Data Placement and Automation Implementation Service

STRATEGIC	FOUNDATIONAL				EXECUTION			MANAGEMENT
Maturity Assessment & Strategic Roadmap	Records/Data Retention Policy & Schedule Data Security Classification Policy	AI Governance Privacy Program	Discovery Response & Legal Hold	Governance Processes and Procedures	Data Placement & Automation	Behavior Change Management & Training	Legacy Document & Data Disposition	Ongoing Management & Monitoring
Information Governance Organizational Development

Microsoft 365 Knowledge Transfer and Configuration

Provides knowledge transfer to key IT, legal and other stakeholders of how to use Microsoft 365 capabilities for Information Governance. It educates both front-end and back-end governance capability, reviews migration strategies, and provides training and demonstration of retention and sensitivity labels.

Microsoft 365 /Enterprise Content Management Pilot Implementation

Create mapping strategies with department and business unit staff to define record retention libraries per department/group using SharePoint/File Share storage. Assign cleanup duties for existing repositories. Generate department/business function workbooks for mapping current file content and engage in cleanup and mapping activities. Develop filing structures for each department/group, encompassing sites, sub-sites, and libraries as needed.

Microsoft 365 Enterprise Rollout

Create scripts and input files in hands-on sessions with client personnel to configure the baseline metadata, library templates, retention labels and sensitivity labels in Microsoft 365 for future use in provisioning Microsoft 365 for retention. This may include working with SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Email, and/or the Compliance Center, depending on the overall strategy established in the Data Placement Strategy project.

Microsoft 365 Enterprise Training

Creating and delivering Microsoft 365 end-user and coordinator training. Content is customized to reflect client’s implementation. May include creating training videos, delivering live training, providing department-specific training or providing content to support train-the-trainer. This Microsoft 365 training can be provided standalone or integrated with a larger Information Governance training initiative.

Microsoft 365 Transitional and Fractional

After implementation, engage temporary or part-time Microsoft 365 administrators. Responsibilities encompass configuration management, updates, offering expertise to IT, legal, and stakeholders, and delivering ongoing training and assistance to departments. Contoural oversees this staff, accessible for months or part-time on specific days/weeks, or a blend of these options.

Enterprise Rollout Planning

Develop an enterprise rollout plan that includes project team participants, roles and expectations for collaboration within the team, pilot plan, business unit engagement and realistic enterprise rollout schedule.

Enterprise Implementation Playbook

Create an enterprise implementation playbook to support repeatable implementation. This includes all the communications, presentations and process definitions placed a step-by-step framework serving as a template for future implementations across the enterprise.

Data Migration

Develop and execute migration plan for moving information into Microsoft 365 . Build out and configure new SharePoint/Teams sites. Migrate data to new SharePoint/Teams sites utilizing the migration plan created in the previous project, including validating the migration and make further configurations as necessary for each business group’s SharePoint library/site.

Email Management and Governance Implementation

Implement the Email Management Strategy including publishing the retention labels to Outlook, configuring default user mailbox policy, configuring retention policies in other default folders, working with IT to move back emails from archive to primary mailbox or let it retire and assisting in setting up the default retention label on the custom folders in mailboxes.

Top Three Data Placement And Automation Resources

IG Advanced Class 3: Automating Compliance Policies with Technology

Automating Your Records Management Program

Advanced Microsoft 365 Summer School – Part 1: Overview and Framework

Essential Data Placement And Automation Questions

How do we apply records retention, document retention, data security classification, legal hold and access controls to our files and emails consistently across the organization?
How do we enable employees to classify, and save, tag their information for all Information Governance requirements in five seconds or less? How do we make our processes extremely easy and intuitive for employees to follow?
How do we make valuable information accessible allowing employees to collaborate while reducing and deleting low-value information and expired records?
How do we ensure personal information and other types of sensitive data are classified, protected, retrievable and deleted when required?

How do we use our Information Governance and document retention strategy to drive employee productivity, including work-from-home employees?
How do we ensure that governance including disposition strategies are compliant and defensible across the enterprise?
How do we ensure our legal holds are responsive and defensible while only preserving relevant information?
How do we automate the ongoing disposition of unneeded data that avoids conflicts and does no depend on employees to execute manual processes?

Contoural's Data Placement And Automation Implementation Approach

Contoural has significant expertise in both developing and executing information governance frameworks for unstructured electronic information for the placement and management/control of electronic records, including unstructured data, email documents/content, and other relevant electronically stored data/content.

Deep Experience in Microsoft 365 and Other Content Management Systems

Contoural consultants have deep experience in all versions of Microsoft 365 as well as other content management systems. We are up to date on all the latest releases and features and are experts in configuring these systems in client environments. We are also experienced in OpenText, Box, Dropbox, Hyland, iManage and other platforms. We know what these technologies actually can and can’t do.

Experience Migrating and Configuring

Contoural has assisted its clients in configuring and migrating hundreds of thousands of users across thousands of departments and business units for nearly all industries. We have worked throughout the world from very small, 50-person organizations all the way through large corporations with more than 150,000 employees.

Leveraging a Full Governance Framework

We utilize a full governance framework, including records retention, privacy and other sensitive information, security requirements, legal holds, access controls and employee productivity and collaboration. These difference sets of requirements cannot be implemented alone without interfering with one another. Compliance requires that these governance requirements be integrated and configured together to avoid conflicts.

Automation Classification, Tagging, Retention and Disposition

Modern content management systems including Microsoft 365 can be configured to allow automatic classification through inheritance, tagging, retention and disposition, greatly reducing the burden on end users. Our approach is to automate these information governance tasks enabling users to classify, store, and tag information in five seconds or less. The system can be taught all the “rules” freeing up employees.

Intuitive, Familiar Department and Business Unit Naming and File Structures

Department and business unit sites and shared folders should be designed to use names already familiar with the employees within that group. The site and folder structures should be designed to be intuitive reflecting the business activities within the group. Creating this intuitive, department-specific structure with understandable naming conventions will greatly accelerate employee adoption.

Developing Prescriptive Training

Assessments often uncover that employees are concerned about compliance and risk and want to do the right thing, but often do not know what that is. Organizations need clear, fast and prescriptive processes on what information to save where. Many employees current retention practices are years in the making. Informing them on what information should be stored where needs to be communicated clearly through training programs, FAQs, reminders and guides.

Leveraging Native Microsoft 365 Capabilities

Organizations should initially take full advantage of the products and technologies they already own. Most organizations are successful in implementing robust Information Governance programs through Microsoft 365 ’s native capabilities, without the need to purchase add-on products.

Conducting Pilots

Microsoft 365 Information Governance deployment typically starts through a series of pilots. These guide a set of user groups through a Pilot Data Structure development and Data Migration exercise. It is advised to start out with a limited number of functional business groups, taking them through the entire process. This includes mapping all content with source/destination, proposed file structures, and default retention and sensitivity, as well as required metadata as part of this process. This map can then be used to drive a migration toolset.

Automating Configurations for Consistent, Enterprise-wide Configurations

Default policies can be created at the library or folder level in SharePoint, as well as pushing retention labels by job function for use in Outlook. Retention labels based on the records retention schedule can be auto populated through PowerShells and scripts. This allows department-specific customizations while still maintaining consistent labels throughout the enterprise.

Centralization of Information with Distributed Management

Centralized records governance with distributed management across repositories leads to reduced storage and discovery costs, improved efficiency, and protection for sensitive data. In-scope repositories encompass Microsoft/Office 365, File Shares, email, and more.

Scalable, Compliant Migration

Contoural has been using a repeatable cleanup and mapping process for existing data in file shares prior to migration, and for retrofitting existing SharePoint sites with default labels based on content types and the Records Retention Schedule (RRS). Typically, we conduct 5-10 pilots (sometimes more) of this process with an enterprise, complete a master playbook with change management materials, templates, and process flows and then turn that over for the client to do a full enterprise rollout.

“Teaching to Fish” Option

IT and Information Governance staff can participate throughout the pilot process. With this “teaching to fish” experience some organizations may elect to drive the rest of the full enterprise rollout with their own internal resources, engaging Contoural consultants as subject matter experts available for questions and as-needed assistance.