Introducing Restricted SharePoint Search to help you get started with Copilot for Microsoft 365 (2024)

Update June 24 , 2024: Restricted SharePoint Search has entered general availability.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 reasons across your universe of data—all your emails, meetings, chats, documents, and more, plus the web. Copilot also inherits your existing Microsoft 365 security, privacy, identity, and compliance policies—so you know it’s enterprise-grade. Over the past year, we’ve learned that this experience is most effective when coupled with strong content management and data governance practices. As organizations roll-out Copilot across their workforce, we have seen that some are comfortable with their existing practices, some are making adjustments in parallel, and some want more time to update their data governance practices.

Restricted SharePoint Search gives you time to review and audit site permissions. It is designed to help you maintain momentum with your Copilot deployment while you implement robust data security solutions from Microsoft Purview and manage content lifecycle with SharePoint Advanced Management. Combined, these two solutions offer a complete solution for data discovery, protection, and governance.

How Restricted SharePoint Search works with Copilot

Restricted SharePoint Search allows you to disable organization-wide search, and to restrict both Enterprise Search and Copilot experiences to a curated set of SharePoint sites of your choice. Additionally, whether you have enabled Enterprise Search or Restricted SharePoint Search, users in your organization will still be able to interact with files and content they own or that they have previously accessed in Copilot.

Restricted SharePoint Search is off by default. If you decide to enable it Copilot and non-Copilot users will be able to find and use content from:

  • An allowed list of curated SharePoint sites set up by admins (with up to 100 SharePoint sites), honoring sites’ existing permissions.
  • Content from their frequently visited SharePoint sites.
  • Users’ OneDrive files, chats, emails, calendars they have access to.
  • Files that were shared directly with the users.
  • Files that the users viewed, edited, or created.

Additionally, Copilot users in your organization will see the following message on their Copilot experiences: "Your organization's admin has restricted Copilot from accessing certain SharePoint sites. This limits the content Copilot can search and reference when responding to your prompts. Learn more.

Introducing Restricted SharePoint Search to help you get started with Copilot for Microsoft 365 (1)Copilot for Microsoft 365 end user experience. There is a message at the top of the screen with the following text: Your organization's admin has restricted Copilot from accessing certain SharePoint sites. This limits the content Copilot can search and reference when responding to your prompts. Learn more.”

Restricted SharePoint Search entered general availability on June 24, 2024 and is designed for customers of Copilot for Microsoft 365. To follow the status of the rollout, please follow this public roadmaplink.

We appreciate your trust in Copilot for Microsoft 365 and are committed to continuing to serve your needs.

Frequently Asked Questions

1.Does Restricted SharePoint Search require an additional license?

No, Restricted SharePoint Search will be available to tenants with Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscriptions from April onwards. To follow the status of the rollout, please follow this public roadmap link.

2.How can I turn on Restricted SharePoint Search?

Restricted SharePoint Search is off by default. You can enable it by running PowerShell scripts that require Global/Tenant and SharePoint permissions. You can also use the same tools to control the list of sites that are allowed.

3.Does enabling Restricted SharePoint Search change permissions for what a user has access to?

No, this feature does not change permissions for what a user has access to, but instead it is intended to help minimize the risk of overexposure of overshared content by reducing what they can discover in search and Copilot.

4.How does Restricted SharePoint Search affect my search results and Copilot experiences?

If Restricted SharePoint Search is enabled, your experience will be impacted in the following ways:

  • Search results and Copilot search results will be limited (enabling this feature impacts the search experience, even for non-Copilot users). Users will be able to discover content from:
    • An allowed list of curated SharePoint sites set up by admins (with up to 100 SharePoint sites), honoring sites’ existing permissions.
    • Users’ OneDrive files, chats they are part of, emails they send and receive, calendars they have access to, etc.
    • Users’ accessed files and files shared with the user.
    • Content from their frequently visited sites.
  • Copilot will have less information available to reference, which may impact its ability to provide accurate and comprehensive responses to prompts.
  • Users within the organization will see the following banner on Copilot experiences: Your organization's admin has restricted Copilot from accessing certain SharePoint sites. This limits the content Copilot can search and reference when responding to your prompts. Learn more.

5.Will users be unable to access their information with Copilot if Restricted SharePoint Search is enabled?

No, if you have Enterprise Search or Restricted SharePoint Search on, either way you will be able to interact with the information you own in OneDrive, chats you are part of, emails you send and receive, calendars you have access to, etc.

Did you know? The Microsoft 365 Roadmap is where you can get the latest updates on productivity apps and intelligent cloud services. Check out what features are in development or coming soon on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, or view roadmap item here

Introducing Restricted SharePoint Search to help you get started with Copilot for Microsoft 365 (2024)

FAQs

How does restricted SharePoint search work with Copilot? ›

Restricted SharePoint Search is off by default. If you decide to enable it, Copilot and non-Copilot users are able to find and use content from: An allowed list of curated SharePoint sites set up by admins (with up to 100 SharePoint sites), honoring sites' existing permissions.

How do I turn on restricted SharePoint search? ›

To enable and set up Restricted SharePoint Search, you need to have a SharePoint Administrator or above role in Microsoft 365. Depending on the scenario, some actions you need to take are: Get the current mode that is set for Restricted Search. Enable and disable restricted SharePoint search.

How do I activate copilot in Microsoft 365? ›

Here are the steps:
  1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center and go to Billing > Licenses.
  2. Select Copilot for Microsoft 365.
  3. In the product details page, assign licenses to users and manage their access to Copilot and other apps and services.
  4. To check if a user has been added, go to Users and then Active Users.
Dec 20, 2023

Does Copilot work with SharePoint? ›

Integration with Microsoft Copilot Studio

If you need to expand the content that this copilot is grounded on beyond SharePoint, you can add additional data sources in Copilot Studio with over 1,000 different data connectors.

How does Microsoft copilot work? ›

Copilot receives an input prompt from a user in an app, such as Word or PowerPoint. Copilot then pre-processes the input prompt through an approach called grounding, which improves the specificity of the prompt, to help you get answers that are relevant and actionable to your specific task.

What is restricted access in SharePoint? ›

Site access restriction policies are applied when a user attempts to open a site or access a file. Users with direct permissions to the file can still view files in search results. However, they can't access the files if they're not part of the specified group.

How do I make my SharePoint site searchable? ›

Under Site Administration, click Search and offline availability. In the Indexing Site Contentsection, under Allow this site to appear in Search results, select Yes to allow the content of the site to appear in search results or No to prevent the content from appearing in search results.

How do I add search restrictions? ›

Supervise your child's access to explicit websites
  1. Open the Family Link app or go to g.co/YourFamily.
  2. Select your child.
  3. Tap Controls Content restrictions Google Search.
  4. Keep SafeSearch in "Filter" or change it to "Blur" or "Off" if you want to update access rights for your child.

Is 365 Copilot available now? ›

Copilot for Microsoft 365 is available as an add-on to Microsoft 365. A qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription is required to purchase Copilot.

How do I get access to 365 Copilot? ›

Use Copilot at Microsoft365.com or in the Microsoft 365 (Office)...
  1. Go to microsoft365.com in your browser (Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Apple Safari). ...
  2. Sign in using your work or school account for Microsoft 365.
  3. In the navigation pane on the left side of the screen, select Copilot .

Why don't I see Copilot in Office 365? ›

Refresh the page

Select the Refresh icon in your browser to see if the Copilot features appear. You may have third-party cookies blocked in your browser, which currently causes Copilot to be unable to validate your license. If Copilot still isn't working for you try enabling third-party cookies.

Is Microsoft copilot same as GitHub Copilot? ›

Scope of use: Microsoft Copilot is designed to increase the productivity of all users who use Microsoft products in their work. GitHub Copilot, on the other hand, is a tool dedicated to technical users, developers, who must carry out programming and development activities.

Does anyone still use SharePoint? ›

According to Microsoft, more than 200,000 organisations and 190 million people have SharePoint for intranets, team sites and content management.

Is there a limit on Microsoft Copilot? ›

Copilot Studio subscription limits

Chat sessions are unlimited per tenant every month, but a service limit of 10 sessions per user every 24 hours across all copilots in a tenant are enforced. Copilot Studio sessions that are included with Microsoft 365 subscriptions aren't pooled.

What is the difference between restricted view and restricted read in SharePoint? ›

"Restricted View" permission: Can view pages, list items, and documents. Documents can be viewed in the browser but not downloaded. "Restricted Read" permission cannot access the home page, it can view documents, list and other pages.

How do I limit search in SharePoint? ›

1 answer
  1. Go to SharePoint Admin Center->More Features->Open Search.
  2. Select Manage Result Sources.
  3. You can create a new result source or copy an existing one for modification.
  4. In Query Transform ,click Launch Query Build.
  5. In property filter ,select a property Not contain Manual value.
Jun 14, 2023

How do I hide users in SharePoint search? ›

To hide a service account from searches In SharePoint:

Go to Microsoft 365 admin center -> Active Users -> User – Edit -> Mail -> Show in global address list. Uncheck "Show in my organization address list". 2.

How does SharePoint search engine work? ›

SharePoint searches the full text of documents as well as their metadata. Metadata includes the file name, title, author, and any keywords or category systems you've put in place. Metadata ranks higher than full text to the search engine, according to Microsoft.

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