Guide to Understanding SharePoint Premium

What is SharePoint Premium?

SharePoint Premium stands as the latest and enhanced iteration of Microsoft’s content management platform. It is recognized globally as the largest, most popular, and highly flexible cloud tool for content management.

SharePoint Premium, at Microsoft 365’s core, innovates content interaction, overseeing lifecycle management and protection for critical data.

This enhanced version also facilitates the optimization of content value. This is possible through robust security measures and structural organization.

In turn preparing it for integration with Copilot for Microsoft 365, the cutting-edge AI assistant revolutionizing productivity.

Do You Need SharePoint Premium?

The decision to opt for SharePoint Premium depends on the specific needs and goals of an organization. Here are some considerations to help determine whether it is necessary:

Size and Complexity of Organization: SharePoint Premium is more likely to be advantageous for larger organizations with intricate operations and high collaboration needs. It’s possible that small and medium-sized enterprises to get by with just the basic SharePoint functionality.

Data Sensitivity and Compliance Requirements: The advanced security and compliance features are crucial for preserving data integrity and legal adherence. This is needed in organizations that handle extremely sensitive information or are subject to stringent regulatory compliance.

Business Intelligence is Emphasized: SharePoint Premium’s Power BI integration aids data-driven decision-making for companies reliant on analytics and business intelligence. In data-driven sectors, having superior analytical skills might give you a competitive advantage. Standard SharePoint features may be sufficient for simpler workflows, while complex scenarios benefit from the advanced options.

Key Features of SharePoint Premium:

It is important to remember that most of the functionality included in SharePoint Premium are already available via SharePoint Advanced Management or Syntex (pay-as-you-go). Microsoft’s approach is combining current items, condensing its selection, and making further improvements plans. With SharePoint Premium, users can expect a comprehensive package, incorporating most features from Microsoft Syntex and SharePoint Advanced Management, along with new enhancements.

SharePoint Premium encompasses several key features designed to elevate content management and processing capabilities:

New Capabilities:

SharePoint Premium brings together the advantages of Syntex and SharePoint Advanced Management into a unified and potent product, introducing novel features. The key capabilities include:

Enhanced Collaboration and Engagement:

SharePoint Premium enhances collaboration by providing tools for improved user engagement. It introduces an integrated file viewer, enabling users to seamlessly add ink, comments, mentions, tasks, and more to 400+ file types. This functionality mirrors the collaborative features available for Office documents, ensuring a consistent and versatile user experience. Poised to enrich file interaction, annotation capabilities foster a dynamic collaborative environment.

Teams Business Documents Application:

This application facilitates the seamless management of crucial documents such as contracts, statements of work, and invoices within Microsoft Teams. It streamlines the review process, providing users with valuable insights. This includes alerts for impending contract expirations, outstanding invoices, or any other document demanding immediate attention.

Document Portal:

This platform enhances communication with external entities, such as suppliers, vendors, customers, and freelancers, fostering more efficient collaboration. Tailored external sites can be created on the portal to meet specific requirements and accommodate diverse collaboration preferences for different groups or types of external users.

Utilizing AI for Smarter Work:

Designed to empower users, SharePoint Premium leverages new AI capabilities, optimizing time utilization for achieving more with less effort. Recent additions supporting this objective include:

SharePoint eSignature:

With the addition of eSignature, SharePoint users may now sign documents directly within the platform, streamlining the document approval process. This functionality facilitates smooth integration for users who are already utilizing DocuSign and Adobe for digital document signings.

New Pay-as-you-go Services:

The newly introduced pay-as-you-go services bring forth additional capabilities. It includes file and video transcript translation, dynamic autofill columns, sensitive information identification and redaction, and a new multi-label classifier. This classifier utilizes a single AI model to establish content type and determine the most suitable model for data extraction and analysis.

Addressing Content Governance:

SharePoint Premium enhances control for IT administrators by introducing some novel capabilities like:

• Data Access Governance (DAG) Reports: The DAG Reports feature focuses on mitigating oversharing of sites and content within SharePoint, specifically filtered by sharing policies. Administrators can generate reports incorporating sensitivity labels and privacy controls, ensuring timely alerts for effective oversight and management.
• Site Access Reviews: Within this feature, IT administrators have the capability to notify content owners about sites that may be at risk of policy violations. Prompting content owners to review access permissions and confirm their site status achieves this.
• Copilot Integration in SharePoint Admin Center: IT administrators will now find Copilot directly integrated into the SharePoint admin center. This integration facilitates a more proactive governance approach, enabling admins to leverage Copilot for actions such as access management, classification, and archiving.
• AI-Powered Insights: The latest AI capabilities furnish IT administrators with actionable insights and recommendations. By comparing a representative set of sites with those adhering to ideal policy practices, AI discerns any deviations.
• Restricted Access Control: Introducing the restricted access control feature, which aids in addressing oversharing concerns by pinpointing security groups that should have access. This feature enhances access management by ensuring a more precise and controlled distribution of permissions.

In what way does SharePoint Premium elevate SharePoint, including SharePoint Advanced Management?

SharePoint Premium enhances SharePoint’s capabilities by automating the extraction of vital information from documents.

Utilizing predefined SharePoint Premium models, it achieves this through essentially employing AI Machine Teaching models.

Moreover, with the integration of SharePoint Advanced Management, organizations gain additional tools for efficient content governance and management.

After creating a model, streamline document metadata extraction by deploying it to one or multiple document libraries.

This not only results in time and cost savings but also enhances the discoverability of each document.

Consequently, SharePoint Premium, complemented by SharePoint Advanced Management, contributes to the enrichment of corporate memory—the repository of available knowledge—transforming seemingly concealed documents into valuable corporate assets.

The integration of SharePoint Advanced Management further strengthens the overall governance and control over content within the SharePoint environment.

Conclusion

In conclusion, SharePoint Premium is a feature-rich solution that caters to the needs of organizations requiring advanced management functionalities.

Enhanced security, business connectivity, Power BI integration, workflow automation, and customization make it a compelling choice for specific businesses.

However decide on SharePoint Premium investment carefully, considering organization size, complexity, data sensitivity, and specific requirements.

Larger enterprises with complex needs may find it indispensable. While smaller organizations might find standard SharePoint features sufficient for simpler needs.

Choosing between SharePoint and SharePoint Premium depends on aligning platform capabilities with the organization’s unique goals and characteristics.