MC878427: Restricted Content Discoverability for SharePoint Sites

Announcement ID	MC878427	Published Date	08-30-2024
Service	General	Last Updated	08-30-2024
Category	Stay informed	Expiration Date	03-03-2025
Roadmap ID		Action Required by Date
Tags	Admin impact, New feature

Summary
The message details the Restricted Content Discoverability (RCD) feature for SharePoint, which allows administrators to exclude sites from organization-wide search and Microsoft 365 Chat. It will be generally available from late October to early December 2024, is opt-in, and requires specific commands to enable. Eligibility extends to Copilot customers with SharePoint Advanced Management. RCD does not affect other search-dependent features.

Summary

The message details the Restricted Content Discoverability (RCD) feature for SharePoint, which allows administrators to exclude sites from organization-wide search and Microsoft 365 Chat. It will be generally available from late October to early December 2024, is opt-in, and requires specific commands to enable. Eligibility extends to Copilot customers with SharePoint Advanced Management. RCD does not affect other search-dependent features.

More Information

More Information
Restricted Content Discoverability (RCD) is a feature that allows SharePoint Administrators to restrict specific SharePoint sites from participating in organization wide search and Microsoft 365 Chat. Once RCD is set on a given SharePoint site, all content from the site will be hidden from tenant-wide search and Microsoft 365 Chat by default for all users in the tenant, even if a user has site access permissions. While child content will be hidden by default, users will still be able to search for content they have recently interacted with. This includes recently accessed and modified files, even if RCD is applied to the parent site. Searches originating from a site context will not be impacted. When RCD is applied to a site, the following endpoints will honor the restriction: Tenant-wide search in SharePoint Home, Office.com, and Bing. Microsoft 365 Chat in Teams Copilot in Bing at Work Copilot in Office application, such as Copilot in Word, when searching for information or files across the tenant When will this happen: General Availability: We will begin rolling out late October 2024 and expect to complete by early December 2024. How this will affect your organization: No impact to your organization. This is an opt-in feature and SharePoint administrator needs to explicitly set this on a per site basis. Note: If you are interested in trying this feature "now" along with all of our preview features related to managing SharePoint, then just send an email to sam_preview_program@microsoft.com with subject "Join- SharePoint Advanced Management" What you need to do to prepare: Complete the following steps to enable this setting for the site you identify. To apply RCD on a SharePoint site, run the following command using latest version of SharePoint Online Management Shell: `Set-SPOSite -identity <site-url> -RestrictContentOrgWideSearch $true` To view the RCD configuration for a given site: `Get-SPOSite -identity <site-url> \| Select RestrictContentOrgWideSearch` Frequently Asked Questions: Is my organization eligible to use RCD? This setting is available to all Copilot customers with SharePoint Advanced Management purchased. Does RCD impact other features with dependencies on the search index, such as the Purview product suite? No, RCD only affects tenant-wide search endpoints and Copilot. How soon can I expect Search and Copilot to reflect an update made to the RCD configuration of a site? RCD is a site-level property. As with all site settings, index update latency is highly dependent on the number of items in the site and the number of sites getting updated at the same time.

Restricted Content Discoverability (RCD) is a feature that allows SharePoint Administrators to restrict specific SharePoint sites from participating in organization wide search and Microsoft 365 Chat.

Once RCD is set on a given SharePoint site, all content from the site will be hidden from tenant-wide search and Microsoft 365 Chat by default for all users in the tenant, even if a user has site access permissions.

While child content will be hidden by default, users will still be able to search for content they have recently interacted with. This includes recently accessed and modified files, even if RCD is applied to the parent site. Searches originating from a site context will not be impacted.

When RCD is applied to a site, the following endpoints will honor the restriction:

Tenant-wide search in SharePoint Home, Office.com, and Bing.
Microsoft 365 Chat in Teams
Copilot in Bing at Work
Copilot in Office application, such as Copilot in Word, when searching for information or files across the tenant

When will this happen:

General Availability: We will begin rolling out late October 2024 and expect to complete by early December 2024.

How this will affect your organization:

No impact to your organization. This is an opt-in feature and SharePoint administrator needs to explicitly set this on a per site basis.

Note: If you are interested in trying this feature "now" along with all of our preview features related to managing SharePoint, then just send an email to sam_preview_program@microsoft.com with subject "Join- SharePoint Advanced Management"

What you need to do to prepare:

Complete the following steps to enable this setting for the site you identify.

To apply RCD on a SharePoint site, run the following command using latest version of SharePoint Online Management Shell:
Set-SPOSite -identity <site-url> -RestrictContentOrgWideSearch $true
To view the RCD configuration for a given site:
Get-SPOSite -identity <site-url> | Select RestrictContentOrgWideSearch

Frequently Asked Questions:

Is my organization eligible to use RCD?
This setting is available to all Copilot customers with SharePoint Advanced Management purchased.
Does RCD impact other features with dependencies on the search index, such as the Purview product suite?
No, RCD only affects tenant-wide search endpoints and Copilot.
How soon can I expect Search and Copilot to reflect an update made to the RCD configuration of a site?
RCD is a site-level property. As with all site settings, index update latency is highly dependent on the number of items in the site and the number of sites getting updated at the same time.

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