Are you getting ROI for SharePoint, Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps?

We find that many organisations simply aren't aware of everything that's included in their subscription. And that means you're paying for stuff you're not even using. Unfortunately, it's an all-too-common scenario when it comes to investments in multi-app software (such as Microsoft 365).

So, where are some of the places you could be missing out?

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1. Teams and SharePoint

Used for document storage, intranet and collaboration/communication purposes, many of us are daily users of these apps.

You've probably noticed the constant evolution of them too, which is great until you start missing out on the new features (due to lack of time to investigate, not realising, no one to deploy). This is often combined with things  ‘getting a bit out of control' i.e. "where was that file again?" or, "where did all of these Teams suddenly come from?"

Improvement areas:

Commonly underutilised areas include governance features and SharePoint lists/libraries. And you may still need to move to the Modern Experience, which makes it much easier to share files, communicate and increase productivity. Implementing Dataverse should also be considered for large datasets.

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2. Microsoft Secure Score

Following the Secure Score recommendations can protect your organisation from cyber threats. From a centralised dashboard in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal, you can monitor and work on the security of your Microsoft 365 identities, apps, and devices.

Improvement areas

Many organisations have never used this, so the improvement = using it!

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3. Data Loss Prevention

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) helps you prevent the unintentional or accidental sharing of sensitive information. It examines email messages and files for sensitive information, like credit card numbers. Using DLP, you can detect sensitive information and take action such as:

• Log the event for auditing purposes

• Display a warning to the end user who is sending the email or sharing the file

• Actively block the email or file sharing from taking place

Improvement areas

Organisations often don't realise this exists and don’t have policies in place to support DLP.

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4. Audit Log reports

Need to find out if a user viewed a specific document or purged an item from their mailbox? If so, you can use the audit log search tool in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal to search the unified audit log to view user and administrator activity in your organisation. Thousands of user and admin operations performed in dozens of Microsoft 365 services and solutions are captured, recorded, and retained in your audit log.

Improvement areas

This is often a case of turning it “on” and then understanding how to use the search tool.

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5. Data Classification

Evaluate and tag content in your organisation to control where it goes, protect it no matter where it is, and ensure that it is preserved and deleted according to your needs.

Improvement areas

In today's world of data protection, this should be in place.

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6. Privileged Access Management

Protect your organisation from breaches that use existing privileged admin accounts with standing access to sensitive data or access to critical configuration settings. Privileged access management requires users to request just-in-time access to complete elevated and privileged tasks through a highly scoped and time-bounded approval workflow.

Improvement areas

As above, this is an important area for organisations to get right. Many don't.

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7. Microsoft Defender for Business

Microsoft Defender for Business delivers a comprehensive security solution to help you secure your business, including a threat and vulnerability dashboard, next-gen protection and endpoint detection and response. If you've got other 3rd party subscriptions doing this (that you're also paying for), it's worth consolidating.

Improvement areas

Requires a setup, which you may or may have done.

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8. Power Platform

An environment is a space to store, manage, and share your organisation's business data, apps, chatbots, and flows. It also serves as a container to separate apps that might have different roles, security requirements, or target audiences. Separate environments are needed to ensure the development and testing of end-user-built applications and final solutions can be monitored and audited.

Improvement areas

These environments and permissions are sometimes set up incorrectly, so they need to be fixed.

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As you can see, there's often more to Microsoft 365 than meets the eye.

If you want to see your specific organisational issues and improvements that require immediate attention, our Microsoft 365 Optimisation Assessment is right for you. We'll let you know how you're performing in the eight areas above, with priority labels to help you decide what to focus on.