Microsoft introduces Security Policy Advisor, a new service for Office 365

Last month, Microsoft made some improvements to Office 365 ProPlus, including default 64-bit installations on Windows, an in-place upgrade tool, and default inclusion of Teams for businesses deploying the suite of apps.

Today, the tech giant has announced Security Policy Advisor, a new service for Office 365 ProPlus users that will enable them to manage their security policies in a more effective manner. This is only the initial offering among a number of security capabilities Microsoft says will be arriving to ProPlus this year.

Policy management has now been simplified across all devices. Working in conjunction with the newly released Office cloud policy service, policies can now be assigned to users through Azure Active Directory groups, and automatically enforced when these individuals sign in. Furthermore, both managed and unmanaged devices are covered under this service without the additional requirements of any on-premises or modern device infrastructure.

Knowledge specific to organizations will now be utilized to its full extent; the manner in which individuals within an organization use Office will be analyzed, with specific policies being recommended by the service thereafter. These can then be put into action, rolled back, or updated with a single click. The introduction of this feature will help eradicate concerns regarding the element of guesswork in the configuring of security policies.

Moreover, the new service also caters to the dynamic nature of policy-making in a modern workplace. Impact of policies upon employees will be monitored and highlighted for administrators, who can then decide whether the suggested changes should be acted upon, or otherwise. Group policy objects (GPOs) can run in parallel with the Office Cloud Policy service, with the option to retain existing policies as well.

Currently, Security Policy Advisor is only available in English (en-us). However, users can expect much wider availability for the service in the coming weeks. Administrators in organizations that use Office 365 ProPlus can get started right now by configuring Office Policies after signing in to the Office client management portal.