This sequence of posts is about my first impressions of the SharePoint Advanced Management add-on features for M365/SharePoint Online.

There are four posts in total:

Minor SAM feautures

There are more features to SAM, which are a little less extensive than the features presented on the first 3 pages.

Here they are:

Block download policy for SharePoint and OneDrive

Prevent download for both external and internal users

Review: This could already be achieved via standard SP Restricted View permissions (or Conditional access). However, this block download policy is easier to use and more secure (no mistakes in assigning permissions can happen). It also blocks printing.

Its useful for higly confidential or top secret sites where content may not leak out at all.

Change history

Find all actions taken by Admins on all or specific SharePoint sites

Review: Nice feature, but I doubt it will be used a lot. In some cases, where mistakes have been made, it could come in handy.

Default sensitivity labels for document libraries

Help make sure sensitive project files are appropriately labeled

Review: If you're already requiring each document to be labelled then the impact of this feature will not be very high. If you have no labelling in place yet, it may be useful to start with the document libraries.

OneDrive access restriction

Allow only particular groups of users to use OneDrive

Review: Could be useful feature to prevent unwanted OneDrive usage, for example for accounts of external users.

AI Insights

As part of the reporting and policies available in SAM, you can get an AI generated insights report about the results.

Review: This gives quick insights into the main issues the report surfaces. But in most cases, you will be interested in the site-by-site results not just the general conclusion about thousands of sites in a few lines.

Final comments about SharePoint Advanced Management

Hopefully, the explanation and screenshots gives a good first impression on the features provided in SAM.

Overall, I think it is a great addition to facilitate governance and management of SharePoint Online. Now that it will come free with Copilot from early 2025, a lot more companies can reap the benefits of SAM and improve their SharePoint tenant management. So, I suggest you acquire at least a few Copilot licenses for your IT admins in 2025, so they can maintain and govern the SP tenant better.