14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has announced the general availability for co-authoring files with sensitivity files on Android and iPhone versions of Microsoft Office.
As Neowin observed, Microsoft’s announcement concerns Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Office Mobile applications on Android and iOS devices.
In other words, if you are working with documents that sport encryption with Sensitivity labels in Microsoft Purview Information Protection, multiple users can now edit the content and save the updated information just like in a typical document.
At this point, the same capabilities are already available in the desktop versions of Microsoft Office, both on Windows and on Mac, but also in Office for the Web.
“At Microsoft, our goal is to provide a built-in, intelligent, unified, and extensible solution to protect sensitive data across your digital estate – in Microsoft 365 cloud services, on-premises, third-party SaaS applications, and more. With Microsoft Purview Information Protection, we are building a unified set of capabilities for data classification, labeling, and protection not only in Office Apps, but also in other popular productivity services where information resides (e.g., SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Microsoft Teams), as well as endpoint devices,” Microsoft explains.
If you want to enable the new capabilities, you need not only to install the most recent versions of the office apps on Android and iPhone but also enable the Co-authoring for files with sensitivity labels option in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.
“This capability is available with any license for "manual sensitivity labeling" as specified in the Microsoft 365 licensing guidance for security and compliance to customers in our Worldwide and Government environments. This feature is now also available for Office applications on Windows in the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel starting with the 2202 update. With these updates, you can now collaborate on documents encrypted with Microsoft Purview Information Protection on any device, platform or flavor of Office supported by Microsoft 365,” Microsoft explains in the announcement.