When trying to log into OneDrive, the user receives notice that "this email is used with more than one account from Microsoft." Or User not in Directory"
Detailed Information
History
At some point in the past (2018) Microsoft allowed people with @maine.edu mailboxes to use them to self-provision a Microsoft Personal account which could be used for OneDrive and other Microsoft services. These accounts were not associated with UMS, nor supported by UMS. This is similar to signing up for a random web-based service with your UMS email address. The passwords were controlled through Microsoft and had nothing to do with UMS passwords. Personal Microsoft accounts might never require a password change and changes could only able to be handled by the end user. Microsoft eventually blocked the use of email addresses that were already registered in an Azure tenant from being used for a personal Microsoft account. Since UMS had registered most of the UMS domains (maine.edu, usm.maine.edu, umit.maine.edu, etc.) users could no longer create personal MS accounts with UMS email addresses.
UMS has never been able to tell who created such accounts and Microsoft will not/cannot answer any questions about the accounts from US:IT staff; including if they even exist.
In October of 2019, UMS started creating and syncing all Active Faculty, Staff, and Students to our Microsoft Azure AD tenant. As part of this, a Microsoft "Work or school account" was created for these accounts. OneDrive is one service that uses this work or school account. UMS account passwords were synced as well so that changes to their "OneDrive" account password followed their UMS account password.
Since UMS has had no way to determine who had previously created a Personal Microsoft account, multiple Microsoft accounts ended up associated with the same email address for some people.
After this change, UMS customers with synced UMS accounts need to be aware of which MS account they are managing when attempting to reset passwords and signing in
Current status
We are now seeing customers who are unaware that they actually have 2 different types of Microsoft accounts calling UMS for support. Since customers are not aware of the situation, changing passwords or changes to their devices creates confusion and makes it seem they are losing information, when in actuality they are moving back and forth between the two types of OneDrive accounts, depending on the method in which they sign in.
Confirming issue
The easiest way for UMS staff to determine if we are dealing with such a situation is to open up an Incognito (Chrome) or Private (Firefox) browsing window and attempt to sign in to onedrive.com using the maine.edu email address of the customer.
INFO: You do NOT need nor should you ask for their password, nor do you need to successfully log into their account to determine this is the issue.
If, after entering their maine.edu address into the sign-in box, you are presented with a selection choice asking you which account to choose, this means Microsoft is asking you which type of Microsoft account to log into ("Personal" or "Work or school").
WARNING: Remember, the password for each type is separate/different, since they are different accounts, even though the customer may have updated them to the same value.
Solution
The customer should change the E-mail address on their personal account so that they can understand which OneDrive account they are logging into more easily.
Changing Personal OneDrive E-mail account
It is recommended that they move all University Data over to their OneDrive for School or Work account since that is the only account UMS IT will support. They can choose to keep their Personal OneDrive account, but must do so by using an alternate personal email address. T2 may decide to help them do this.
Environment
- Example - Could be interpreted as "Applies To" or "Platforms". List all affected platforms. This may be operating systems, types of software, or services.