Apply Sensitivity Labels using Service Definitions

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Apply Sensitivity Labels using Service Definitions
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Apply-Sensitivity-Labels-using-Service-Definitions

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The following steps must be completed to use Sensitivity Labels in ProvisionPoint:

  1. Ensure Sensitivity is setup in your tenant
  2. Publish Sensitivity Labels from Purview
  3. Add the Sensitivity Labels into ProvisionPoint to be used
  4. Apply to the Service Definition

This article will explain these steps.

What are Sensitivity Labels

 

Sensitivity labels in Microsoft 365 help classify and protect your organization's data, ensuring that user productivity and collaboration are not hindered.
Here's a summary of how they work for containers and documents: Learn about sensitivity labels | Microsoft Learn

For Containers (e.g., Teams, Groups, SharePoint Sites)

  1. Privacy Settings: Labels can define whether a container is public or private.
  2. External User Access: Control access for external users.
  3. External Sharing: Manage sharing settings for SharePoint sites.
  4. Access from Unmanaged Devices: Restrict access from devices not managed by your organization.
  5. Authentication Contexts: Integrate with Conditional Access policies.
  6. Discovery and Sharing: Control the discoverability of private teams and default sharing links

For Documents (e.g., Office Files, PDFs)

  1. Label Application: Users can apply sensitivity labels directly in Office apps, SharePoint, and OneDrive.
  2. Encryption: Labels can enforce encryption, ensuring that only authorized users can access the content.
  3. Content Markings: Labels can add watermarks, headers, or footers to documents.
  4. Automatic Labeling: Automatically apply labels based on content or user actions.
  5. Collaboration: Encrypted documents can still be co-authored and shared with external users if permissions allow
By using sensitivity labels, organizations can ensure that sensitive information is appropriately protected while maintaining flexibility and ease of use for end-users.
 

Why is this important?

The two types of Sensitivity Labels are not linked, if you apply a Sensitivity label to a container, it does not mean all documents will by default have the same label applied to them.

How Default Sensitivity Labels Work in SharePoint Lists or Libraries

A default sensitivity label in a SharePoint list or library helps ensure that all new items or documents added to the library are automatically labeled with a specific sensitivity label.
 
Here's how it works:
  1. Automatic Labeling: When you configure a default sensitivity label for a SharePoint document library, any new files uploaded to that library or existing files edited in the library will have that label applied if they don't already have a sensitivity label.
  2. Priority Handling: If a file already has a sensitivity label with a lower priority, the default label will override it. However, if the file has a manually applied label or a higher priority label, the default label will not override it.
  3. Location-Based Labeling: This feature provides a baseline level of protection and acts as a form of automatic labeling without content inspection
 

What can ProvisionPoint do with Sensitivity Labels?

  1. Apply a container label to the Teams, Groups and SharePoint Sites that are created through or Imported in to ProvisionPoint.
  2. Apply a default Sensitivity Label to SharePoint Lists & libraries
    The same label can be added to the container and set as the default for the Documents library and any new libraries that are created through our app.

1.Ensure Sensitivity is setup in your tenant

 

Learn how to setup the environment from Microsoft

When using the Purview portal, a global administrator must sign in, navigate to the Information Protection section, and select the option to turn on the ability to process content in Office online files.
This action will enable the necessary capabilities for sensitivity labeling.

  • Alternatively, you can use PowerShell to enable these features by executing the command Set-SPOTenant -EnableAIPIntegration $true in the SharePoint Online Management Shell.
    This command activates the integration of Azure Information Protection with SharePoint and OneDrive, allowing for the application of sensitivity labels to files stored within these services.

It is important to note that enabling sensitivity labels may take about 15 minutes to take effect after the changes are made.
If you have a Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo setup, you will need to run the PowerShell commands for each geo-location to ensure sensitivity labels are enabled across all regions. This comprehensive approach ensures that all necessary configurations are in place for effective use of sensitivity labels.

Apply Additional setup for Containers: Use sensitivity labels to protect collaborative workspaces (groups and sites) | Microsoft Learn

See examples of Sensitivity Labels here: Learn about the default sensitivity labels and policies to protect your data | Microsoft Learn 

Ensure you understand which files can be supported: Enable sensitivity labels for files in SharePoint and OneDrive | Microsoft Learn 

 

 

 2.Publish Sensitivity Labels in Purview

Learn how to Publish Sensitivity Labels from Microsoft

Once your labels are created they must be published to ensure they can be used across your Teams, Groups and Sites.

Create and publish sensitivity labels | Microsoft Learn

For labels and label policy settings, allow 24 hours for the changes to propagate through the services. There are many external dependencies that each have their own timing cycles, so it's a good idea to wait this 24-hour time period before you spend time troubleshooting labels and label policies for recent changes.

However, there are some scenarios where label and label policy changes can take effect much faster or be longer than 24 hours. For example, for new and deleted sensitivity labels for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on the web, you might see updates replicate within the hour. But for configurations that depend on populating a new group and group membership changes, or network replication latency and bandwidth restrictions, these changes might take 24-48 hours.

 

 3.Add Sensitivity Labels into ProvisionPoint

You do not have to add all available Sensitivity Labels, only the ones that will be used for Provisioning and records management.

 

Expand here to learn how to extract the details from Purview and add to ProvisionPoint

Extract Label details from Purview

To extract properties of sensitivity labels from your tenant, you can:

Collect data manually

  1. Open Microsoft Purview > Information Protection > Sensitivity Labels
  2. Select the label and copy the following
    1. Name
    2. DisplayName
    3. Priority
    4. For container level the Group and Site Settings it supports
  3. Repeat for all labels

Use PowerShell commands 

  1. Ensure you are connected to Security & Compliance PowerShell. 
  2. Use the command Get-Label | Format-Table -Property DisplayName, Name, Guid, ContentType, Description, Priority
  3. This command will provide you with the sensitivity name, ID (GUID), and other relevant details about each label. This is needed to add to ProvisionPoint.
    The priority of the labels can be managed by their order in the label policy, which can be adjusted in the Microsoft Purview portal. 
  4. Collect what the Labels will do from Purview, for Container labels. 

Add Labels to ProvisionPoint

  1. Go to Admin > Settings > Group Settings and check 'Enable sensitivity labels' is applied.


  2. Go to Admin > Settings > Sensitivity Labels to configure the labels that can be used during the provisioning of workspaces.
  3. Click +Add sensitivity label
  4. Complete the label details, add
    1. The copied 'Label id' from the script results or from the name field
    2. The 'Display name' 
      If you have moved to the modern label scheme the group is not displayed. Set the Display name to something relevant.
      It does not need to match what is displayed in Purview.
    3. 'Description' of what this is for
    4. Choose the 'Sensitivity' level, this will be the priority # pulled from Purview or the script run earlier
    5. If the Sensitivity is to be used at Container level you must,
      If these are for content labels (Files) this step is not required.
      1. Enable 'Control privacy and external user access' and define what controls will be enforced
        Please note this mean privacy, guest access and external sharing settings may be restricted in ProvisionPoint Actions. 




  5. Click Save
Repeat this for any other labels in your tenant. 

 

4.Apply to the Service Definition

The type you want to apply will determine where this is configured:

Expand here to apply to Files via Lists
When you create a List template in the app, this can be used at the point of provisioning or using the 'Create List' action, ensuring consistency on your lists or libraries
 
1. Go to Admin > Service Definitions > Open your Service Definition template > Lists
2. Edit the List you want to apply the label to. If you have none, you will need to create Documents to apply to the default Document Library
 
 
3. When creating or editing a List or Library, under the Sensitivity field, type the name of the Sensitivity Label to applied.
This is a free type filed that also supports transform tags. {Sensitivity} can be used to match the container level label from the Sensitivity tab.
Alternatively type the name of the label to apply.
 
4. Click Save and then Save the Service Definition
5. Once the List configuration is saved, the card for the List will automatically update to show that a label has been configured and the name of the label
 

Results in Microsoft:

 

 

Expand here to apply to the container
The Sensitivity Label can be set at the container level, this means to the Team or Site and can be used to enforce privacy, guest access enablement and external sharing settings or be just a label. 
The ProvisionPoint Service Definition can be used to
  1. Set the default Label for the Site or Team
  2. Allow requestors to choose the label to be applied
 
  1. Go to Admin > Service Definitions > Sensitivity tab
  2. 'Allow Sensitivity Labels' must be set to Yes
  3. Define the 'Default label' to be used for the Service Definition, this will appear on the request form.
  4. 'Override value type' will provide the values that will be available to the 'Change Sensitivity' Action
    1. Select Sensitivity List
    2. Enable each label that can be chosen
  5. Select whether requestors can choose the sensitivity label at the request form stage. If this is set to No the default label will be applied.
If a label is used that has permission restrictions it will fail to be created.
 

Results in Microsoft:

 

 

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