Exclude content from M365 Copilot - Part 2🕵️

Bjørnar
May 20
2 min read

As I wrote about in a previous blog post Exclude Content from M365 Copilot 🤖, the ability to exclude content from Microsoft 365 Copilot using DLP rules was introduced in Preview back in January. This involves creating sensitivity labels and DLP policies that prevent documents with specific labels from being used in Copilot Business Chat.

In this section, I show how DLP is now also supported in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Microsoft Purview has updated the functionality of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) rules that are now available in Preview. These rules help prevent items with specific sensitivity labels from being used in Copilot replies in Microsoft 365 Copilot - not only in chat but now also in PowerPoint, Excel, and Word.

First things first, a reminder about how Copilot processes data

All Microsoft 365 Copilot requests are run in the user context of the user who initiated the prompt. This means that in order for a user to see an item in a Copilot response, the user must first have the necessary permissions to access the content of the item. You can then use Microsoft 365 Copilot DLP to exclude items from being processed in the response digest.

As you can see from the previous post, the disclaimer that it only applies to data processed from Copilot Chat has now disappeared.

Fra Januar

From today, May 14.

What Microsoft refers to when they write "various Copilot experiences" is currently following:

Supported Copilot in Microsoft 365	Items in SharePoint and OneDrive*
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat	Yes (preview)
Microsoft 365 apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint**	Yes (preview)

*Items in SharePoint and OneDrive include items that are stored and items that are actively open.

**In preview, the below Copilot features do not support DLP.

Copilot in PowerPoint: On-canvas rewrite
Copilot in PowerPoint: Add a slide with Copilot
Copilot in Excel: Clean data

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/dlp-microsoft365-copilot-location-learn-about

In my test, I have created a DLP rule that states the following: If data is tagged with the label "Strictly Protected" or "Copilot - Exclude", Copilot should be prevented from processing the data. Note that it takes up to 24 hours for the DLP rule to take effect.

Furthermore, I have created a document that is tagged with the label "Copilot - Exclude"

When I then go into PowerPoint, for example, and query the document I created above, the Copilot engine will not be able to access the data.

PowerPoint

**It is worth noting that there are still some limitations in functionality

Supported Conditions and Actions

While in preview, the Microsoft 365 Copilot (preview) policy location supports the following conditions and actions:

Conditions	Description	Supported policy actions	Description
Content contains > Sensitivity labels	Detects when an item in SharePoint or OneDrive has a chosen sensitivity label attached	Prevent Copilot from processing content	The content of the item won't be used in the response summary, but the item will still be available in the citations of the response.