Microsoft said Friday, Nov. 13, that it had fixed the network problem behind a worldwide Microsoft 365 outage and was still restoring service to some customers. The disruption began Thursday and reached the Calgary region, where the Calgary Board of Education reported trouble with staff email and Foothills County said it could neither access nor send email.
The Calgary Board of Education said Friday that staff email was flowing normally again and that its technology team was monitoring the system. Its status page still showed reduced performance for SharePoint, which staff use to share files and information. Foothills County reported its email problems in a notice issued Thursday.
The extent of the outage in Chestermere remains unclear. A review of public notices found no confirmation of a disruption at City Hall or at Rocky View Schools, which serves Chestermere and surrounding communities. Residents waiting for a reply on a time-sensitive municipal matter can reach Chestermere City Hall at 403-207-7050. Rocky View Schools lists direct phone numbers for its school offices in its online directory.
The Court of King’s Bench of Alberta also issued a notice Thursday, warning that the outage could slow responses to inquiries and delay the receipt or processing of documents sent electronically.
The outage centred on Exchange Online, the Microsoft service that handles email for many workplaces using Outlook. Some users had trouble opening their mailboxes through the Outlook desktop app or a web browser. Others faced delays getting messages. Microsoft said the backlog had eased substantially by Friday morning, though some users could still have trouble connecting or receive messages late.
The same problem affected some features that rely on email or calendar information. In Microsoft Teams, users could run into trouble scheduling meetings, sending invitations or changing calendar entries. Most calls, meetings and group chats continued to work, according to Microsoft. Its Copilot assistant also had trouble for some users, including when it tried to retrieve work emails, calendar entries or files.
In an update shortly before 11 a.m. Mountain time Friday, Microsoft traced the disruption to a problem introduced during an earlier upgrade to increase network capacity. The issue surfaced after a more recent network change. Microsoft said it had corrected the underlying problem and was bringing services back in stages, checking that they remained stable as more customers reconnected.
Microsoft described the outage as a technical failure and said it had found no evidence of malicious activity. The company said it would publish a full account of what happened after completing its review. It tracks the email disruption and the broader Microsoft 365 outage separately in its service dashboard, where workplace technology teams can check for updates.
For anyone waiting on a time-sensitive reply, a phone call can confirm whether the message reached the person or office it was meant for. The same applies to meeting invitations sent during the outage, particularly if the time or location changed while calendar updates were unreliable.