What is my CEO’s salary?

This is one of the most used questions when Microsoft introduced the Copilot. As we all know, the Copilot uses organizational data to craft the reply to our users. Despite the various business benefits of how we use the Copilot, end users will ask Copilot some corner questions to see if Copilot can access that data.

Microsoft has recently introduced  Restricted SharePoint, which helps us with this use case.

With Restricted SharePoint Search, you have the flexibility to disable organization-wide search and limit Enterprise Search and Copilot experiences to a handpicked selection of SharePoint sites. Moreover, even if you have enabled Enterprise Search or Restricted SharePoint Search, your team members can still access files and content that they created or viewed earlier 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, chats, emails, and calendars they have access to.

• Files that were shared directly with the users.
• Files that the are viewed, edited, or created.

All this wouldn’t be needed if permissions are set appropriately, but who has permissions on the SharePoint set like they need to be?

Restricted SharePoint Search will be available as the GA from April 2024 onwards.