Connect Microsoft 365, Exchange and Purview eDiscovery

Connecting Microsoft Purview lets a request search your Microsoft 365 environment, including mail and files, instead of collecting mailbox by mailbox. Govflo does not hold a copy of your estate: a search runs against Purview, and only what the search returns comes into the request.

Before you start

You need two things:

• A Microsoft 365 tenant with Purview eDiscovery available on your license.
• Someone who can grant admin consent in that tenant. This is a one-time approval of the permissions the connection requests, and it usually needs a Microsoft 365 administrator rather than a records officer.

Line the second one up first. Most stalled connections are waiting on consent from someone who was never told they were needed.

How to connect

1. Go to Settings, then Integrations.
2. Open Microsoft Purview eDiscovery.
3. Start the connection and sign in against your Microsoft 365 tenant.
4. Have your Microsoft 365 administrator grant admin consent.
5. Return to the integration screen and confirm the state shows as connected.

Why discovery-based collection is worth the setup

Manual collection is slow, and more importantly it is difficult to evidence. A discovery search records what was searched and what came back.

That record is what you need when the adequacy of a search is questioned later. "We looked" is not an answer. A logged search with its scope and its results is.

What the connection does not do

Discovery locates records. It does not decide what may be released. Everything a search returns goes through the same review, redaction and approval process as a document someone uploaded by hand.

Nothing is released because it was found automatically.

Keeping it healthy

Consent can be withdrawn, licenses change, and tenants get reconfigured. The integration screen shows the current state, and a failed connection is reported there rather than returning empty search results.

That distinction is deliberate: an empty result means nothing matched, not that nothing ran. Check the connection before a large discovery run rather than after it.