What is Microsoft Purview?

Microsoft Purview is Microsoft's data security and governance platform for Microsoft 365. It lets you classify documents and emails with sensitivity labels, enforce Data Loss Prevention policies that stop sensitive content leaving the business, detect risky behaviour by departing staff through Insider Risk Management, and monitor how AI tools like Copilot interact with your data. The protections attach to the data itself, so a Confidential document stays controlled even after it's downloaded, forwarded or copied somewhere else.

Do we need Microsoft 365 E5 for Purview?

No. Until recently the advanced Purview features were locked behind E5 licensing, which put them out of reach for most SMBs. Microsoft now offers the Purview Suite add-on for Microsoft 365 Business Premium, which brings Insider Risk Management, advanced DLP, DSPM for AI, eDiscovery Premium and the rest of the suite to Business Premium tenants. If you're already on Business Premium, the add-on is the practical path: you get the capability without re-licensing the whole organisation.

What are sensitivity labels and how do they work?

A sensitivity label is a classification stamped on a document or email, such as Public, Internal, Confidential or Restricted. The label carries protections with it: encryption, access restrictions, watermarks and sharing controls that stay attached to the file wherever it goes. If a Restricted document is emailed outside the business or copied to a personal device, the controls still apply because they live in the file, not in the folder it came from. Labels can be applied by users, applied automatically based on content detection, or both.

How long does a Purview implementation take?

It depends on scope: how many label tiers you need, how much existing data needs classifying, and how much of the supporting hardening is already in place. A typical SMB engagement runs a few weeks from kickoff to handover, including the user training session. We deliver the work time-and-materials, so you pay for the actual effort rather than a padded fixed price, and we agree the scope up front so there are no surprises.

Information Security · Microsoft Purview · Data Classification & DLP

Your data, classified and protected. Wherever it travels.

Most businesses have sensitive data scattered across SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams and email, with no real picture of who can access what. Microsoft Purview puts labels and controls on the data itself, so the protection follows the document, not the folder it happens to sit in. We design and implement it end to end.

Book a Discovery Call What's included

Protection that lives in the file

Labels, DLP and monitoring,
set up properly and used daily.

Purview is easy to turn on and hard to do well. The default settings classify nothing, block nothing and alert no one. Our engagements cover the full stack: a label taxonomy your staff will actually use, DLP policies tuned to your business, insider risk detection, and the tenant hardening that stops people working around the controls. We run our own business on this configuration, and we're an ISO 27001 certified team, so the advice comes from running it every day.

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Why Purview, why now

The data was always exposed. AI just made it visible.

For years, oversharing inside Microsoft 365 went unnoticed because nobody could find the files. That cover is gone. Four things are pushing data governance from nice-to-have to expected.

Classify and protect

Sensitivity labels aligned to NIST guidance: Public, Internal, Confidential and Restricted, each carrying encryption and access controls that stay with the document wherever it ends up
Data Loss Prevention policies that block sensitive documents from being shared outside the business, with alerts routed to your nominated contact so someone sees them

Detect and monitor

Insider Risk Management built on the data-leaks template, tuned to flag and stop exfiltration patterns such as a mass download in the fortnight before a resignation letter lands
Data Security Posture Management, including DSPM for AI, so you can see how Copilot and other AI tools are touching sensitive data and catch oversharing before it becomes an incident

Training and adoption

Training material written for your environment, a delivered session with your staff, and hands-on time with your team, because a label taxonomy nobody applies protects nothing

The hardening that makes it stick

Entra ID device join and conditional access: MFA enforced, sign-ins geo-restricted to Australia, legacy authentication blocked, and unmanaged devices limited to browser-only access with downloads disabled
Intune security baselines applied to managed devices, with USB mass-storage blocked so the labelled data can't walk out on a thumb drive
SharePoint and OneDrive external sharing locked down to what the business genuinely needs
Application protection policies for iOS and Android, so company data on BYOD phones stays inside managed apps
Defender for Endpoint and Defender for Office 365 configured to Microsoft baselines, and audit logging confirmed so there's a record when you need one

Built on a tenant we already manage well

Purview works best on a tidy Microsoft 365 foundation. If your tenant needs work first, our Microsoft 365 management service gets the basics right before we layer the data controls on top.

Purview complements the Essential Eight rather than replacing it. The Eight hardens your systems; Purview protects the data that moves between them.

New

Purview Suite add-on for Microsoft 365 Business Premium

Until recently, most of the capability on this page sat behind Microsoft 365 E5 licensing, which priced it out for the businesses that needed it most. Microsoft's new Purview Suite add-on changes that: it bolts enterprise-grade Purview onto Business Premium without re-licensing your whole tenant. If you're on Business Premium, this is the practical path to everything described above. The add-on includes: