Virtual Environment

Also known as: tenant segmentation, virtual tenant

A Virtual Environment is a logical segment of the data in one Microsoft 365 tenant, for example a department, region or subsidiary. Creating Virtual Environments is called tenant segmentation.

Each Virtual Environment carries its own selection of inventory objects, dashboards, policies and reports, and its own permissions, appearance and managed services, set independently from the root Environment.

Virtual Environments let separate parts of an organization govern their own data in one tenant. Each one sees only its objects, with its own dashboards and policies.

For example, a group with three subsidiaries can give each subsidiary a Virtual Environment, so its administrators see only their own users, Teams and sites.

To add one, select the Environment with the Workspace & Environment Selector, click Settings, then Environment Settings and Virtual Environment.

What to know before you add one

Tenant segmentation is included in the Enterprise Plan. Automations are not available in a Virtual Environment, and Search covers only Inventory, Reports and Policies there. Each Virtual Environment adds time to the finalizing phase of the Microsoft 365 scan, and more complex segmentation adds more.

The feature was earlier called virtual tenants.