Azure Information Protection Documentation Update for February 2019

[Carol Bailey]

The Documentation for Azure Information Protection has been updated on the web and the latest content has a February 2019 (or later) date at the top of the article.

Updates this month includes a new preview version for the Azure Information Protection unified labeling client, which now supports automatic and recommended labeling, right-click actions for File Explorer, and some PowerShell commands. This new preview client comes fast on the heals of the January preview release for the Azure Information Protection client, so not surprisingly, we've seen quite a few people asking questions about which client they should download. If you're looking for some clarity, see the newly added FAQ: Which preview client do I install for testing new functionality?

In addition to updating the technical documentation on docs.microsoft.com this month, our Customer Experience Engineering team has published their Azure Information Protection Deployment Acceleration Guide that offers tactical and strategic deployment guidance. This team has been overseeing successful deployments of Azure Information Protection in very real-world environments, so this is your opportunity to walk in their footsteps and learn from the best. The guidance includes their best practices that they have learned to date, which will be incorporated into the technical documentation when we have additional verification and feedback. If their best practices help you, or if you have additional best practices to suggest, I'm sure they would love to hear from you.

We listen to your feedback and try to incorporate it whenever possible. Let me know if you have feedback about the technical documentation for Azure Information Protection. I also encourage you to head over to our Yammer site to see what others are discussing. 

What's new in the documentation for Azure Information Protection, February 2019

Requirements for Azure Information Protection

- Updated the section Subscription for Azure Information Protection to include the newly available online FAQs for licensing.

Preparing users and groups for Azure Information Protection

- Updated to clarify that dynamic distribution lists cannot be used with Azure Information Protection because this group type is not replicated to Azure AD.

Frequently asked questions for Azure Information Protection

-  New entries to help clarify label migration to Office 365:

• When is the right time to migrate my labels to Office 365?
• After I've migrated my labels, which management portal do I use?

Frequently asked questions about classification and labeling in Azure Information Protection

- New entry:  Which preview client do I install for testing new functionality?

How-to guides for common scenarios that use Azure Information Protection

- Updated the Additional deployment instructions section, for the newly published Azure Information Protection Deployment Acceleration Guide.

Configuring the Azure Information Protection policy

- New section, Label information stored in emails and documents, which provides information about the metadata in documents and emails that stores labeling information that can be read by applications and services. These details were previously in Configuring Exchange Online mail flow rules for Azure Information Protection labels and that article has been updated to clarify that Exchange mail flow rules do not support inspecting metadata for PDF documents.  

How to configure the policy settings for Azure Information Protection

- Updated the information for the policy setting Select the default label to clarify that this option is applicable to Office apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook) and the scanner. It does not apply to File Explorer, or PowerShell

How to configure a label for visual markings for Azure Information Protection

- Updated for two clarifications:

• The 255 maximum character length for headers and footers in Excel includes hidden characters, such as formatting codes.
• When an email is relabeled when it is forwarded or replied to, the email message retains the headers and footers from the original email.

How to configure a label for Rights Management protection

- Updated the instructions for the recently added "Just for me" configuration, where a label can be configured for cloud-based protection without selecting any users or permissions. This configuration is not suitable for collaboration but instead, supports the scenario where a user can save a file to any location and be assured that only they can open it. When you save this label configuration, the next time you open the Protection blade, you see IPC_USER_ID_OWNER displayed for Users, and Co-Owner displayed for Permissions to reflect this configuration.

How to migrate Azure Information Protection labels to the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center

- Updated the Considerations section for predefined templates: Before you migrate your labels, convert any labels that are configured for predefined templates to standard labels , so there is a one-to-one mapping of template-to-label when you migrate your labels.

Deploying the Azure Information Protection scanner to automatically classify and protect files

- Updated the prerequisites section:

• For the Windows Server computer row, added the URLs that the scanner uses and must be allowed through firewalls for servers that have Internet connectivity.
• Added a new row for SharePoint sites and libraries, to clarify the versions supported and that for large SharePoint farms, you might need to increase the list view threshold (by default, 5,000) for the scanner to access all files

This information is also added to the same section for the preview documentation for the scanner.

Central reporting for Azure Information Protection

- Updated throughout for the recent branding change from Azure Log Analytics to Azure Monitor. In addition, a new section is added to announce support for the Azure AD role of Security Reader, and to clarify the Azure roles needed to access your Log Analytics workspace: Permissions required for Azure Information Protection analytics

The client side of Azure Information Protection

- Updated to include information about the Azure Information Protection unified labeling client, and includes the new section, Choose which Azure Information Protection client to use.

This new section includes comparison tables for feature parity of the Azure Information Protection clients and the Azure Information Protection unified labeling client, and for finer granularity, behavior differences. If you have questions about how these comparisons might change for future releases, please don't ask them on the documentation page. Instead, head over to our Yammer site or click the Product feedback option at the bottom of the page, to request a new feature on the UserVoice site.

Admin Guide: Custom configurations for the Azure Information Protection client

- Updated for the following:

• New advanced client setting to enable order support for sublabels on attachments.
• New advanced client setting to limit the number of threads used by the scanner if you need to prioritize responsiveness of the scanner computer over the performance of the scanner service.
• The advanced client settings that configure a label to apply S/MIME protection in Outlook are now in general availability status.
• The information for the advanced client setting that changes the local logging level is updated to clarify that the Azure Information Protection client and scanner have different default logging values. 

Azure Information Protection unified labeling client: Version release information

- Updated for the recently announced second preview release of the Azure Information Protection unified client, which downloads labels and policies from the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center.

Download and install the Azure Information Protection unified labeling client (Preview)

- Updated to reflect changes in the current preview version.

PowerShell: AzureInformationProtection

- Updates for the latest preview version of the Azure Information Protection unified labeling client, include changes for Get-AIPFileStatus , Set-AIPFileClassification, and  Set-AIPFileLabel.

---