has Exchange Administrator permissions.
   • The .onmicrosoft.com URL of the Organization
   • Public key of the X.509 certificate that is authorized to act on behalf of the application, in a PEM format
   • Private key of the X.509 certificate that is authorized to act on behalf of the application, in a PEM format
6. (Optional) Click Test Connection to test it.
7. Click Create connection. The new connection appears on the Connections page.