Pre-release
Security and permissions
August 365 Toolkit runs on your PC and talks to your own Microsoft 365 tenant. This page says how it signs in, what it can change and where everything it keeps is stored.
How it signs in
The toolkit signs in as an app that you register in your own Entra ID, not as a person. You decide which permissions the app has, and Microsoft shows them in the app’s page in your tenant. Nothing is registered with us, and no one at Outside Context Software has access to your tenant.
A few mailbox and compliance tools ask an admin to sign in when you open them. That sign-in is not stored, and it ends when you close the toolkit.
Where secrets are kept
- Certificate (recommended). The toolkit creates a certificate for your Windows user on that PC. The private key stays in the Windows certificate store and cannot be exported, so there is nothing to copy or leak.
- Client secret. If you use a secret instead, it is saved encrypted for your Windows user (Windows DPAPI). Copying the settings file to another PC or another user does not reveal it.
- Team sharing never shares the secret or the certificate. Each admin has their own.
What stays on your PC
Nothing runs in the cloud on our side. The toolkit has no telemetry and does not phone home. It talks to Microsoft, in your tenant, and nowhere else.
The one exception is optional: Send error reports automatically is off by default, and Preview what is sent shows the exact content before you turn it on. The privacy page has the details.
What it can change
The toolkit does real administrative work on your production tenant: creating, disabling and deleting accounts, removing licenses, changing mailboxes and groups.
- Every tile has a help page that lists exactly what it changes and whether that can be undone.
- Buttons that remove, delete, disable or dismiss things are red. Read-only buttons are not.
- Larger jobs, such as the Offboarding Wizard, show a plain-English review and ask you to confirm before anything runs.
- A failed step is reported with an Error ID. It does not silently stop the rest of the job.
Read what a tile will do before you confirm it, and see the terms.
Permissions
The app uses Microsoft Graph application permissions. You only need the ones for the tiles you will use, and Check Permissions in the app shows what is granted and which tiles are missing something. Some writes also need a directory role on the app, which is a Microsoft rule. The guide lists every permission and the tiles that use it.
Two permissions are worth knowing about before you grant them. Several tiles that change accounts need User.ReadWrite.All, and the offboarding tools also need Directory.ReadWrite.All. If you do not use those tiles, you can leave them out.
The audit log
- Every change is written to a local log: what changed, the before and after values, which account did it, your Windows user and PC, and whether it succeeded.
- The log is stored in a folder on your PC, or a shared folder you choose. It is yours to keep, export or delete.
- The built-in Audit viewer reads it, with CSV and HTML export.
Taking access back
To remove the toolkit’s access completely, delete the “August 365 Toolkit” app registration in Entra ID. The permissions, roles and certificate go with it. Nothing else in your tenant depends on it.
Code signing
The release will be code signed, so Windows can show that Outside Context Software published it. The pre-release builds are not signed yet. We will say so here when that changes.
Reporting a problem
If you find a security problem, email support@outsidecontextsoftware.com with Security in the subject. Please give us a reasonable chance to fix it before you publish details. For ordinary problems, see support.