Applying a Custom Theme to Microsoft 365

Branding your organization’s internal sites establishes consistency. It helps to reflect your brand effectively and can create a sense of community by pulling your digital workplace together. This is especially important now that much of the workforce is working remotely. If you are a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Administrator looking to apply your organization’s branding as a custom theme in Microsoft 365 keep reading to find out what is required and how to easily complete this task.

Resources Required

· Must be a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Administrator

· Brand colors

· Logo

Microsoft 365 Admin Center

1. Login to Office 365 (https://www.office.com/)

2. Open the Microsoft 365 Admin Center

3. Select Show all from the left-hand navigation

4. Click Settings to expand the menu

5. Select Org settings

6. Open Organization profile

7. Choose Custom themes

8. Fill out each of the applicable sections with your organization’s logo and branding standards

9. Click Save

(default shown below)

(my selections shown below)

Check Your Work

Prior to applying my custom theme in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center my Office 365 navigation bar had an out-of-the-box theme of mountains.

After applying my custom theme and refreshing the site you can see that my Office 365 navigation bar has updated to include my logo and the branding colors I selected. The grey color I used is the background color of the navigation bar. The white is applied to the text and icons on the navigation bar and the pink is applied when I hover over my options and elsewhere within Office 365. In addition, when I click my logo I am redirected to the URL that I specified when applying the custom theme. This theme is now applied for everyone in my organization. When applying it, I check marked the box to prevent users from overriding the theme so they no longer have the option to change it.

Summary

In conclusion, with a few of your organization’s resources and the proper administration rights, you can perform this simple and essential task to update the theme in Microsoft 365 for your organization.