Forum Discussion
IRM in Sharepoint and Azure Information Protection - solid model files, step files
Hello,
My engineering company frequently has to send solid model files of mechanical parts and assemblies to customers for evaluation prior to any purchase.
Is there any way to utilize Sharepoint IRM and/or Azure Information Protection to encrypt and protect these files?
Thanks to anyone that can bring insight to this topic.
-Josh
5 Replies
Information Rights Management can be applied to a SharePoint Document Library:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Set-up-Information-Rights-Management-IRM-in-SharePoint-admin-center-239CE6EB-4E81-42DB-BF86-A01362FED65C
https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Apply-Information-Rights-Management-to-a-list-or-library-3bdb5c4e-94fc-4741-b02f-4e7cc3c54aa1
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/information-protection/understand-explore/office-apps-services-support
"When people download files in an IRM-enabled list or library, the files are encrypted so that only authorized people can view them."
Where I think this falls down, is sharing these IRM protected documents externally has some complications, assuming this still to be true.
From https://www.itpromentor.com/rms-sp-onedrive/
"The second major caveat you have to be aware of is that sharing IRM-protected documents with external users is a bit of a pain in the you-know-what. For starters, external users cannot download and open rights protected documents. In order to do that, they will need an identity in your Office 365 organization.
Indeed, it appears that this limitation has been confirmed by others, and Microsoft support explicitly states that IRM-protected documents sent to external users cannot be downloaded. External users must authenticate using at least a Microsoft Live ID just in order to view the document in a web browser."
Moving on to Azure Information Protection, this can also be used to protect documents with https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/information-protection/understand-explore/what-is-azure-rms This article describes the https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/information-protection/rms-client/client-admin-guide-file-types.
These files can be shared externally and if the recipient uses Office 365 or some other Azure AD service, I think it's meant to be seamless. For other cases, the recipient can setup https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/information-protection/understand-explore/rms-for-individuals:
"RMS for individuals is a free self-service subscription for users in an organization who have been sent sensitive files that have been protected by the Azure Rights Management service from Azure Information Protection. If these users cannot be authenticated because their IT department does not manage an account for them in Azure, they can use this free sign-up service. For example, the IT department doesn't have Office 365 or use Azure services."
The external sharing features were set to be significantly improved in AIP, for example supporting consumer email services and the consumption of protected files, though I don't know if that ever materialised. The main documentation landing page is well worth dipping into for more info:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/information-protection/
There is a nice demo on Microsoft Mechanics as well and and a presentation from https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/Australia-2017/CLD336b.
Hopefully, that gets you started!
So I have users using OneDrive for business whcih has Azure IP enabled. What happens when they then copy tose files into a SharePoint Library wiht SharePoint IRM enabled? Do I end up with an encryoted Blog that SharePoint cannot read (File encrypted already with AIP in OneDrive4B) or does it revert to the SharePoint IRM protection?
As OneDrive4B is in effect a SharePoint site it seems illogical not to support the SharePoint IRM as an option.
If you have AIP, I would keep SP IRM turned off. Mixing them will cause end-user confusion.
SP IRM applies to all the files in the library and they all get the same protection.
AIP provides the ability to apply different protection templates to different files, which is a better user experience in many cases.
