Recently, Microsoft has been making a lot of updates to the world of SharePoint offerings, with two major changes being Microsoft Syntex (now called Microsoft Premium) as well as the recently released April 2023 launch of SharePoint Advanced Management, a Microsoft 365 (M365) add-on. Let’s look at the various SharePoint, SharePoint Premium and SharePoint Advance Management offerings so you and your organization can determine the best fit for your needs.
SharePoint
First, let’s begin with SharePoint (Basic) and its plethora of high-business value offerings out of the box. SharePoint is a collaborative platform that helps facilitate document management and information sharing within an organization. SharePoint offers a user-friendly and intuitive interface, making it easy for business users to create and manage sites. With robust security features and tight integration with the Microsoft 365 suite of apps like Microsoft Teams and the Power Platform, SharePoint stands out as a valuable asset for any organization. SharePoint also provides you with a plethora of opportunities to expand upon the platform.
SharePoint Advanced Management
SharePoint Advanced Management is an add-on to SharePoint that can be purchased separately and added to your SharePoint for $3/user/month for commercial users that also have at least a SharePoint K, P1 or P2 license or an M365 license. This add-on allows you to secure content collaboration and improve your site content lifecycle management with a series of advanced access policies. Managed from a single centralized location, the SharePoint Admin center, the features include:
- Restriction of SharePoint Site access with M365 groups and Entra Security groups
- Restriction of OneDrive Content Access
- Restriction of OneDrive Service Access
- Data Access governance reports for SharePoint sites
- Conditional access policy for SharePoint sites and OneDrive
- Secure SharePoint Document Libraries
- Download blocking policy for SharePoint sites and OneDrive
- Recent SharePoint Admin Actions
- Site Lifecycle policy management
- Creation of Change history reports
These features help you get valuable insights from your data regarding data access and security and keep your content secure by limiting users’ rights or completely removing their access to services like OneDrive.
For a more in-depth dive into each of these features, as well as additional details on licensing, refer to the official documentation here.
This screenshot captures what is just scratching the surface of the types of dashboards and visualizations your organization can create by leveraging these additional features for enhanced reporting and security.
SharePoint Premium
Last but certainly not least is SharePoint premium, which is essentially the fully loaded offering of SharePoint with all the additional SharePoint Advanced Management add-ons enhancing security and content management experiences through AI and automation.
The integrated AI capabilities allow your organization to collaborate on a larger scale and make interacting and collaborating with external users much easier too. You can utilize new features such as the eSignature feature, which allows you to sign DocuSign documents directly in SharePoint or Microsoft’s new AI companion, Copilot, which is being integrated across the Microsoft 365 suite of services.
With SharePoint Premium, you can analyze content faster, allowing your end users to spend more time on less tedious processes. The integrated file viewer allows users to edit office documents on the fly directly within SharePoint or Teams; this, paired with the new Business Documents App in Teams, promotes this idea even further.
External collaboration is also streamlined through external sites, promoting efficient collaboration with users outside the organization. I know with the recent advancements in AI, you must be thinking, “Well, this all seems expensive,” and Microsoft is combatting this with its new “pay-as-you-go” model, which offers cost-effective solutions for video and file conversion, dynamic autofill column capabilities and sensitive information recognition.
Beyond manipulating content, content governance is also enhanced with new Data Access Governance reporting that shows you which sites and content have been shared the most, with whom and how. Admins can leverage sensitivity labels to filter and drill down on these reports for efficient analysis and to provide actionable insights driven by AI. There are also site access reviews that help IT admins to alert content owners when their sites violate any policies and require review, as well as increased access control, allowing you to prevent any oversharing of content.
Microsoft’s updates to SharePoint, SharePoint Advanced Management and SharePoint Premium offer diverse and customizable solutions to meet your company’s specific needs. Whether your team prioritizes enhanced collaboration, robust security or streamlined content management, there’s a SharePoint offering tailored for you. As Microsoft continues to innovate and integrate AI capabilities, organizations can expect further enhancements and opportunities to leverage SharePoint’s full potential for improved productivity and efficiency.
Author:Joe Hickey | [email protected]
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