Enhance Your Content Management: An End-to-End Guide to SharePoint Premium (Part 1)
Managing content efficiently is a common challenge for IT administrators, often leading to disorganized systems and frustrated teams. SharePoint Premium offers a solution, turning content chaos into streamlined order.
In this two-part series, we’ll delve into the essential features and benefits of SharePoint Premium, showing how it can bring clarity to your digital workspace.
Part 1 in this series goes through:
Highlights of Key SharePoint Premium Features:
Autofill columns from the data in documents
Assemble documents from smart, modern templates with content assembly
Train AI models to extract information from structured and freeform documents
Tag images automatically
Taxonomy tagging to tag documents based on terms in your term store
eSignatures for requesting and tracking digital signatures or signoff
OCR, Annotate files, merge and extract PDFs and more....
Part 2 is here: Essential Tools for Compliance and Management: An End-to-End Guide to SharePoint Premium (Part 2) — Gravity Union
What is SharePoint Premium?
Think of SharePoint Premium as an "advanced content management platform" designed to help organizations maximize the most value from their content. It uses a collection of features, some of them based on AI, to help people discover and automate processes.
This is how Microsoft describes the platform:
“SharePoint Premium is really built around discovery and automation, with a huge emphasis on AI to help perform tasks efficiently at scale.”
- Sean Squires, Principal Product Manager in the OneDrive and SharePoint Product Group.
SharePoint Premium includes features and controls above and beyond standard SharePoint that are bundled into 3 areas:
Content Experiences: AI-driven tools for productivity and discovery
Content Processing: AI Automation to organize and classify
Content Governance: security and compliance features with AI to help behind the scenes
Part 1 of this guide focuses on #1 and #2 - Content Experiences and Processing.
In Part 2, we'll discuss Content Governance including SharePoint Advanced Management, M365 Archive and M365 Backup.
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A note on naming: Features in Syntex and SharePoint Advanced Management are transitioning to the SharePoint Premium family. Technical documentation and the billing user interface still refer to the old product names as of this writing in 2024.
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Why Use SharePoint Premium If We Already Have SharePoint?
Imagine you have a giant, cluttered attic filled with all sorts of important family documents, photos, and keepsakes. Every time you need to find something, you have to dig through piles of stuff, which takes forever and leaves you frustrated.
Many organizations have let their "attic" of information pile up in SharePoint for over 20 years in some cases — as an aside, can you believe SharePoint is over 20 years old?! 🤯
Now, what if there was a busy-helper-bee who organizes everything built up in that attic, behind the scenes? It needs a little direction from you at the start, but then you can leave for the night or do other work. Then when you come back to your attic, it's easy to find what you need in seconds!
Beyond just finding stuff, what if this helper-bee also takes a keepsake — say, a great document from your past — and helps you re-purpose it for something you want to create in the future?
That’s the power, and dare we say magic, of SharePoint Premium and what it can do for organizations.
How is this different from standard SharePoint?
Organizations still can manage large volumes of content with tools included in SharePoint today. It just takes a more manual and disciplined approach.
There are basic reports for IT admins, which can be used to remind content owners to tag, classify and archive content regularly. Libraries can also be configured to set default metadata when new documents are added as well.
However, if that sounds daunting and possibly error-prone, we recommend taking a look at SharePoint Premium.
Here's a closer look at key features:
Highlights of Key SharePoint Premium Features
Autofill Columns
Autofill columns use AI large language models (LLMs) to pull, summarize, or create content from files in a SharePoint document library.
As a user, you write a prompt in natural language, and the system will save the answer to the column.
For example, ask "What is the due date for this invoice?" or "Summarize this project in one sentence" then run the Autofill action, and the column will populate for each file in that library.
This feature allows you to store metadata without manual input, simplifying file management and data organization.
A few observations we've noticed and things to keep in mind as you implement:
* Setup **all** your autofill columns first, and then process the document. This minimizes cost and processing, thus reducing your bill.
* The processing is not instant. After files are added to the library and the "Autofill" action is started from the command bar, it can take a few minutes for metadata to display.
* If the library has a field type that doesn't match what the AI finds the document, the value won't be saved. A classic example of this is a Due Date on an invoice that says, "Due upon receipt", and the AI is trying to save that into a "Date and Time" type field. In this scenario, the autofill will be skipped and the field left blank. You either must change the field type, fill in Today's date manually, or create a rule to do that.
* Autofill may struggle with open text prompts that look over large parts of your document. For example, the prompt to "list all the line item details from the invoice" into a Text field won't work consistently. In this case, you need to keep refining the prompt until it's closer to what you want, and your invoice owner(s) should review the output periodically. In the future, we expect this to get better as AI tools in general get better at understanding content.
More info is here: Summer updates for SharePoint Premium - Microsoft Community Hub
Content Assembly
The power of content assembly is creating similar documents quickly, without having to start from scratch.
An admin or owner of the document publishes a modern template, and then users can create new documents by filling in the fields. SharePoint Premium provides suggestions to easily pick values as well:
Example of document created from a modern template with content assembly fields. Image source: Microsoft
Learn how to create a modern template here: Create a modern template in Microsoft Syntex
Document Processing
Document processing models are at the heart of the Content Processing features. These capabilities are how you train the platform to understand your specific content and do something useful with it.
Essentially, a model looks through the pages and pulls out key information into metadata, which you can then use for organization as well as triggering workflow or automation.
There are a few 'flavours' of document processing models for different types of documents. These are:
- **Structured models**: These automatically identify field and table values from structured or semi-structured documents, such as forms and invoices. These models use Microsoft Power Apps AI Builder document processing (formerly known as form processing) to create and train models.
- **Unstructured models**: These work best with unstructured documents, such as letters or contracts. These documents have text that can be identified based on phrases or patterns.
- **Freeform models**: Use the freeform document processing model to automatically extract information from text-heavy documents such as letters and contracts where the information can appear anywhere in the document.
There are nuances to how these models work and which one you should pick depending on your situation. This post describes processing in more detail: A guide to SharePoint Premium content processing (previously Syntex) — Gravity Union
One recent update in document processing is the ability to specify **page ranges** to extract information when using structured, freeform, and prebuilt document processing models. Instead of extracting from the whole file, you can process select pages to save cost and time.
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A note on licensing and getting started
Unstructured document processing uses pay-as-you-go licensing, and licensing and is best for unstructured or semi-structured file formats, for example, Office documents where there are differences in the layout, but still similar information to be extracted. The freeform and structured document processing models require AI Builder credits.
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Image Tagging
The image tagging feature does what it says on the tin: it automatically tags images with descriptive keywords using AI.
These keywords are stored in a managed metadata column (the **Image Tags** column), which makes it easier to search, sort, filter, and manage the images.
Example of tags automatically added to the Image Tags column. Image source: Microsoft
Taxonomy Tagging
Organizations that have been using SharePoint for a while probably have a robust term store for users to select metadata from. For example, lists of departments, vendors, locations, partners, etc.
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Callout
Terminology note: A term store is also called managed metadata or a taxonomy.
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When you add a managed metadata column to a list or library, it's easier for a user to fill out the column because they are picking from a list of these terms. This ensures consistency, easier searching and better compliance.
We’ve discussed the value of using metadata in another blog recent post.
SharePoint Premium gives you the ability to automatically tag documents in a library with terms configured in your term store using AI.
Why does this matter?
Setting up rules or training a model is not required to setup taxonomy tagging! Instead, it's configured by the end user in the column settings of a managed metadata column:
SharePoint document library column settings set to automatically tag documents with terms
For the invoice library example, the Location or Vendor field could be a taxonomy column that matches a tag in the term store with the document content. This provides more consistency for that data going forward.
Translation
If you regularly have files that need to be translated, this feature takes a document or a set of documents and converts it into another language. You can either trigger the feature manually, or create a rule to automatically translate documents.
All the languages supported by Microsoft 365 are supported for SharePoint Premium translation.
Example of translating a document in SharePoint Premium. Image source: Microsoft
For IT admins, one thing to note about most of the SharePoint Premium content experience features is that they are **on by default** on all SharePoint libraries.
Specifically with translation, you might want to limit this to a focused site or group of sites because it could add additional cost quickly if end-users try it out at scale or for large documents. To change this setting, go to Syntex Administration settings in the Global Administration area and change the library setting:
Syntex Global Administration setting for document translation
Learn how to use the feature, and its rules and limitations: Overview of document translation in Microsoft Syntex | Microsoft Learn
eSignature
SharePoint eSignature is a long-awaited feature that is now rolled out to the US and a few other markets, including Canada.
SharePoint eSignature allows you to request digital signatures on documents without having to jump to another tool. Signatures can be requested from both internal and external people.
E-signature request. Image source: Microsoft
After all recipients have signed the document, the signatures are added to the document and an audit trail is appended to the signed PDF. The requestor can access this in the document library.
A few notes about how eSignatures work in SharePoint:
SharePoint eSignature is available for only PDF documents at the time of this writing.
Tracking of SharePoint eSignature requests is handled through the view details pane as well as the Approvals app in Microsoft Teams.
Details of the request, including the date and time the request created, date and time when the recipients signed, and the history are also stored with the signed PDF. These details provide evidence of the integrity of the signing process. The signed document is also digitally signed by a Microsoft certificate too so that it can't be tampered with.
If your organization already uses Adobe Acrobat Sign or DocuSign for digital signatures, there is an integration so that signed documents are automatically saved back to SharePoint in a provider specific folder.
Microsoft has an eSignature setup guide here: Create a signature request using SharePoint eSignature | Microsoft Learn
Optical Character Recognition
Some organizations have large volumes of scanned documents or images that have printed or handwritten text in them. Examples of this include drawings, plans, articles, forms, product labels, posters, etc.
A common need for organizations is to extract the text in these files so it's available for search and indexing. We built a solution for this specific need for the City of Surrey that didn't use SharePoint Premium, but a different paid add-on was required.
With SharePoint Premium, you get the convenience of OCR embedded right into Microsoft 365. The extracted text is saved into a metadata column for images, or available for search for PDF/TIFF files.
In addition, if you are concerned with sensitive information embedded in images or files, you can combine this service with Purview data loss prevention policies. The admin(s) can specify which SharePoint sites to include for data loss prevention OCR and Syntex OCR. You won't be charged twice for processing.
Details on limitations and requirements for Syntex OCR: Overview of optical character recognition in Microsoft Syntex | Microsoft Learn
File Annotations
SharePoint Premium annotations can be used to add notes and comments to content in document libraries—either for yourself or for collaborating with others.
Example of PDF markup using the Annotations button in SharePoint Premium
The annotations button is accessed from the file when you open the preview in SharePoint. Annotations don't modify the original files, so the original records are preserved.
Annotations don't work across all file types such as .png or .jpg images, but they are available for: .ai, .dwg, .epub, .pdf, .rtf, and .tiff files (at the time of this writing).
Content Query (Advanced Search)
With content query, users can find documents by searching, or querying the metadata — similar to an advanced search experience.
This feature is helpful when you want to find a document based on column metadata, such as when a document was last modified, a specific person is associated with a file, or a specific file type.
The SharePoint Premium content query search options. Image source: Microsoft
The set of metadata is limited to keywords, file name, people, modified date, file type and content type at the time of this writing.
If you need more metadata options for querying, check out using the PnP Search option, which we discuss in our multi-part guide.
What Does SharePoint Premium Cost?
The use of these features requires additional licenses. There are two types of SharePoint Premium licenses:
Pay as you go (PAYG)
Per user for SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) features. This license is $3.80 CAD ($3USD) /per month/per user as an add-on to the standard SharePoint license, and you can likely get a free trial through the marketplace in your admin center. We’ll discuss the features and benefits in Part 2 of this series.
For some organizations, PAYG is difficult because it's not always easy to control or predict costs easily. We recommend using the calculator to estimate cost based on the volume of your content, as well as using the Admin controls to initially limit features to specific sites.
The benefit of PAYG is you don't have to sign up for multi-year licenses or contracts. You connect your Azure subscription and the cost will scale as you get more value from the features.
Act quick! A promotion is on until June 2025
Microsoft is letting you try some of the SharePoint Premium features for free, up to a monthly capacity limit until June 2025.
You can get a feel for how the features works and decide if it's a fit for your requirements.
The limits are listed below (accurate as of this writing in September 2024). These are limits per TENANT, and not per user:
Free limits for the SharePoint Premium promotion until June 2025.
Note: The monthly included capacity for autofill columns is shared with unstructured document processing for a total of 100 pages.
Promotion details: New promotional offer for SharePoint Premium - Microsoft Community Hub
Summary
We recommend you take advantage of the promotion to check out some of the SharePoint Premium features such as the autofill, taxonomy tagging, content query and more. After you get an understanding of the possibilities, you’ll be able to update business processes that could benefit from automation and better discovery.
In Part 2 of this guide, where we will delve further into SharePoint Premium's content governance, security, and compliance features, enhanced by AI working in the background. To learn more SharePoint tips and tricks, check out the Gravity Union Blog.
And if you need help — Gravity Union is here to support you with the right set of SharePoint Premium services for your organization.
