Smarter Retention in Microsoft 365: A Step Toward Cleaner, More Relevant Data - Coming soon

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Anyone who has worked with SharePoint management knows that data governance is a cornerstone of digital productivity, especially in large organizations where information can accumulate rapidly. Today, retention policies in Microsoft 365 allow administrators to manage data based on creation or modification dates. However, in my experience, this approach is not always sufficient. Files that haven’t been accessed in years may still linger in OneDrive or SharePoint, cluttering storage, slowing down search, and diluting the relevance of AI-powered tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot. A new feature in Microsoft Purview Retention Policies, expected this winter, promises to enhance Data Lifecycle Management. This upcoming setting will enable policies to identify files that have remained untouched for a specified period and automatically flag them for deletion or archival. This enhancement is particularly valuable for organizations leveraging Microsoft 365 Copilot. By removing outdated or irreleva...

Prepare for: Multiple account access to Copilot in Microsoft 365

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There is a new (As of January 30, 2025) policy setting is available in Cloud Policy, which will enable multiple account access to Copilot in Microsoft 365 desktop and mobile apps, allowing users to utilize Copilot across different signed-in accounts. 

The feature itself will allow a user to use a fully licensed Copilot feature from one tenant on "any" document available to them in a tenant they have access to. No matter if the user has Copilot in any of the other tenants. The feature will be rolled out globally from early March 2025 and is expected to be completed by late March 2025, but organizations might want to look into this policy and understand how it may or may not impact their existing security policies.

I recommend reading up on the following article, where details about what the user can access in different scenarios are described.

Here are some of the things to take into consideration: 

  • Copilot's data protection is based on the identity used to access the file, ensuring enterprise data protection regardless of the account used. 
  • The setting for web grounding in Copilot is also identity-based. If web grounding is disabled for a particular identity, it will remain disabled even when accessing Copilot from another account.
  • If a user is accessing a document in a different tenant, work grounded data from the home tenant will NOT be available
  • The feature will be available in most of the major apps. 
For organizations considering to restrict this behaviour, Microsoft has provided the following Learn Article.