Cathays High School Helpdesk

Signing into the School Microsoft services (e.g. Outlook, OneDrive, Teams etc) on a personal device or a school device off the school network, you will need have Multi-Factor Authentication setup.

Firstly, acquire the Microsoft Authenticator app for your mobile phone 

Download the Microsoft Authenticator app onto your phone from either the iOS App Store (iPhone/iPad) or the Google Play Store (Android).

Computer set-up stage

On your computer, go to https://aka.ms/mfasetup and sign in using your main Cathays email address. Once signed in you should be on the Security Info page as per below. Click on the "Add sign-in method".

A dialogue box should appear as per below. Click the drop-down arrow, select "Authenticator app" and click Add.

You should now see the screen below. Click "Next".

...and then the following screen:

Click "Next" and you will get another dialogue box containing a QR code as below.

Authenticator app set-up stage

At this point, go to your phone, open the Microsoft Authenticator app and at the top right-hand corner click the "+" symbol to get to the Add Account screen as below:

Select the Work or school account option which should bring up a dialogue box like this:

Select the middle "Scan QR code" option and scan the aforementioned QR code on your computer screen. This will add the account to your Authenticator app and look similar to this:

Return to your computer which should still be showing the screen with the QR code and click the Next button, after which you should get a screen like the one below. 

As this happens, the Authenticator app on your phone should now look like this:

Now simply type the code showing on your computer screen into the phone to validate the set-up. You should then receive a message stating that the Authenticator set-up is complete. On your computer screen, the Security info screen should look as per below:

And you're all done. From here on, when you first sign into any services on a personal device or whilst using a school device outside of the school network, you will be asked to enter a two-digit code that will pop up on your mobile phone. This will normally last for 90 days, so you shouldn't have to do it more than once every few months.