Workload-Specific Roles Add Layer of SharePoint Data Protection

As data becomes more and more critical to more and more organizations, it’s becoming increasingly important to ensure that the right people (and only the right people) can access the data.

At Ignite in May, Microsoft announced workload-specific service administrator roles for Office 365. The capability, which enables the assignment of more granular roles to IT administrators for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Skype for Business Online—started rolling out today..

“The ability to assign workload-specific admin roles provides your organization more control over how your Office 365 administrators access your data,” notes the Office 365 team in a blog post. “An admin assigned to a workload-specific admin role would only have access to the relevant controls and settings associated with that workload.”

This will ensure, for example, that a person who is assigned the SharePoint Online administrator role has access to SharePoint-related controls and settings in the Office 365 Admin Center, but not other Office 365 service controls and settings. With that said, workload-specific roles let organizations assign more than one role to any one administrator.

What difference will workload-specific service administrator roles mean for you and your company? Please let us know in the comments section below.