Synchronize your Office 365 and iPhone Calendars
In Office 365 you have the usual authentication method:
- Username: mynameis@iworkhere.com
- Password
Once these are provided you can log-in and work with the services (mail, calendar, etc).
As we live in a very connected era where we’re surrounded by danger, it’s quite useful to consider additional protection mechanisms, in the case of Office 365 the ones supported are:
- Multi-factor authentication via SMS, Phone call, Double factor mobile application
- Application Password
Application Password provides authentication for applications that do not support Multi-factor authentication, iPhone Mail and Calendar clients are in that category.
Note: In the case of the iPhone mail/calendar where MFA is enabled, application password is the only way to connect to the service. Outlook for iPhone, the Microsoft application does support multi-factor.
First,
- Multi-factor authentication must be enabled for your account in Office 365.
How-To
On your Desktop
- Go to https://account.activedirectory.windowsazure.com/AppPasswords.aspx and log in with your usual credentials and click on the app passwords tab
- Click on Create
This will generate a password which you will only see once and CAN’T be recovered. Keep it in a safe place
Give your application password a significant name
This is the password, well, in this picture you can’t see it but it’s a long string, 16 characters. Copy it and keep it safe.
On your iPhone
Go to Settings -> Passwords and Accounts -> Add Account, you’ll be shown the following options:
Select Exchange
Configuration Details most of them self-explanatory:
Email: Your assigned address
Server: outlook.office365.com / It must be this one otherwise it won’t connect
Username: Same as email
Password: This is where the application password goes
In my test I just selected Calendar for synchronization.
Testing
As a verification, I added a simple recurrent meeting over the 365 Web interface
Hoes does it look on the iPhone:
Success!
Roberto