SharePoint Premium: All You Need To Know!

This blog is part of a series of posts where we are looking at the lesser-known SharePoint-associated add-ons available in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. The list below outlines the order in which the blog posts will be released.

1. SharePoint Premium  
2. SharePoint Embedded 
3. SharePoint Advanced Management 
4. Microsoft 365 Backup 
5. Microsoft 365 Archive 
6. Microsoft 365 Viva 
7. Microsoft 365 Copilot (M365 collab-tools related) 

In the latest chapter of Microsoft rebranding and renaming products, we now have a range of features in the Microsoft 365 environment that come under the banner name SharePoint Premium.

Microsoft is still underway renaming existing services under the previous Syntax and SharePoint Advanced Management monikers, so you will see these names referred to in documentation and configuration options but will eventually be phased out.

What is SharePoint Premium and how does it fit into the Microsoft 365 suite?

SharePoint Premium brings advancements in content management and experiences, bringing AI processing, automation and added security to enhance and extend existing core SharePoint experiences.

Microsoft has stated it won’t be turning any of the core content collaboration or page editing experiences into premium offerings only. The features only available in the SharePoint Premium offering are existing add-ons or newly released advanced functions. Microsoft has committed to offering the best in business content management and experiences with the non-premium licences currently available.

Key Features of SharePoint Premium

We’ll run through all the currently known features that SharePoint Premium encompasses, which Microsoft like to categorise into the following groups:

Content Experiences and Solutions

• Business Documents app for Teams – ready-made business document management portal for files such as contracts and agreements with advanced management functionality
• Document Portal – Setup secure shared portals with customers and clients using easily accessible external sites, branded to match your organisation’s look and feel
• Integrated File Viewer – A wider range of file types supported for transcribing, translation, online markup and annotating. 

Content Processing Features

• eSignatures – Request and capture digital signatures for business documents from both internal and external recipients, with third-party integration support for Adobe and DocuSign
• Translation for Files and Video – Using AI for language translation within documents (On-demand or automated)
• Predefined Document Processing – Using features like optical character recognition (OCR) combined with deep learning models to identify and extract defined text and data from document types such as invoices
• Unstructured Document Processing – Extract information from document types such as letters or contracts, based on phrases or patterns
• Content assembly automatically generates standard repetitive business documents, like contracts, statements of work, service agreements, letters of consent, sales pitches, and correspondence.
• Optical Character Recognition – Extract text from images and image-based documents to make them easier to search
• Image Tagging – Images stored are automatically tagged with descriptive words, to improve search and future automation
• Taxonomy Tagging – Automatically extract key phrases based on the contents of documents, match them with terms in your term store
• PII detection – flag files containing personally identifiable information (PII) such as addresses, phone numbers, credit card details
• Automated column fill-out – dynamically add a new column to a document library and use AI to automatically fill in discovered values
• Redaction – Find and remove visibility for select sensitive information, such as names, addresses, and social security numbers, from content viewing
• Premium Microsoft Graph API access to utilise the above features in custom development solutions

Content Governance Features

• Data Access Governance – Insights and reporting highlight overshared content, content without policies applied, low activity or access content ready for archiving
• Conditional access policies for SharePoint sites and OneDrive – Enforcement of more stringent access conditions when users access SharePoint sites
• Site Access Reviews – Administrators can trigger and schedule reviews with content owners for potentially at-risk content
• Site Lifecycle Policies – set up an inactive site policy to automatically detect inactive sites and send notifications to site owners via email. The owners can then confirm whether the site is still active
• Restricted Access Control – Specify security groups that can access the site and file, regardless if files were shared directly
• AI-Driven Policy Recommendations – Policy creation for access management, classification, lifecycle management and archiving
• Content Event Insights – find interesting moments in content lifecycles that may need further attention, such as large download volumes
• Site Change History Reports – Create history reports for sites to review property changes made in the last 180 days
• SharePoint Admin Actions History Reports – Create history reports for actions and changes in the SharePoint Administration Centre
  
  

Wow! That is a lot of additional functionality, and not all are available to use today. SharePoint Premium branding and all non-currently existing features are continuing to be rolled out in 2024 into a package of features that businesses can pick and choose to use to boost user productivity, streamline business processes and enhance content collaboration and governance.

Licencing Models for SharePoint Premium Features

Now these features are called premium because they come at a cost above the core Microsoft 365 license. Licensing of these advanced functionalities is applied using various models, some of which are still evolving or will be available via multiple means, it’s always best to consult your Microsoft licencing specialist to get the best rates possible.

Pay-as-you-go (Consumption based) licences

• Content processing services are covered under this licencing type – so you only pay for what you feed into the services
• These include eSignatures, Personally identifiable information (PII) detection, auto-fill columns with metadata extraction, content assembly, translation video and image processing, advanced classifier and Microsoft Graph APIs for SharePoint Premium
• A rough guide is you pay a few cents per transaction for processing operations like metadata extractions, to a few dollars per interaction with features such as eSignature, so these transactions can up quickly so getting familiar with budgeting in Azure is critical
• You can view the pricing on the current Syntex Pay-as-you-go services ( https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/syntex/syntex-pay-as-you-go-services) page
  
  
  User Assigned Licences (Seat licenced)
• Seat-based licences are required for certain SharePoint Premium features either on an access requirement (assigned to the user who uses it), or all uses in Tenant (not including guests) 
• Licencing costs for the Business Documents app are yet to be released. SharePoint Advanced Management which is an existing feature now moved under the SharePoint Premium branding is $3 USD per user per month for commercial customers as detailed ( https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/advanced-management) with every user in the Tenant requiring licences

Value Proposition for SharePoint Premium

With the extensive list of features available under the SharePoint Premium banner, it’s impossible to propose a single overarching value proposition for a business or organisation. We do want to highlight a few key points below that may be taken into consideration when evaluating the functionality and cost of utilising one or more of the features of the suite:

• As we move into a landscape where the AI capabilities of Copilot are available to all users, it is critical to manage both the lifecycle and security of content within environments. The features of SharePoint Premium can help with this by way of enhanced security for high-value files and automated reporting and insights into content
• Reduction of 3rd Party software and licence management may be achieved by way of utilising built-in experiences that provide equal or similar experiences  
• Content clutter management is made easy via automated content lifecycle management, enabling users to quickly locate and focus on the right and relevant content that matters. Shifting the burden of site and content management to the owners in a streamlined way

Final Thoughts and Points to Consider

SharePoint Premium encompasses a vast array of features, each offering unique benefits. To fully understand the potential impact on your business, we advise conducting a comprehensive review of these features. Implementing a pilot program with selected user groups within your organisation is an effective strategy to evaluate the practical value of each feature.

This targeted approach enables you to discern the specific advantages that SharePoint Premium can offer your business operations. By adopting the pay-as-you-go model, you have the flexibility to set budget limits for trial periods, allowing for a controlled assessment and the collection of insightful feedback from users.

At Chamonix, our extensive experience positions us as a valuable partner in navigating the complexities of SharePoint Premium. We specialise in:

• Designing test cases that mirror real-world business scenarios, providing a clear picture of how SharePoint Premium can be integrated into your operations.
• Advising on feature configuration, usage governance, and cost management to ensure a seamless and efficient deployment.
• Developing user deployment strategies that maximise the benefits of SharePoint Premium’s advanced capabilities.

As SharePoint Premium continues to evolve and new features are introduced, Chamonix remains committed to delivering up-to-date insights and support. Our goal is to help you leverage SharePoint Premium to its fullest potential, enhancing productivity and governance within your organisation. For further exploration of SharePoint Premium’s features and potential use cases, we encourage you to visit the Microsoft SharePoint Premium Adoption Hub.