| Please note: This content is intended for Practifi System Administrators and is technical in nature. The steps described in this article may not be able to be completed without System Administrator permissions. Multi-tenant integration requires coordination with your Practifi administrator or implementation team. |
Overview
This article explains how to connect multiple Microsoft 365 (M365) tenants to a single Practifi organization using the Multi-Tenant Integration feature. Multi-tenant integration allows organizations with multiple M365 environments to maintain separate email and calendar syncs while managing everything from one Practifi instance. This capability is particularly valuable for firms that have acquired other businesses, operate distinct lines of business, or maintain legacy systems that require ongoing support.
For information on standard M365 integration, see Enabling Microsoft 365 Email Sync and Enabling Microsoft 365 Calendar Sync.
- Understanding Multi-Tenant Integration
- When to Use Multi-Tenant Integration
- How Multi-Tenant Integration Works
- Quick Reference
- For Existing Clients
- Getting Started
- Additional Resources
Understanding Multi-Tenant Integration
Multi-tenant integration extends Practifi's Microsoft 365 connectivity to support multiple M365 tenant environments within a single Practifi organization. Each tenant operates as a distinct instance with its own credentials, sync schedules, and user assignments, while all data flows into your unified Practifi system.
Multi-Tenant vs. Single-Tenant Integration
In a standard single-tenant setup, all Practifi users connect to one M365 tenant. With multi-tenant integration, you can configure multiple M365 tenants, each serving different groups of users. For example, your main office might use one M365 tenant while an acquired firm continues using their original tenant. Both groups sync their emails and calendar events into the same Practifi organization, but each maintains their own M365 environment.
Key Benefits
The benefits of multi-tenant integration include:
- Seamless post-acquisition integration: Keep newly acquired teams on their existing M365 tenant while unifying client data in Practifi, eliminating the immediate need for complex M365 migrations.
- Business unit flexibility: Support separate M365 tenants for different lines of business or geographic regions while maintaining a single source of truth in Practifi.
- Phased migration support: Run old and new M365 tenants in parallel during migrations, allowing gradual user transitions without disrupting daily operations.
- Operational efficiency: Manage all sync settings, exclusion rules, and logs from one centralized location in Practifi, regardless of how many M365 tenants you're connecting.
When to Use Multi-Tenant Integration
Multi-tenant integration solves specific organizational challenges. Consider this feature if your firm has:
Acquired another business: When you acquire a firm that uses Microsoft 365, you can immediately begin syncing their emails and calendar data into Practifi without forcing a migration to your M365 tenant. This approach allows teams to continue their daily work uninterrupted while you plan a longer-term M365 consolidation strategy.
Separate lines of business: Organizations operating distinct business units, such as wealth management and insurance divisions, often maintain separate M365 tenants for compliance or operational reasons. Multi-tenant integration lets each division keep its own M365 environment while contributing to a unified client view in Practifi.
Legacy system transitions: During M365 migrations, you can run both old and new tenants simultaneously. Users can be gradually migrated from the legacy tenant to the new one, with Practifi maintaining continuous email and calendar sync throughout the transition.
Geographic distribution: Firms with offices in different countries may need separate M365 tenants for data residency requirements. Multi-tenant integration ensures that all locations can sync with Practifi while respecting regional data governance rules.
| Please note: Multi-tenant integration requires coordination with your Practifi Administrator or Implementation team. This feature involves configuration at the organizational level and cannot be enabled by individual users. |
How Multi-Tenant Integration Works
Multi-tenant integration coordinates sync activity across multiple M365 environments while keeping each tenant's data completely separate. Understanding how sync, exclusions, and data isolation work will help you plan your tenant structure effectively.
Sync Behavior
Each M365 tenant operates as an independent integration instance with its own sync patterns:
Email sync: The system pulls emails only for Practifi users who are assigned to each specific tenant. If a user is assigned to Tenant A, they will only sync emails from their mailbox in Tenant A, not from any other tenants in your Practifi organization.
Event sync (pull): Calendar events are pulled from M365 to Practifi for users assigned to each tenant. This allows users to see their M365 calendar events within Practifi, helping track client meetings and activities.
Event sync (push): When users create or modify events in Salesforce/Practifi, those changes are pushed back to the correct M365 tenant based on the user's assignment. This bidirectional sync ensures calendar consistency across systems.
Exclusion rules: You can configure which emails and events should not sync with Practifi. These rules can be applied at multiple levels (see Exclusion Rule Hierarchy below) to give you precise control over what data flows into Practifi.
Exclusion Rule Hierarchy
Exclusion rules determine which emails and calendar events should not sync with Practifi. These rules follow a priority order from most specific to most general:
Level |
Scope |
Use Case Example |
|---|---|---|
| User-specific | Applies only to that individual user | A specific user wants to exclude all emails from their personal Gmail account that forwards to M365 |
| Instance-specific | Applies to all users in that tenant | Tenant A wants to exclude all internal company announcement emails from syncing |
| Org-wide | Applies to all users across all tenants | Your firm wants to exclude all emails with "Newsletter" in the subject line, regardless of tenant |
The system evaluates rules in this order: user-specific rules take precedence over instance-specific rules, which in turn take precedence over org-wide rules. This hierarchy gives you flexibility to set broad defaults while accommodating individual needs.
Data Isolation
Multi-tenant integration maintains strict separation between each tenant's data to ensure security and prevent cross-tenant access:
User and mailbox assignment: Each Practifi user and their associated mailbox is assigned to exactly one M365 tenant. This assignment determines which tenant's data can be synced with Practifi. A user cannot simultaneously sync from multiple tenants.
Filtered logs and sync history: When you view sync logs or troubleshoot sync issues, the system filters all information by the selected tenant. This ensures administrators only see data relevant to the tenant they're investigating.
No cross-tenant data access: The system architecture prevents any data from one tenant from being visible to or accessible by users of another tenant. Each tenant's emails, calendar events, and sync metadata remain completely separate.
Tenant-scoped OAuth tokens: Each M365 tenant requires its own OAuth authentication token. These tokens are stored separately and cannot be used to access data from other tenants, providing an additional layer of security.
Quick Reference
This table summarizes key behaviors and capabilities of multi-tenant integration:
Feature |
Behavior |
|---|---|
| User assignment | Each user/mailbox belongs to one tenant instance |
| Sync scheduling | Configured independently per instance |
| Exclusion rules | Apply at user, instance, or org-wide levels |
| Logs | Filtered by selected tenant for troubleshooting |
| Disabling an instance | Stops all sync activity for that tenant only |
| Adding new tenants | Can be done without deployments or downtime |
For Existing Clients
If you currently use a single-tenant M365 integration with Practifi, you do not need to take any action. Your existing integration continues to work exactly as it does today. The multi-tenant capability becomes available when your organization needs to connect additional M365 tenants.
Your current tenant will continue to sync emails and calendar events for all assigned users without interruption. If you later decide to add a second M365 tenant, your existing tenant configuration remains unchanged.
Getting Started
Multi-tenant integration requires coordination between your IT team, your M365 administrators, and your Practifi Administrator or implementation team. The setup process involves several technical steps that must be completed by personnel with administrative access to both M365 and Practifi.
To begin using multi-tenant integration:
- Contact your Practifi Administrator or implementation team to discuss whether multi-tenant integration is appropriate for your organization's needs.
- Work with your team to plan your tenant structure, including which users will be assigned to each tenant and what exclusion rules you want to configure.
- Coordinate with your M365 administrators to gather the necessary credentials and permissions for each tenant you want to connect.
Your Practifi Administrator will handle the technical configuration, including setting up credential records, creating tenant instances, and assigning users to the appropriate tenants.
| Please note: Multi-tenant integration is not a feature that individual users can enable. The configuration must be performed by your Practifi Administrator or implementation team. |
Additional Resources
- Enabling Microsoft 365 Email Sync – Standard enablement guide for single-tenant M365 email sync
- Using Microsoft 365 Email Sync – User guide for the email sync feature
- Enabling Microsoft 365 Calendar Sync – Calendar sync enablement guide for single-tenant setups
- Using Microsoft 365 Calendar Sync - User guide for the calendar sync feature
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