SC-300 study plan for Microsoft identity administrators

By Yaïr Knijn, Microsoft Certified Trainer — Updated 10 May 2026

SC-300 is the identity exam for people who design, operate, and troubleshoot access in Microsoft Entra. It is not just an MFA exam. A useful study plan covers the full lifecycle: users, devices, applications, permissions, governance, and Zero Trust controls.

Primary source checked on 2026-05-10: Study guide for Exam SC-300. Use the Microsoft page as the final source of truth before booking an exam or committing a remediation plan.

Who this is for

  • Microsoft 365 or Azure admins who keep getting pulled into Conditional Access and Entra incidents.
  • Security engineers who need identity governance muscle memory before designing Zero Trust rollouts.
  • Teams preparing to clean up app registrations, privileged roles, access reviews, and authentication methods.

What to work on first

  • Document the current identity estate: hybrid sync, external identities, app registrations, privileged roles, and break-glass accounts.
  • Practice Conditional Access design with exclusions, report-only mode, authentication strengths, and device compliance.
  • Lab identity governance: access packages, entitlement management, reviews, lifecycle workflows, and privileged identity management.

Team training angle

SC-300 becomes valuable when a team trains on its own identity decisions. The course should include role assignment reviews, application access cleanup, and a draft Conditional Access policy set.

One-week action plan

  • Day 1: Entra tenant inventory and identity lifecycle review.
  • Day 2: authentication methods, MFA, passwordless, and Conditional Access.
  • Day 3: app registrations, enterprise applications, consent, and access troubleshooting.
  • Day 4: identity governance, access reviews, PIM, and entitlement management.
  • Day 5: exam drills plus a tenant hardening backlog.

Where Cloud Evolvers fits

Cloud Evolvers can teach SC-300 as exam prep or as an Entra hardening workshop for teams that need better access control before an audit or migration.

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Frequently asked questions

Is SC-300 harder than SC-900?

Yes. SC-900 is fundamentals. SC-300 expects you to operate Microsoft Entra identity and access controls.

Does SC-300 help Azure administrators?

Yes. Azure administrators depend on Entra roles, identities, Conditional Access, and application access, so SC-300 is a strong follow-up to AZ-104.