Lock Down Your Data Before You Turn On Microsoft Copilot
We’ve talked about this with clients before, and it keeps coming up for good reason. When you turn on Copilot, it’s like hiring a super smart IT person who immediately knows how to run around your entire network and grab everything available to them. Whether that’s fine or a disaster depends entirely on how your permissions are set up.
Copilot Sees What Your Users Can See
That’s the part people miss. Copilot doesn’t have its own separate view of your data. It works within whatever access your users already have. So if your permissions are sloppy, Copilot is going to be sloppy right along with them, and it’ll do it faster and more thoroughly than any human ever could.
The two scenarios that come to my mind immediately are employees and customers. You don’t want HR files going to your employees. You don’t want client files going to your customers. And you definitely don’t want your financial records just floating out to anybody who asks the right question.
Run a Permissions Audit on SharePoint and OneDrive First
Those are the two spots that matter most here. Before you flip Copilot on, you need a thorough review of what data is available to each user. It’s not difficult to do, but it does require some IT skill. It’s something we know how to do, and it’s worth doing right.
Also worth checking: data sitting on local computers or local servers. Depending on how things are configured, Copilot can potentially reach that too. So don’t assume the audit stops at SharePoint and OneDrive.
This Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive or Painful
I want to be clear about that. A permissions audit doesn’t cost a lot of money and it doesn’t take a lot of time. But skipping it and just turning Copilot on can cause a lot of chaos in your IT environment. That’s not a trade-off worth making.
Get the review done first. Get the permissions right. Then turn it on and actually enjoy what the tool can do for you.
If you’re not sure where your permissions stand right now, that’s exactly the kind of thing we help with. Give us a call and we’ll take a look.
Questions about how this affects your setup? Schedule a free IT consultation and we’ll walk through it with you.
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