SharePoint Premium is the newly enhanced content management solution introduced at this year’s Microsoft Ignite event, accompanying a variety of updates to the Microsoft 365 experience.
According to Microsoft, SharePoint Premium will leverage artificial intelligence and the features of Microsoft Syntex to enhance content experiences. It will also prepare the content in a company’s ecosystem for integration with Microsoft Copilot.
Microsoft says this update is crucial to the future of work, as companies from all industries rely on content to collaborate, innovate, and delight customers. Two billion documents are already created daily in Microsoft 365, demonstrating an apparent demand for excellent management tools.
The opportunities offered by AI and Microsoft Copilot have allowed Microsoft to augment the SharePoint experience, creating one of the most valuable content management solutions. Here’s everything you need to know about the new solution.
What is SharePoint Premium? The Basics
SharePoint Premium is the newly enhanced version of Microsoft’s content management platform. SharePoint is the world’s largest, most popular, and most flexible cloud tool for content management. It’s responsible for powering all of the Microsoft 365 experience.
OneDrive, Syntex, Microsoft Teams, Loop, and Stream all operate alongside SharePoint, giving companies a versatile environment for content management. The upgraded version of SharePoint, SharePoint Premium, not only represents the next step in the SharePoint lifecycle.
It’s also the “next stage” of Microsoft Syntex, a content understanding, processing, and compliance service that uses AI and machine learning to organize documents in SharePoint libraries.
SharePoint Premium brings the AI of Syntex, along with features from Copilot, automation, and added security, into your content experiences, processing, and governance strategies. Microsoft says the Premium service will amplify human experiences, automate content processing, and transform how we share knowledge in the digital landscape.
The Evolution of Microsoft SharePoint
Used by more than 200 million people worldwide, SharePoint is a core part of the Microsoft ecosystem. It allows users to collaborate, share knowledge, and deliver personalized news, files, and dynamic sites to team members.
Hosting managed content within SharePoint enables users to build rich applications beyond Microsoft 365 for a comprehensive knowledge management experience. Today, users can extend and develop solutions and apps for SharePoint pages, portals, and content using various developer capabilities. The solution works with the Microsoft Graph APIs, Power Platform, and more.
At the M365 Conference in May 2023, Microsoft announced various updates to the SharePoint experience. These included tools for simpler authoring, using natural language and AI to create pages faster, and collaborating in real time.
SharePoint also got an aesthetic update, allowing users to create more visually stunning sites with videos and images. Plus, users can create more innovative workflows with new integrations for SharePoint in Teams, Microsoft Viva, and email.
The new Microsoft SharePoint Premium builds on this functionality and Microsoft Syntex, the solution for enhancing and managing content with AI.
The Features of Microsoft SharePoint Premium
Microsoft says SharePoint Premium will deliver new ways for companies to engage with crucial content, managing and securing it throughout its lifecycle. It also prepares companies for greater adoption of Copilot for Microsoft 365.
The features of SharePoint Premium break down into three focus areas:
Content Experiences
Microsoft says today’s content platforms need to offer rich solutions to users that enhance employee productivity, improve business processes, and enable collaboration.
SharePoint Premium will extend the power of Office collaboration to the “integrated file viewer” solution, which supports over 400 file types. Users can add comments, tasks, mentions, and more to any supported file, just like Office documents.
SharePoint Premium also supports more high-value documents. Users can collaborate on contracts, orders, statements of work, and orders via the “Business Documents” app in Teams. Here, users can review a complete list of high-value documents in a unified view, with actionable insights and alerts for contracts or documents that need attention.
Users can also build new contracts in Word, using innovative templates with content assembly features to fill details in automatically. Users can compare contracts with related options using the AI-driven rules deviation engine. Contracts can be directly routed for signature and approval with SharePoint eSignature.
There’s even the option to upload high-value documents in bulk and use the AI-driven clause analyzer to examine and distil high-risk contracts.
Microsoft promises all documents will remain within your tenant, under your complete control. You can extend that content to vendors, external suppliers, and customers through the “Document Portal.” This allows users to create a branded external site for content sharing.
Content Processing
Building on the experiences of Microsoft Syntex, SharePoint Premium will offer users new ways to use AI to tag, classify, and secure documents. It also ensures new documents can be built with automated templates for exceptional scale.
SharePoint eSignature will securely digitize document approval workflows, rolling out in the first quarter of 2024. Companies using other eSignature services will also be able to integrate DocuSign and Adobe software, with add-ons coming in early 2024.
Services like content assembly, document processing, image processing, and optical character recognition are generally available via the Syntex brand. The following pay-as-you-go content processing services will also be available in SharePoint Premium.
- Translation: Convert Stream video transcripts and files with support for dozens of languages and leverage AI video cleanup to remove recording pauses.
- Autofill: Dynamically add new columns to document libraries and fill in values with artificial intelligence.
- PII detection: Automatically flag files with personally identifiable information such as credit card details, phone numbers, and addresses.
- Redaction: Find and remove sensitive information with AI on SharePoint Premium.
- Multilabel classification: Automatically set content type and determine models to apply to data with a single AI model.
These capabilities can all be used in bulk and individually by SharePoint Premium users. They’re also available to all Microsoft 365 users on a pay-as-you-go basis. In January 2024, Microsoft will run a limited-time promotion to allow users to get some of their monthly capacity for free.
Microsoft also announced Microsoft Graph APIs are now generally available for SharePoint Premium. This allows users to integrate content assembly, document processing, and other services into custom applications.
Content Governance
Since companies are creating more content and data than ever, ensuring compliance is crucial. SharePoint Premium extends controls for content and access governance to content owners and creators at scale.
For instance, Data Access Governance (DAG) reports offer a top-level view of “overshared” sites, filtered according to sharing policy, Teams-connected sites, privacy, sensitivity labels, and more. SharePoint Premium will also be able to trigger site access reviews for at-risk content.
Additionally, users can enable new “Restricted Access Control” policies. This allows them to specify the security groups that should be able to access content. AI-driven policy recommendations can also compare sample sets of sites with access policies for other sites across the tenant. It then recommends optimal access policies to improve your security standing.
Microsoft also introduced “Content Event Insights,” which allows users to find interesting moments in a content lifecycle. It can detect high-volume sharing and download activities. It also provides essential context information, such as specific files involved and impacted users.
Users can also use Copilot within the SharePoint admin centre to find sites with missing classifications, oversharing, or inactivity. Copilot can help suggest and build the proper access, classification, and archiving policies.
Upgrades to Microsoft 365 Archive and Backup
Alongside the SharePoint Premium announcement, Microsoft introduced updates to accompanying solutions, like Microsoft 365 Archive. The Archive supports companies in reducing storage costs and keeping information architecture updated.
Users can add SharePoint Premium rules for outdated content to move older sites into storage. The Archive then preserves all of the content from SharePoint, with versions, security settings, and meta-data. It also transfers the file at rest to multiply redundant storage.
While archived content is removed from search and end-user access, Admins can still search for the content and execute compliance actions, such as record disposal. The new Archive solution is available in public preview as of now.
Microsoft also introduced compliant backup solutions from AvePoint, Rubrik, Veritas, Veeam, Commvault, and Cohesity. Microsoft 365 Backup will appear in a paid public preview in 2023, with full access in 2024.
How to Access SharePoint Premium
According to Microsoft, users can start accessing SharePoint Premium features today. Certain content processing services, such as content assembly and eSignature, are available via the Syntex brand on a pay-as-you-go basis for most Microsoft 365 plans.
SharePoint Advanced Management also offers access to content governance functionality. The services under the Syntex brand will be merged into SharePoint Premium in 2024. Users can choose from two licensing models, starting with a pay-as-you-go solution.
There’s also the option to pay for new capabilities like the Business Documents Hub as seat-licensed services added to existing Microsoft 365 plans.
SharePoint Premium will enter broad availability at the beginning of 2024, with the option to combine seat licenses and Pay-as-you-go services. Microsoft will also deliver insights into its headless version of SharePoint at the end of 2023.
Unlocking the Benefits of SharePoint Premium
SharePoint Premium represents a significant step forward in Microsoft’s approach to content management. In today’s digital world, organizations are always handling larger volumes of forms and documents.
Already, many companies use SharePoint to store and manage collections of documents and contracts at scale. However, SharePoint Premium will take the functionality of this ecosystem to the next level.
SharePoint Premium enhances SharePoint’s capabilities with AI, automation, and intuitive workflows. The new solution will allow companies to save time and money on document management. At the same time, it should drive greater productivity, improve efficiency, enhance collaboration, and strengthen security and compliance measures.
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