A Graph API is available to extract details of the sensitivity labels assigned to SharePoint Online documents. This article explores how to extract the information from files in a document library and use it to create a report. The nice thing is that once you have the data, you can slice and dice it any way you wish in Excel, Power BI, or whatever tool you prefer.
Sensitivity labels support local language values, meaning that you can translate the display name and tooltip for labels so that they appear in the language chosen by a user. Most people don't both because it's painfully slow to insert the translated strings for multiple languages. However, when you apply a mixture of PowerShell and the Microsoft Translator service, the task becomes so much easier.
You can manage sensitivity label settings through the Microsoft Purview compliance portal, but it's hard to see all the settings for labels in a consumable manner. This article describes how to use PowerShell to extract and report sensitivity label settings, including highlighting rights assignments that might be out of date. It's an example of just how useful PowerShell is to Microsoft 365 administrators.
Microsoft 365 security is a big topic. Focus is important when it comes to getting things done. In this article, we suggest five areas that administrators could work on during 2023 to improve the security posture of their tenant. You might already have established full control over some of these areas. Even if you have, it's still good to consider if you can improve security.
Microsoft has introductory pricing for Teams Premium of $7/month/user until June 30, 2023, possibly because some of the features aren’t yet available. For example, branded meetings won’t be available until mid-February and the much-hyped intelligent meeting recap powered by GPT 3.5 is scheduled for sometime in the second quarter of 2023. Given the delay, you might want to wait before testing.
Managing Teams Meeting Templates
Meeting templates are available now. These are essentially policies to apply to meetings to control settings that are otherwise set by the meeting organizer. The idea is to speed up meeting creation by using templates. A new meeting inherits options from the template used.
Management of meeting templates is through the Meetings section of the Teams admin center. Figure 1 shows that the organization has four custom templates and one default (for virtual appointments).
Figure 1: Teams meeting templates listed in the Teams admin center
The process of creating and editing templates proceeds in the same way as managing other Teams objects. The only odd thing I encountered is the ability to create meeting templates with duplicate names. Although each template has a unique identifier, having multiple templates with the same display name is likely to confuse users.
Meeting Templates and Sensitivity Labels
When you create a new meeting template, you can set values for a range of meeting options, including using a sensitivity label. You don’t have to choose a sensitivity label, but if you do, the template inherits settings from the label and locks them against change (Figure 2), meaning that meeting organizers cannot change these settings for individual meetings. You can also lock settings in templates that don’t use a sensitivity label.
Figure 2: Some settings in a Teams meeting template are locked by a sensitivity label
The control a sensitivity label exerts over a meeting template is similar to the way sensitivity labels manage containers (sites, teams, and groups). Using a sensitivity label in a meeting template does not mean that Microsoft Information Protection will encrypt the meeting and its associated artifacts (attached files, attendance report, and so on).
Configuring Sensitivity Labels for Teams Meeting Templates
Before a sensitivity label can be used with a meeting template, administrators must configure it with Teams settings (Figure 3). These are the settings inherited by a meeting template from the sensitivity label.
Figure 3: Editing the Teams settings for a sensitivity label
Sensitivity labels with Teams settings are tagged with “meetings” when listed in the Information Protection section of the Microsoft Purview Compliance portal. If you want, you can find the set of labels available for Teams by running this PowerShell snippet:
Connect-IPPSSession
[array]$Labels = Get-Label
$TeamsLabels = [System.Collections.Generic.List[Object]]::new()
ForEach ($Label in $Labels) {
If ($Label.ContentType -Like "*Teamwork*") { # It's a label for Teams
$DataLine = [PSCustomObject] @{
LabelId = $Label.ImmutableId
DisplayName = $Label.DisplayName
Priority = $Label.Priority }
$TeamsLabels.Add($DataLine) }
}
$Output = $ContainerLabels.DisplayName -Join ", "
Write-Output ("These labels support Teams Meetings {0}:" -f $Output)
Meeting Template Policy
Users gain access to meeting templates through the meeting template policy assigned to their accounts. The default meeting template policy for the organization allows access to all templates, but you can create policies to restrict access to specific templates. For example, you could have a policy allowing access to a set of templates that’s assigned to members of a certain department.
When planning meeting templates and the policies used to publish templates to users, it’s a good idea to focus on a scheme that gives users an appropriate amount of choice. If you use a single policy to publish 10 templates to users, people might find it difficult to select the right template for a meeting. Three or four templates is a practical number to aim for.
Creating Meetings from a Template
To create a meeting from a template, select the template from the list revealed by the down arrow beside the New meeting button (Figure 4). Teams creates a new meeting and populates its options from the template settings.
Figure 4: Selecting a template to create a Teams meeting
Apart from the number of templates shown here, the importance of good template names becomes apparent. For instance, what’s the difference between a confidence meeting and a secure meeting or a private meeting? Differences may well exist in terms of the settings meetings inherit from each template, but it’s hard for users to differentiate between the templates.
Meetings created using templates have their options set. The options that the organizer cannot change have a lock icon to indicate their status (Figure 5). Other options can be amended as usual.
Figure 5: A Teams meeting created from a template inherits settings
Apart from having predetermined options, meetings created from templates work in the same way as do regular meetings.
The Promise of Templates
Microsoft says that meeting templates reduce “the time and thought process it takes to create and get the meeting right.” And “With templates, leaders can ensure that their meetings adhere to company best practices and policies.” I never expended too many brain cells when creating Teams meetings in the past, but I see value in applying standards to specific types of meetings. Whether that’s worth the extra license fees is a different matter. But I suspect that meeting templates will not be the key functionality that justifies an organization buying Teams Premium.
Keep up to date with developments like Teams meeting templates by subscribing to the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook. Our monthly updates make sure that our subscribers understand the most important changes happening across Office 365.
It's easy to apply sensitivity labels to new teams, but what happens if you need to apply labels to a batch of existing teams? This article explains the basic steps necessary to find teams without labels, figure out the labels to apply, and apply the selected labels.
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