Microsoft Compliance Manager helps you manage your organization's (or customer's) compliance requirements with greater ease and convenience by providing things like: pre-built assessments, detailed step-by-step guidance on suggested improvement actions, and a risk-based compliance score helping you see your compliance posture and measure progress. If you haven't heard about Microsoft Compliance Manager I recommend learning more.
But today's post is about a recently released feature to help kick start your compliance journey by suggesting which premium assessment template(s) may be most relevant to you based on your industry and region! Now the types of assessment templates you have access to will vary based on licensing level of your Microsoft 365 tenant, with the 325+ premium assessment templates needing a separate purchase. You can see a full list of all of our available assessment templates which includes assessment templates you may get as part of your licensing, which ones are in preview, and which ones will require a separate license purchase by heading over to Microsoft Compliance Manager Templates List and our licensing details. For specific licensing questions please partner with your Microsoft Account Team or Licensing Partner.
There are two primary methods of leveraging the new Recommended Assessments wizard:
- Start a trial! This is great for those who do not already have Premium Assessment Templates licenses available but would like to try out a Premium Assessment Template to see how their organization is doing against that specific regulation. During the trial activation you will then automatically kick off the recommendation wizard! Fantastic.
- If you previously activated a trial before this new feature was released or you have Premium Assessment Template licenses available you can kick off the Recommended Assessments wizard at any time under the Assessments tab in Microsoft Compliance Manager.
Let's see how this looks
So now that we know how to get the recommendation wizard let's take a quick look at how this looks. Both processes are nearly identical with one activating your trial prior to starting the wizard while the other is accessed via the Assessments tab.
Starting your trial
If you haven't already started your trial let's kick that off.
- Navigate to your Microsoft 365 Compliance Center > https://compliance.microsoft.com
- Open Microsoft Compliance Manager via the left-hand navigation menu and click on Compliance Manager
- You will be presented with the Compliance Manager Overview tab giving you a quick glance at your Microsoft 365 Compliance Posture based on our included Microsoft 365 data protection baseline assessment template. It's on this Overview tab you will see a trial banner like below:
Trial banner in Compliance Manager with start trial indicated by yellow box
Once you click Start Trial you will quickly activate your Premium Assessment Template trial count and then walk through the recommendation wizard shown below!
Recommended Assessment Wizard - Assessments Tab
If you have already previously activated your trial prior to this features release, you already own Premium Assessment Template licenses, or you want to see what the wizard will look like after having started your trial as referenced above then let's carry on!
- We are still in our Microsoft 365 Compliance Center > Compliance Manager but will now navigate to the Assessments tab
- Once here you will see a new button to the right of our familiar Add assessment button > this new button is Add Recommended Assessments.
Assessments tab in Compliance Manager highlighting Add Recommended Assessments button
- You will then be asked a few questions such as your industry and your region. You can select multiple of each as you may be in both Financial services and Education while also serving customers in the United States and the United Kingdom where different types of regulation frameworks may be applicable.
Industry selection screen in recommended assessment wizard
Region selection screen in recommended assessment wizard
- Once you have selected your Industry and Region, Compliance Manager will then show suggested assessment templates that may be most relevant to your regulation needs. A great note here is that this will also show suggest assessment templates that you may already have as part of your Microsoft 365 E5 included assessment templates (indicated by the yellow box below) with the Premium Assessment Templates shown just below that (indicated by the teal box below):
Choose assessment window with included templates highlighted by a yellow box and premium templates indicated by a teal box
- Once you have selected your templates click Next > Review and click Add Recommended Assessments
Now you'll see the selected templates added as active assessments in your Microsoft Compliance Manager ready for you to start reviewing and taking actions on. Need to take a few steps back and review the basics before the assessment is added or just want a refresher on how to get started? Check out the Get started with Compliance Manager doc for more information.
Stay tuned for more content around Microsoft Compliance Manager!