Gearing Up for Copilot: How AvePoint's Confidence Platform Soars Above SharePoint Advanced Management
Microsoft 365 Copilot is compelling organizations to reevaluate their data security strategies, fortify against oversharing, and navigate today’s increasingly complex collaboration landscape. At its core, Microsoft 365 is a collaboration platform designed to empower people, a principle that has only grown stronger over time. The focus has been on building tools that let users work from anywhere, alongside colleagues across the globe. However, the very features that promote seamless collaboration can also create new security and compliance challenges if left unchecked.
SharePoint Advanced Management
When it comes to addressing this oversharing concern, Microsoft has positioned their SharePoint Advanced Management Solution (SAM) as the solution to help understand the potential risk of oversharing in customer tenants, while also providing capabilities to address that beyond manual remediation. SAM is an add-on for Microsoft 365 that provides IT administrators with advanced tools to enhance content governance and security within SharePoint and OneDrive.
The AvePoint Confidence Platform
The AvePoint Confidence Platform has been used by hundreds of organizations to enforce strong data governance and mistake-proof oversharing well before the recent boom of excitement around generative AI (GenAI) and Copilot. Our platform has been built with the dual purpose of giving administrators the tools they need to help maintain data security and data governance in their tenants, while also empowering business users to leverage those same insights to make informed decisions.
What's the Difference Between SAM and the AvePoint Confidence Platform?
To help compare SAM and the AvePoint Confidence Platform, we will focus on three real-world challenges:
- Identifying the current state of oversharing in your tenant
- Remediating any discovered findings both short-term and long-term
- Improving data quality to reduce risk while enhancing AI responses
By examining how each platform tackles these critical challenges, you’ll gain a clearer picture of which approach will best meet your organization’s security needs and set you up for future success with Copilot.
Identify the Current State of Oversharing
Understanding oversharing is a critical first step in preparing for AI readiness and strengthening Microsoft 365 governance. Unrestricted access to sensitive data can introduce security risks, compliance concerns, and inefficiencies that impact both users and AI-driven tools like Copilot. A thorough discovery process can help you identify exposure, enforce policies, and establish a more secure foundation for collaboration.
Here’s a comparison of the differences between SAM and the AvePoint Confidence Platform at performing a discovery of your current state of oversharing:
| SharePoint Advanced Management | AvePoint's Confidence Platform |
|---|---|
– Reports based on changes made in the last 28 days (not a complete inventory) – Supports Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and limited OneDrive support – Provides baseline user permission report (via PowerShell) – Some reports have limitations (i.e., baseline user permissions can only be run once a month) | – Provides full inventory of SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Groups, PowerBI, etc. – Helps prioritize where to start from a content remediation perspective – Enables you to perform a user and group search to identify high-risk content shared with those objects – Fully automated reports, granular down to item level, with RBAC controls and visibility |
Bottom line: While SAM has a 28-day window and can provide visibility into recent changes, AvePoint's Confidence Platform goes beyond, providing a continually updated view of all oversharing across the environment. This broader perspective not only uncovers risks that might slip under SAM’s radar but also delivers a more complete understanding of your organization’s overall security posture.
Remediate Oversharing
Addressing oversharing is not just about restricting access; it's about empowering the right people to make informed decisions. IT alone cannot scale governance effectively, as business users are the true owners of their data and understand its sensitivity. By shifting accountability from IT to the business, organizations can implement a sustainable model where users take an active role in managing access, ensuring security, and maintaining compliance.
Here’s a comparison of the differences between SAM and the AvePoint Confidence Platform at remediating oversharing:
| SharePoint Advanced Management | AvePoint's Confidence Platform |
|---|---|
– Conditional access policies to limit access to SharePoint Sites/Microsoft Teams – Block download policy for SharePoint and OneDrive – Configuration to set default sensitivity labels for document libraries – Initiate site access review to have business owners confirm permissions | – AI-driven remediation recommendations – Risk policies to address remediation and support ongoing governance – Near-time monitoring and remediation – End-user experience to empower business – Recertification of ownership, membership, permissions, risk, and business context with approval |
Bottom line: SAM focuses on identifying and fixing oversharing in SharePoint and OneDrive, and it offers limited remediation options without broader governance controls. In contrast, the AvePoint Confidence Platform provides a more comprehensive solution that not only remediates oversharing across multiple workloads but also enforces governance policies going forward. Additionally, AvePoint empowers business users to actively participate in these remediation efforts through a shared accountability model.
Improve Data Quality (through Archival and Deletion)
Improving data quality is essential for maximizing AI effectiveness, controlling storage costs, and reducing security risks. AI models like Copilot rely on clean, relevant, and well-governed data to provide accurate insights, but redundant, outdated, and trivial (ROT) data can introduce noise and compliance challenges. By proactively identifying and archiving or deleting ROT data, organizations not only optimize AI performance but also cut unnecessary storage expenses and minimize exposure to potential data leaks.
Here’s a comparison of the differences between SAM and the AvePoint Confidence Platform at improving data quality and minimizing risk through data archival:
| SharePoint Advanced Management | AvePoint's Confidence Platform |
|---|---|
– Admin-managed archival process of sites only; doesn’t support documents, lists, or libraries – Archive workflow to address ownerless and inactive sites and teams – Microsoft-provided storage as part of service offering | – Self-service archival and restoration process for all levels (sites, documents, lists, or libraries) – Customizable business workflows to support lifecycle management – AvePoint-provided storage or “bring-your-own” storage including non-Microsoft cloud – Identify and archive redundant, outdated, and trivial data to reduce storage costs |
Bottom line: While SAM offers an admin-led, site-level archival solution, this one-size-fits-all approach neglects the granularity needs of lists, libraries, and documents. Being admin-led means users will need to engage with IT for both archival and restoration needs. AvePoint’s Confidence Platform provides a comprehensive, self-service solution, enabling organizations to quickly identify and archive redundant, outdated, and trivial data without overburdening IT.
Summary
While both solutions promise to aid in AI readiness, the AvePoint Confidence Platform elevates data governance and security to new heights, surpassing what SharePoint Advanced Management alone can deliver. By offering a holistic view of all tenant objects, enabling a shared accountability model between business and IT, and providing granular, self-service archival, AvePoint ensures you’re not just prepared for Copilot — you’re also protected against the security and compliance challenges of the future. In an era where collaboration, security, and intelligent insights must work in harmony, AvePoint delivers the robust controls and peace of mind going forward.
Ready to learn more about the AvePoint Confidence Platform? Request a demo today.
Jared Matfess is an AI Architect at AvePoint with over two decades of industry and consulting experience. A former Microsoft MVP and a recently published author, he loves solving business problems with technology. He frequently speaks at industry events and conferences, inspiring teams to realize the full potential of their investment in Microsoft technologies.
