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The Future of Microsoft 365 Governance in 2022

The focus on governance issues around Microsoft 365, OneDrive, SharePoint Online, Teams, and Power Platform is rising. Businesses agree that there is a heightened risk to data confidentiality and security with the shift to remote work.

Among the most significant threats are the uncontrolled sprawling of SharePoint sites, and Teams and Microsoft 365 groups.

There is a high possibility that the organizational systems, processes, and data could be compromised because of a lack of governance and control.

While Microsoft Office 365 does have in-built controls, there are areas where there is scope for better management. Third-party tools have now entered the market to fill this need.

What customers need

Governance needs are rising across Microsoft 365; it is required to manage and control the creation of SharePoint Sites, Teams, M365 Groups, Flows and apps. It is essential even for OneDrive as a security measure to thwart potential breach of access or permission. In principle, customers are looking for governance solutions which provide consistency, reusability, and standardization in the organization, along with data security and control over processes.

Eliminating duplication by streamlining through governance and control over processes

SharePoint’s site creation is a core feature; however, without adequate governance and training, users can end up having multiple sites in the absence of control or tracking. Similarly, in Teams, the chances of multiple teams being created is very real. The duplication of teams and sites can obfuscate real work and hinder data quality and reliability.

Enhancing consistency, reusability, and standardization through governance and best practices

Among the asks is the need for clear templates, layouts, and consistency in maintaining the brand image and ease of use while making systems unambiguous.

In the absence of templates, different departments may refer to the same data or process with other terms, resulting in confusion, duplication, and a waste of time and effort.

The solution lies in creating fixed templates that help collaboration and communication across departments without confusion over terms and names. Color themes and branding issues are also addressed through templates and establishing best practices that ensure consistent behavior across the organization.

Strengthening data security through configurable and monitored permissions

Across businesses, processes generate data which they share – internally and externally. And this must be done safely and securely. So when processes are built with checks and controls, data is protected.

Permissions, authorizations, and tracking of activities are vital to creating a secure environment. This helps keep the site and team creation getting out of hand. With a rise in data sharing- internally and externally, with limited powers- permissions take on a critical role. It is essential to ensure data confidentiality and prevent data leaks or breaches of any kind- unintentional or otherwise.

Among the popular third-party tools in use are products from Powell, AvePoint, and Sharegate. Let’s look at the offerings to identify the best fit for an organization to augment its Microsoft 365 with an additional governance tool.

Powell

Powell offers Powell 365, an Intranet, and Teams offering with an additional governance tool. The tool is a good solution with a user-friendly UI. Additionally, the Powell license provides the option to view third-party app data on the SharePoint site. It comes with a dashboard that provides a single glance insight into permissions, new site creation, and general management. Powell is user-friendly, has a great UI, allows provisioning and tagging.

ShareGate

Sharegate offers Apricot, a governance tool that comes free with it. While the basic version is free, the biggest drawback is that it doesn’t allow provisioning. Users cannot create new teams. The dashboard, however, is good and shows existing teams and essential information.

AvePoint Myhub

AvePoint’s Myhub is a popular governance tool. However, users have expressed hesitation over the steep learning curve required to use this tool effectively.

Why a custom solution could be best for your business

There are some obvious drawbacks to each of these solutions which a custom solution can overcome.

Reason#1 The Cost Factor

First and foremost is the cost involved. Neither Powell nor AvePoint comes cheap. The annual fees will set you back by 60k to 100KUSD per year. Sharegate Apricot, while offered free with the license, comes with certain limitations.

A customized solution can be yours at half the cost.

Reason #2 Lack of Customization

Any off-the-shelf solution cannot be perfect. Clients have certain specific requirements that these solutions cannot always meet. For instance, one business might want to accommodate ServiceNow tickets directly on SharePoint; another could want Zoom and Channel threads integrated onto their site.

Customized governance products can accommodate these requests while ensuring data remains safe. Organizations can share their requirements, and a customized solution can be built with all governance issues taken into account.

Reason #3 Control over your data configurations

A major drawback with third-party tools is that all configurations remain with the third-party solution. This means that if a customer leaves or wants to switch providers, they lose all the configurations, such as tags and naming conventions. The teams live in the customer tenant but  will no longer have access to the configuration

The most significant advantage when you get a custom-built solution is that you maintain complete control over all aspects of the solution.

In a nutshell, what can clients expect to get from a customized governance tool?

A business can get all the features that standard tools offer and more, with a customized tool. What they can expect is a:

Complete governance tool that provides full visibility into users, permissions, actions taken

Solution with web parts that allow third-party integration if required

Modern navigation that is user friendly and intuitive

Dashboard with all relevant information presented as graphs, tables, or as required by the customer

Global administration view displays details such as what is happening in each team and who is tagged.

Inbuilt or configurable rules such as for nomenclature to ensure naming convention is followed

Automation is used to enhance control and ensure approval protocol is followed

Notification on activities by Bots

Reports generation

Talk to us for a free consultative session on which governance tool would be best suited for your organization. We are Microsoft partners and can help build your customized Automated Governance platform for Microsoft teams.

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Leverage end-to-end process automation with RPA to transform your business

Robotic Process Automation(RPA) has seen an unprecedented spike in interest and adoption over the last few years. The surge can be attributed to businesses looking at automating manual and repetitive tasks as effective ways to reduce operational costs and improve resource utilization.

A study by Forbes indicated that 60% of all technology workforce spend around 30% of their time doing automatable tasks manually

This indicates that the massive opportunity for RPA is for real in the current times and is the key to an accelerated path towards optimizing business processes. The role of RPA in business transformations has grown multifold in the past years, along with its scope and the wide range of RPA service providers who provide custom automation solutions across diverse technology platforms.

The vast demand for RPA solutions has seen it evolve from basic UI automation to automated Bots, workflows, and forms, with many users opting for an integrated platform that includes both the core technology stack and the RPA functionalities.

Among the diverse sets of RPA suites in the market, Microsoft stands out as one of the most preferred and effective platforms for the rapid development and deployment of RPA solutions by digital transformation companies. The Microsoft platform delivers better efficiency, data security, accuracy, privacy, exception handling, and easier governance to enable agile process automation for specific business needs.

A study by Forrester Wave in 2021 for Robotic Process Automation has placed Microsoft as one of the top leaders in the set of RPA providers for its strong solution offering, strategy, and market presence.

Microsoft Power Automate as an RPA tool

Microsoft Power Automate has the features of a comprehensive RPA suite. It supports integration with a wide range of Microsoft and third-party applications, cloud deployment, and a distinct cost advantage making it a preferred choice. In addition, the suite has a simple low-code approach for automation of operational processes and using RPA to transform your business.

Microsoft’s RPA solution is a key driver of transformative changes in the automation spectrum, enabling businesses to leverage the vast benefits of implementing RPA in business operations.

Diverse Data Sources

Power Automate accesses both structured and unstructured data, text, and images with its vast integration capabilities. Integrated Artificial Intelligence capabilities such as AI Builder enable integration with Analog data, paving the way for seamless data integration.

No-code automation

The drag-and-drop capabilities make it easy to build automated Bots without the need for complex coding or specialized technology skills. It enables easy capture of keyboard and mouse actions in an application to create an automation cycle. The Microsoft Power Platform supports both attended and unattended RPAs while the App is running in the background.

Power Automate has a library of pre-built templates for common automation scenarios to configure for rapid deployment quickly. It avoids manual errors and ensures accuracy with error-free processing of workflows, operational processes, and data.

Extensibility

Power automate has over 300 data connectors that link with a range of third-party Apps, cloud applications, and data sources. The connectors extend the scope of automation possibilities in legacy systems by using the suite to integrate them.

Native Integration

The Power Automate suite integrates with the Office 365 ecosystem and Power BI. With this integration, the benefits of the Microsoft technology stack become available across the ecosystem.

Power Automate and Hyper automation

Hyper automation is an advanced feature of automation technologies that enhances the capabilities of automated processes by uncovering new scenarios and creating new automated Bots.  Hyper automation works with Artificial Intelligence capabilities which can discover hidden automation opportunities in operational models. It was one of the top 10 technology trends in 2020 and is now being widely used to extend the scope of normal automation methods by using AI solutions for business process automation.

Power Automate has integrated hyperautomation capabilities that enable users to go beyond traditional automation scenarios by breaking down siloed processes and enabling automation at a micro-level of the operational model.

Embedded AI capabilities in process discovery increase the pace of automation by five times with automatically creating bots.

Intelligent Bots gather data and workflow insights while working and automatically create new bots with extended functionalities.

Cognitive capabilities, optical character recognition, fuzzy logic, and Machine Learning capabilities enable unstructured information processing for intelligent document processing

Flexible Pricing Model

Power Automate has a flexible pricing model. Users pay for the services used, making it especially useful when adding and deleting bots.

As a comprehensive platform that supports business’ automation needs, Power Platform is an intelligent choice. It is a feature-rich automation suite, scalable, and users don’t need to have the in-depth technical knowledge to build automated bots or create workflows and forms. In addition, the low-code model expedites end-to-end process automation of manual processes and speeds up the enterprise digital transformation.