Microsoft Delve is a tool included with most Microsoft 365 Plans which helps users find and discover pertinent information. Delve uses data gathered from the Microsoft 365 platform to decide from the content that you already have access to, what might be interesting or useful to you and then suggests that content to you.

When you launch Delve you’ll see your profile page showing people in your company that you communicate with and the files that you’ve recently worked on that are stored in SharePoint or OneDrive for Business:

Delve can also be used to view people in your company and see what they’re working on, which is a useful feature when remote working. E.g. if someone you frequently email uploads a new document to a SharePoint site that you already have access to, you might see a reference to that document.

Please note that Delve is security trimmed, meaning it relies on the permissions you already have to documents. Delve will never show you documents that you don’t already have access to.

One challenge that some organisations encounter when moving to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for business is that they don’t evaluate or manage their security controls properly. Users then discover Delve and it shows them links to files and content that, based on the information they have created or accessed in the past, might be relevant to them. If organisations have not been diligent with managing permissions for SharePoint site collections – for example, users may see things that they were not intended to see.

This has led organisations to disable the Office Graph , however this is completely the wrong thing to do – disabling the office graph effectively prevents Delve from showing users what it has deemed potentially relevant information. It does not, however, change or improve the security of the environment – users can still access that content and search for it via the SharePoint Online search.

Also Please note: If you disable the office graph, users will lose access to the following features:

– The delve tile on the App Launcher
– The SharePoint Suggested list
– The Discover list in Outlook, OneDrive, and the Microsoft Office home page
– Visibility of other users’ documents on the user’s Delve page

Head to https://delve.office.com and see if this tool can help you and your organisation with its remote and team working.

If you don’t believe you’ve carried out the correct work to evaluate and manage your security controls in SharePoint and OneDrive please contact us for assistance – please don’t just disable the office graph – that’s not good security.

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