No option to create and edit exchange mailflow connectors and cannot do a message trace in Exchange Admin Center

Question

Troubleshooting steps taken

• confirmed account is m365 global admin
• also assigned exchange admin role
• create a new user with global admin
• still has limited Exchange admin features

One of the final workarounds: Go the Exchange admin center > Roles > Admin roles > Organization Management > Permissions > Select all roles > Save

There may be 1 hour default propagation time for any role updates. But there are times when it only takes 5 minutes after signing out then signing in again. Longest would be within 24 hours.

Answer 1

To work around missing options for creating/editing mail flow connectors and running message trace in the Exchange admin center when using a Global Admin / Exchange Admin account, assign the full Organization Management admin role inside Exchange and allow time for propagation.

Use these steps:

1. In the new Exchange admin center (https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com), go to Roles > Admin roles.
2. Open Organization Management.
3. Under Permissions, select All roles so that Organization Management has the complete set of Exchange admin permissions.
4. Select Save.
5. Sign out of the Microsoft 365 admin portal and Exchange admin center, then sign back in after a few minutes.
6. If changes are still not visible, wait up to 1 hour (in some cases, up to 24 hours) for role changes to fully propagate.
7. After propagation, go to Mail flow and verify that:
   • Connectors is available and allows creating/editing connectors.
   • Message trace is available and can be opened and run.

Once access is available, message trace can be opened directly at Mail flow > Message trace, or via https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/messagetrace, and used to troubleshoot mail flow and delivery issues.

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References:

• Message trace in the new Exchange admin center in Exchange Online
• New Message trace in Exchange admin center in Exchange Online
• Find and fix email delivery issues as a Microsoft 365 for business admin
• Troubleshoot mail flow in Exchange Online