Flexible Office Working In Any Location, With Classification
Microsoft Office 365 simplifies management of Office and productivity applications, and allows users unrivalled flexibility to create, collaborate and manage documents by desktop, in the cloud, and on the move.
Microsoft is working to unify the hugely popular desktop Office suite and tools with an ever-increasing range of online and alternate platform based versions. As part of ongoing development work Microsoft have a program of gradually transitioning all of their Office variants into their new web-based ‘Add-in’ framework, opening up new functionality and extensibility to the online versions.
Office 365 brings all of these offerings under one online umbrella system, which can all be accessed from a subscription service. Even the traditional desktop-based Office application versions can now be downloaded by the user at their point of login to the Office 365 service. This reduces the need for System Administrators to undertake time consuming installation and update schedules on all of their user’s independent work stations, and ensures that users always have the latest software version. As well as these familiar desktop versions, Microsoft’s Office 365 now offers a huge range of alternate platform versions from online and Mac, to cut down versions for Android and iOS.
Seamless Classification Across Desktop And The Cloud
Fortra's Classifier Suite offers seamless management of classification across Microsoft Office 365. Classifier Suite information classification solutions help organizations manage documents and emails, and protect their use and distribution.
Office Classifier allows end-users to add business-relevant labels to documents in Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Users can signify the privacy classification of a document, such as ‘internal, confidential’, as well as organizational information such as department. These labels are used by the IT infrastructure to apply security and retention policies appropriate to the content. Additionally, the Classifier products add visual marks to content in the form of human-readable text, which increases user awareness and provides handling guidance. This can assist organizations in protecting against accidental or malicious data loss, and aid meeting data handling compliance principles and legislation.
When using Office Web and mobile Apps the classification remains, allowing users to collaborate and modify documents online, without losing their classification. The visual markings applied by Office Classifier are carried with the document and displayed by the Office Web Apps, ensuring users are clear on their confidentiality procedures when modifying documents in the field.
Intelligent identity-based conditions allow an organization to define the way users can classify documents and emails using Active Directory User and Computer objects. This could be used to allow only Managers to downgrade the classification on a document, or remove the classification headers and footers on a document automatically if the user is in the Marketing department.
Protecting Documents On The Move
Email messages can also be classified to indicate the nature of the message content using Email Classifier. Outlook on desktop and web is fully compatible with Classifier, and even where the Exchange server is fully cloud-based, use of Classifier can be enforced. This allows users of Outlook to utilise the full range of Classifier’s labelling features seamlessly online as well as on their desktop, and retain classification on their mobile device. When sending an email, Classifier checks all users are cleared to receive all attachments based on their user, domain or address book properties. If, for example, an external recipient is detected on an email with a document marked ‘internal, confidential’, the user is prompted to take action, such as to remove the attachment or the errant recipient. This automation is the front line in protecting organizations from accidental distribution of confidential data when autocomplete fills the incorrect mail recipient from a user’s address book.
Visible Document Classification In Cloud Or Local Storage
Documents labelled by Office Classifier will have their labelling preserved when stored within SharePoint Online, in the same manner as locally in File Explorer. The metadata label of a document can also be displayed within a document library, providing awareness of the sensitivity of the content without the end-user having to open the document. Sharepoint Classifier uses a document’s classification to determine if it should be held in a particular document library. If a document marked as ‘confidential’ is uploaded to a public library, the file will be quarantined, preventing unauthorized users from viewing it. Classifications can be applied and organized in bulk with Power Classifier, allowing large folders or drives of documents to be classified in both traditional or cloud storage.
The Most Comprehensive Office 365 Classification Solution
Fortra's Classifier Suite offers the most comprehensive coverage for data classification across the Microsoft Office 365 suite, enabling protection of files in creation, modification and transit. This coverage continues to expand in alignment and close partnership with Microsoft, increasing Classifier functionality as Microsoft grow the extensibility of their Office 365 Add-in platform.