Office 365 Support

If you have an Office 365 subscription, there may be times when you need help from Microsoft. Here's how to import tickets from the client app, from the web app, or through your Office 365 account.

All of these methods will generate a ticket that goes to Microsoft support, but whichever way you enter the ticket, you will need to be online.

Note: Currently, Office 365 mobile apps will take you to help and support pages, but there is no direct option to create a support ticket. You can click through the help page until you find a link on the help page, but that’s not the same as having a formal method of contacting help. If you have a problem with the mobile app, it is best to submit a ticket using one of the following methods.

Save the ticket from the client system to your computer

Writing a support ticket from within the client system is very simple. In any format (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote), click Help > Contact Support.

Enter the information about your problem, and then click "Get Help."

Microsoft will try to match your problem description with the appropriate support documentation, but assuming these are not helpful (and you may want to try them first), click "Speak to an agent."

This will open a new panel where you can select "Live Chat" to talk to a Microsoft support agent.

They will help you solve your problem or show you help or training materials if you are having trouble working.

Enter the ticket from the web app in your browser

There are different methods of getting help with web applications, depending on the web application you are using. Hopefully Microsoft will make them all work the same way at some point in the future, but for now, there are a few differences. Here's how to contact support for each.

Word, Excel and PowerPoint

In a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file, click File > Help > Help.

A new window will open. Scroll down and click on "Contact Support".

This will open your account page, where you need to click on the "Microsoft Support" link.

Click "Contact Support" to open a window for a Microsoft Virtual Support Agent who will try to help you. If it can’t, it will put you in touch with a healthy person.

Looks, Calendar, and People

The Outlook client application includes email, calendar, contact management, and task management. These features are separated by individual tiles in the web apps, and for three of them (excluding Tasks, discussed below), the process for contacting support is the same.

Click on the "?" top right of the menu bar, enter your information, and then click "Get Help."

Microsoft will try to match your problem description with the appropriate support documentation, but assuming these are not helpful (and you may want to try them first), confirm your email address, and then click "Submit."

A Microsoft engineer will review your ticket and contact you via email.

Functions/Activities

In 2015, Microsoft acquired Wunderlist and later created a new To-Do app based on the Wunderlist app. Microsoft To-Do will eventually replace the Tasks option in the rest of Outlook, but this has yet to fully happen. The upshot of this is that contacting Tasks support is a bit different than it is for Outlook, Calendar, and People.

Click on the "?" top right of the menu bar, and then click "Get Support."

This will open the Microsoft To-Do support page. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and on the right hand side, click "Contact Us."

Another page opens, where you can click on the "click here" link to take you to the official Microsoft To-Do product support site, where you can (finally) enter your ticket.

This will open a new window where you can enter details about your problem. Click "Send" to send an email to the OneDrive support team.

Flow

Click on the "?" top right of the menu bar and then click "Support".

This will open a new page with additional help (which you should check first). Scroll down to the bottom of the page and on the right hand side, click on "Contact Support".

This will open the "New Support Request" form, where you can enter your support ticket.

OneNote, Sway, and Forms

In both Sway and Forms, there's a Help option available from the three-column menu in the upper-right corner, but for both programs, there's no explicit way to contact support with more than "feedback." OneNote has the same File > Help > Help interface as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but when you click it, there’s also no explicit way to contact help.

For all three of these apps, you can, of course, click on Microsoft support until you find a path to support, but that's not the same as having an obvious way to contact support from within the app.

Import the ticket from your Office 365 account

To raise a ticket from the Office portal in your online account, log in to your Office 365 account, click the app launcher (the nine dots in the upper left corner), and then tap "Office."

Click on the "?" top right of the menu bar, and then click "Contact Support."

This will open your account page, where you need to click on the "Microsoft Support" link.

Click "Contact Support" to open a window to the Microsoft Virtual Support Agent, who will try to help you, and if they can't, put you in touch with a live person.

You can see that due to the combination of product availability and the lack of a consistent UX design across all PCs, Microsoft provides multiple ways to contact support, even in this product group. They’ve obviously tried to bring a level of consistency to their traditional client apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote), but the web apps aren’t compatible at all and the mobile apps aren’t even functional yet.

Still, it wasn’t all that long ago that the idea of a human user being able to contact a real, live Microsoft support person was fanciful at best, so at least they’re moving on.in the right direction.