Implications of changing root site url name

Question

I am considering changing the url of our o365 root site. {newname}.sharepoint.com/

I want to know what the implications are for the following:

1. Subsites
2. Sharing Links
3. SharePoint site application add-ins (key/secret pairs)
4. Applications/Powerapps/Power Automate which connect to these SharePoint Sites.
5. Workflows
6. Anything else important?

As well as an approach or checklist that I could follow to do this smoothly.

Thank you

Answer 1

You cannot change the root URL, so no need to worry about the rest! :-)

To "change" the root URL, you would need to stand up an entirely new M365 tenant, which means moving all content, mailboxes, users, and so on to the new tenant.

Answer 2

Although you can't change the URL right now, it is on Microsoft's plans in doing so. No ETA provided - Last post on 17 05 2020, "In the plans" status - https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/273493-office-365-admin/suggestions/10285887-make-it-possible-to-change-the-tenant-name-in-offi and comments "The functionality to make it possible to change the name of an O365 tenant, especially with Sharepoint Online in mind, is being planned. There is no ETA at this time though."

Apparently there was a private preview from Microsoft that would allow some companies to undergo URL changes (according to Steve from https://steveknutson.blog/) - and Steve's blog post shows some challanges he went through when renaming the business URL - link to blog post

Summary of Steve's post:

A few things I noticed:

• Search based web-parts didn’t show images until the search crawl ran. This includes the Highlighted Content web-part.

• SharePoint and OneDrive content was available immediately

• SharePoint Mega Menu links didn’t update

• The OneDrive Sync client automatically updated (I was advised I may
  need to reboot) Attachments in Teams channels don’t work, I
  understand they don’t use the document URL so redirects don’t work.

• Some search results had the old URL until the crawl had completed.

• I was unable to save to OneDrive until I had rebooted.

• SharePoint was OK

• Recent files in Office Applications point to the old URL

• Office 365 Groups in Outlook took several minutes to appear when I
  click the Groups link in the left hand panel

• Flows and PowerApps with SharePoint data connections needed to be
  updated to use the new URL

• Existing sharing links worked and automatically redirected

Issues:

• Teams channels didn’t show up in the Teams client. 20 hours later I still don’t see the files, but I can access them directly in SharePoint.
• OneNote file sync to OneDrive for Business didn’t work until I rebooted by laptop.

Thanks to Steve to make all this information available in his blog!