M-Files and Microsoft Sharepoint Embedded

In my last blog post I was introducing the M-Files with Microsoft Co-Authoring which is based on the M-Files Sharepoint Embedded Application. This time we will have a brief look in what Sharepoint Embedded is and what will it add to M-Files in the upcoming months.

Until today, when choosing a document management platform other then Sharepoint, customers lost the benefits of Microsoft 365 as the content would be stored in a separate repository. As M-Files leverages SharePoint Embedded as the storage layer for their platform, the content lives within the security boundary of Microsoft 365 with full Microsoft Purview support. Furthermore, this enables native co-authoring and Microsoft Search can find and index the content without any additional connector. Most importantly, Microsoft Copilot can reason over the content in M-Files.

Microsoft Sharepoint Embedded

Microsoft Sharepoint Embedded is a so called headless Sharepoint system used to store data in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, thus leveraging all its capabilities.

Difference between Sharepoint and Sharepoint Embedded
SharePoint helps teams collaborate and manage documents, while SharePoint Embedded works in the background as a secure storage system for applications like M-Files. Users don’t interact with SharePoint Embedded directly — it just ensures safe content storage in the Microsoft 365 environment.

Storage location of documents with Microsoft Sharepoint Embedded
As the picture below shows, it is important to understand that documents are stored in a Sharepoint Embedded (SPE) container. The M-Files SPE application has its own data container in the customer’s Microsoft 365 tenant.

History
In mid-2023, the first private preview was made available, with ongoing internal development. At this time, the product was named Syntex Repository Services. During the year, work on the precursor and internal prototypes was initiated. On 28th November 2023, at the ESPC23 conference in Amsterdam, Microsoft unveiled the public preview under the name Sharepoint Embedded.
The general release was on 21st May 2024, coinciding with Microsoft’s announcement of the private preview of the SharePoint Embedded custom Copilot experience

Following a review of the Microsoft Sharepoint Embedded official website, it is clear that the product is undergoing active development. New features and capabilities being added on a monthly basis.

M-Files Roadmap for Sharepoint Embedded Integration

During the webinar, which focused on the collaboration between M-Files and Microsoft, a comprehensive roadmap was presented. Delineating the future direction M-Files particularly in the cloud. It is important to understand that all these capabilities and features will only be available in the M-Files Cloud Vault. The on-premises version of M-Files will remain and be developed further, but without the features that require SharePoint Embedded.

• Unified Collaboration
  • Co-Authoring ✅
  • Automatic versioning improvements 🕗2025
  • Unified sharing experience 🕗2025
• Enhanced Copilot Automation
  • Copilot native experience 🕜2026
  • Copilot plugin and agents 🕜2026
  • Extended content for Copilot answers 🕜2026
  • Improved guardrails for Copilot answers 🕜2026
• Improved security and compliance of document repositories
  • Document protection out-side of M-Files with Purview 🕜2026
  • Anti-malware scanning 🕜2026

What are the four “C” in the M-Files context

M-Files and Microsoft are discussing the four C’s of SharePoint Embedded. So, what do these stand for and what do they mean?

Copilot
As we all know, this is Microsoft’s AI. In the context of SharePoint Embedded, this means Copilot has native access to all data stored in the Microsoft 365 tenant, where the SharePoint Embedded container is located. With that, a whole new generation of agents can be delivered with curated, AI-ready content, that customers have long stored in M-Files. This is allowing them to harness the power of AI to streamline their operations and improve efficiency.
Documents added to Sharepoint Embedded are natively Copilot ready. This is the fasted way to implement Copilot in custom application.

Collaboration
Collaboration offers native access to Microsoft 365 applications such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Native functions such as co-authoring, mentioning, sharing and previewing are seamlessly supported. No additional configuration is required.

Compliance
When it comes to compliance, we’re talking about a set of solutions designed to help companies govern, protect and manage their data across their entire data estate. To achieve this it is possible to get use of the Microsoft capabilities like eDiscovery, auditing, data los prevention, bring your own key, retention policy, sensitive labels and conditional access. All this will help to adhere to regulations like GDPR, CCPA, etc.

Core Enterprise Storage
This is the dedicated storage partition within the Microsoft 365 tenant which provides a secure and isolated container for the documents. Please find below a list of the key features.

• any file type can be stored
• integrated search can be used
• metadata ready
• automatic versioning
• recycle bin is enabled.

Conlusion

The partnership between M-Files and Microsoft, and the decision to develop an M-Files SharePoint Embedded application, enables organisations to benefit from the best of both worlds. Companies that already use M-Files can benefit from it in particular. They can easily access their existing data and benefit from the capabilities of Microsoft 365 features.
Furthermore, new customers who have already implemented a Microsoft strategy and Microsoft 365 in place will reap the benefits of their investment. They can leverage the metadata-driven experience to support their knowledge worker with workflow automation and ensure security and compliance.

Should this proposition be of interest to you, and should you have any issues with document management that you would like to discuss, I am confident that we can address and resolve them. Should you require any further information or assistance, please do not hesitate to get in touch. We would be delighted to discuss your case with you and provide you with advice.