As you might have noticed by now, Microsoft updated the interface to manage (inbound/outbound) connectors in Office 365. Now, there is no longer a separate box for Inbound Connectors and another one for Outbound connectors:
When we create a new connector, we use the following dropdown boxes to specify the direction of the mail flow:
Another big difference is the introduction of the outbound connector validation feature as part of the new connector UI. Just before Exchange Online creates the connector, it performs several tests in order to validate the connector:
If the validation fails, we can get further details by clicking on Details:
Even if the validation fails, we can still save the connector. This is useful when we want to pre-create connectors before all the required firewall changes are in place, for example:
