Forum Discussion
Auto-labelling does not support content marking
No. Not with auto-labelling alone.
The MSFT service-side auto-labelling applies sensitivity labels to your files, but it won't add headers, footers, or watermarks. This is confirmed in Microsoft's own documentation: auto-labelling only handles metadata and encryption, leaving visual markings for later. There's a detailed explanation of why this happens: essentially, the service never actually opens your documents.
The critical thing here is that the document must be opened for the visual markings to get embedded into the file itself.
A potential workaround is to use Power Automate Desktop.
It can open files on desktop but the caveat is that you'll have to sync all the files in a local computer where PAD is installed then let it iterate through the documents.
Here's the reference to how to do that in Word:https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/word.
And in Excel:https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/excel
Alternatively, there are 3rd party solutions like Automation Anywhere (RPA) that can do this.
No. Not with auto-labelling alone.
The MSFT service-side auto-labelling applies sensitivity labels to your files, but it won't add headers, footers, or watermarks. This is confirmed in Microsoft's own documentation: auto-labelling only handles metadata and encryption, leaving visual markings for later. There's a detailed explanation of why this happens: essentially, the service never actually opens your documents.
The critical thing here is that the document must be opened for the visual markings to get embedded into the file itself.
A potential workaround is to use Power Automate Desktop.
It can open files on desktop but the caveat is that you'll have to sync all the files in a local computer where PAD is installed then let it iterate through the documents.
Here's the reference to how to do that in Word:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/word.
And in Excel:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-automate/desktop-flows/actions-reference/excel
Alternatively, there are 3rd party solutions like Automation Anywhere (RPA) that can do this.