So, You’re Ready for Copilot? Let’s Get Your Data Ready First.

We’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about Microsoft 365 Copilot. It’s easily the most exciting update to the Office suite in years, but before we hit the “enable” button, we need to have a quick chat about data hygiene.

Think of Copilot like a very fast, very efficient new team member. If you give that team member a key to every filing cabinet in the office, they’re going to find things they shouldn’t. Copilot works the same way: it only surfaces data a user already has access to. If your permissions are messy, your sensitive data is suddenly just one prompt away from being seen by the wrong person.

Best Practices Before Rollout

The key principle of this integration is to prepare your environment so you can maximize value while keeping data secure. Copilot works best when permissions, governance, and security are in place from the start.

• Data readiness: Review and organize information in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. Clean permissions are key.
• Information protection: Use Microsoft Purview labels and DLP policies to ensure sensitive data is correctly classified.
• Access control: Reduce unnecessary sharing and legacy permissions to limit exposure.
• Staff Policy: Ensure your team understands how to use Copilot responsibly.

Data Discovery & Preparation

Before setting role-based access controls (RBAC), we recommend running a data discovery process to build a “least-privilege” model:

1. Identify where business-critical data lives (SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Exchange).
2. Classify documents by sensitivity (Public, Internal, Confidential, etc.).
3. Assign data owners for each area.
4. Review existing permissions and remove broad or outdated access.
5. Align access with roles or departments to form the basis of RBAC.
6. Test sample Copilot queries to check exactly what users can see.

Licensing Options

There are two primary ways to bring Copilot into your business. For most organizations, the standard Microsoft 365 Copilot license is the ideal fit.

Platform Liability & Responsibility

Once role-based access controls and security guardrails are in place, the responsibility for data handling within Microsoft 365, including how Copilot processes information, sits with Microsoft. Their platform enforces compliance boundaries and data protection commitments.

Our responsibility is to ensure internal policies and RBAC are correctly applied, after which liability for potential data misuse through Copilot lies with Microsoft under their service terms.

Next Steps

We recommend starting with a data discovery exercise. We can run a report to list existing permissions and share this with you for review. This ensures your Copilot queries stay within the right boundaries.

To discuss a pilot rollout or a data audit in further detail, please contact Chris at
sales@knowall.net.