The Microsoft 365 Purview product team was well represented at Relativity Fest with Nick Robinson, Caitlin Fitzgerald and Erica Toelle. Our briefing focused on recent Purview feature releases and how M365 customers are leveraging Purview eDiscovery despite many common market misconceptions. M365 and the Purview eDiscovery (Premium) features cover the majority of the ‘upstream’ EDRM model phases for many discovery usage cases. The actual implementation functionality is not a practical solution for many large, complex discovery scenarios. No single ECM or eDiscovery solution is meant for every possible data source, scope, scale or exotic requirement. The Purview team firmly stated that Purview (Standard & Premium) and associated APIs provide essential preservation, retrieval, analysis and export functionality to meet global customer common requirements while their partners (like Relativity) ex
pand that functionality to address high stakes matters.
I have always felt that 5% of matters get 95% of the budget, attention and technology development. I call this the eDiscovery Iceberg model. Our market focuses on these matters and largely ignores the vast majority of small holds, internal investigations and other incidents that typically settle or resolve well before interrogatories or discovery requests start flying. I have learned the hard way to segregate these ‘whale vs. minnow’ matters when conducting eDiscovery maturity assessments for clients. These matter classes cannot be compared or lumped together fairly. Neither can their technology, performance or expertise requirements. eDiscovery solutions need context and practical usage scenarios to understand their appropriate capabilities and exceptions.
Recent Microsoft Roadmap releases with eDiscovery impact:
The feature acolumn links will take you directly to the Microsoft Roadmap entry. Visit the eDJ Research page for more information on past and future releases that have been flagged for potential eDiscovery impact.
| Feature | Impact | eDJ Comment | Description | Detail | Product | Phase | Release |
| 88815 | 5 | Long awaited ability to better identify Teams locations in scope. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery (Premium) – Identify Teams as data sources | Simplified picking of relevant Teams and channels (standard, private, and shared) to intelligently identify associated custodian mailboxes, group mailboxes, OneDrive for Business accounts, and SharePoint sites that may contain Teams data that’s relevant to your case. Note: We are updating a release phase to reflect the current state. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal | Preview, General Availability | 2023/10/01 |
| 67092 | 5 | ALERT – you must put SPOD sites on hold to search for deleted items! – MSFT says that this will be updated soon. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery (Premium) – Expanded support to search and export items in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business Recycle Bin | Traditionally, when a site is on hold, the files in the Recycle Bin would be stored in the Preservation Hold library. In cases when a site is not on hold, there is no way to search or export items in the Recycle Bin. The eDiscovery and SharePoint Online teams are making architectural changes that will make the Recycle Bin (both first stage and second stage Recycle Bins) in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business searchable and exportable by eDiscovery Managers. That means organizations can search and export items in the Recycle Bin regardless of whether a site is on hold or not. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal | Preview, General Availability | 2023/09/01 |
| 93414 | 3 | Potential to extend eDiscovery to 3rd party sources via Graph – MSFT says that this may be updated or roll out pushed. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery (Premium) – Support for Graph Connectors content | Microsoft 365 admins can now connect third-party applications into their environments via Graph Connectors. With this update this content will now be available for eDiscovery workflows including collections, review, and export. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal | General Availability, Preview | 2023/09/01 |
| 95788 | 3 | Potential to create custom retention workflows on transcripts to maximize business value and minimize discovery impact. See Feature 95787 for recordings. | Microsoft Teams: Graph API for Teams Meetings Transcripts | Graph API to access Teams Meetings transcript once the meeting is over. | Microsoft Teams | General Availability | 2023/08/01 |
| 98093 | 3 | Potential to allow external counsel, regulators or others to do in camera inspections, review or request items in a specific review set. | Microsoft Purview | eDiscovery (Premium): eDiscovery guest reviewer | This feature enables secure and convenient external guest reviewer access to eDiscovery (Premium) review sets within a case. This feature empowers eDiscovery (Premium) admins and managers to follow more traditional collaboration practices that will boost confidence and workflow defensibility by allowing outside counsel to cooperate more directly without increasing cost or risk. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal | General Availability | 2023/08/01 |
| 117385 | 5 | Teams meeting recordings/transcripts are high value ESI. This will expand hold/collection capabilities. Discovery stakeholders should consider impact of this ESI on their downstream processing, review and production workflows. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery (Premium): Enhancements for Teams meeting recordings & videos stored in OneDrive & SharePoint (U.S. government clouds) | Enhancements to Teams meeting recording & video files in OneDrive & SharePoint to improve management within eDiscovery workflows. This includes collection and review of metadata such as transcripts/captions, chapters, and custom thumbnails. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal | General Availability | 2023/08/01 |
| 100055 | 3 | Should remove a step for fast exports. | Microsoft Purview | eDiscovery (Premium) Collections enhancement – Collect to Export | Now admins will be able to directly export a report or results of a Collection without adding to review set first. This will streamline processes for organizations who require ability to conduct analysis on item reports of relevant content and those who need to quickly get data from Microsoft 365 into the hands of audit or regulators. | Microsoft Purview compliance portal | General Availability, Preview | 2023/06/01 |
Greg Buckles wants your feedback, questions or project inquiries at Greg@eDJGroupInc.com. Book a free 15 minute ‘Good Karma’ call if he has availability. He solves problems and creates eDiscovery solutions for enterprise and law firm clients.
Greg’s blog perspectives are personal opinions and should not be interpreted as a professional judgment or advice. Greg is no longer an investigative journalist and all perspectives are based on best public information. Blog content is neither approved nor reviewed by any providers prior to being published. Do you want to share your own perspective? Greg is looking for practical, professional informative perspectives free of marketing fluff, hidden agendas or personal/product bias. Outside blogs will clearly indicate the author, company and any relevant affiliations.
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