Office 365 – Setting Email Permissions in Outlook with Information Rights Management

Complete Video Transcript

Information Rights Management and Microsoft Outlook

With Office 365 and Information Rights Management, you can set permissions on your emails or office files to help keep company data secure. First, it’s worth noting that your organization will need to have set up Information Rights Management, which is a part of Azure Rights Management licensing. Information Rights Management is also included in the Office 365 E3 and Office 365 E5 plans or can be purchased as an add on for other Office 365 plans.

Information Rights Management comes with a few default templates, and your IT admins can add and customize policies to fit their needs. The default templates include Confidential \ All Employees and Highly Confidential \ All Employees. For Office 2016 users, you will also have a predefined Do Not Forward option, which will prevent all recipients from forwarding an email message you apply it to.

Not sure how strong your security practice is? Contact us today for a Security Assessment to identify potential vulnerabilities in your environment!

Contact Us!

Here are the available Information Rights Management Permissions in Office 2016 that your IT admins can use to create a custom policy. You can find this chart and more information here.

Applying an Information Rights Management Policy to an Email in Outlook:

1. In your email, click on the File tab from the ribbon.
2. In the Info pane, choose the dropdown menu for Set Permissions.
3. Select which policy you would like to apply.
4. Click the Back arrow to return to your message.
5. You will now have a message at the top of your window to let you know your selected policy has been applied.
6. Finish writing your message and click Send.

Here are some things to note about using Information Rights Management Policies with emails.

• Office 2016 files—including documents, workbooks, and presentations—attached to messages where a policy has been applied will also be restricted.
• If you send a restricted message to a non-Outlook user, your recipient can log into a Microsoft account to view the message online or can elect to receive a temporary password to view the message online.
• This also stops users from capturing a screenshot using something like the Windows 10 Snipping Tool. The screen with their Outlook client on it will be greyed out when they try to take a screenshot—and the screenshot will appear black.
• However, these policies cannot stop users from recreating the information manually.

Applying an Information Rights Management Policy to an Office 2016 File

1. In your document, workbook, or presentation, select the File tab from the ribbon.
2. In the Info pane, choose the dropdown next to Protect Document, and scroll down to Restrict Access.
3. Select the policy you would like to apply.
4. Click the Back arrow to return to your document.
5. You will now have a message at the top of your window to let you know your selected policy has been applied.

For technical information about setting up and configuring Information Rights Management policies, please see these resources:

Award-Winning Microsoft Gold Cloud Productivity Partner

PEI has been a Microsoft Gold Partner since 2005, and our engineers hold multiple Gold and Silver Microsoft Certifications. Our Gold Cloud Productivity Status speaks to our expertise with Microsoft Office 365. We have successfully completed migrations for thousands of Office 365 seats.

We focus our hiring efforts on mid- to senior-level engineers, housing a team with over 120 years of combined experience.  We deliver value by working with you to understand your business objectives and mapping out your technology to enhance these goals.

PEI specializes in long-term relationships where each customer is vital to our success. All of our customers are “customers for life,” and we use our partnerships and experience to help them drive real business results. Read more about what our customers have to say about PEI.