Microsoft is hoping to shield Office 365 users from potentially expensive leaks of sensitive information, with new data loss prevention (DLP) features built into OneDrive and SharePoint Online.

Microsoft said its entering phase two of a multi-phase rollout of DLP features for its cloud productivity suite. It began doing so last year with features that let users identify and organize their most sensitive data, and initiate ways of protecting it. Now, Microsoft is launching a preview of new DLP features which will allow customers to “create proactive policies to remediate violations and empower [their] users with policy tips and notification emails so they can take the right decision while working with sensitive data, just like you do today with DLP in Exchange.”

Exchange 2013 and Exchange Online currently come with several DLP capabilities, such as policy tips that warn users when an email they’re composing could contravene their company’s data policies, and document fingerprinting.

SharePoint Online and OneDrive are to be given similar capabilities, as well as automated policies that can take action when the software suspects something dodgy is going on.

“With the public preview, admins can now easily set up DLP policies for SharePoint Online/OneDrive for Business from the Office 365 compliance center,” wrote Microsoft’s Shobhit Sahay, technical product manager for the Office 365 team. “Policies take the simple construct of conditions, actions and exceptions and admins can use any of the existing out-of-box templates to get started.”

According to Sahay, end-user education is essential if companies are to win the war against data leaks. “As such, we help them make the right decisions when working with sensitive data, providing them with rich notifications in the context of where they are working,” he wrote. Sahay added that administrators can also configure their own override rules, enabling certain actions with a business justification, ensuring users can be both compliant and productive.

Finally, Microsoft is adding a new incident reporting tool for organizations to track the effectiveness of their DLP policies. It’s also planning to add another update later this year that will bring content encryption, conditional and location-based policy exceptions, and custom document fingerprinting.

“Later this quarter, we will make these DLP capabilities available in the preview for three different Office applications—Word, Excel and PowerPoint,” Sahay continued. “With these capabilities, end users can be notified in real time on the sensitive content they are working right within the familiar Office applications they love and use.”

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