Future-Ready Records Management in Microsoft 365 with AvePoint Opus

If there’s one constant in cloud technology, it’s that things are constantly changing. Microsoft recently announced a modernization for how compliance and records management work within Microsoft 365, retiring older SharePoint capabilities in favor of governance models aligned with Microsoft Purview.

As the platform evolves, so does AvePoint Opus — ensuring organizations can continue managing records confidently, compliantly, and without disruption.

A Quick Refresher

Think of record declaration as placing a document into a sealed compliance envelope. Once declared a record, it’s preserved as-is — protected from edits or deletion so it can be trusted for audits, legal matters, and regulatory requirements.

Microsoft Purview is Microsoft’s compliance and governance platform that helps organizations manage retention policies, records, and data protection across Microsoft 365.

Historically, Microsoft used an information management policy to lock or declare an item as a record. With this change, the functionality moves within the Purview Records Management feature set.  

A New Approach to Records Protection

As Microsoft continues building its long-term compliance framework, Opus is aligning with this direction by leveraging Purview Records Labels to enforce record immutability.

This modernized approach allows organizations to:

• Maintain strong protections against deletion or modification.
• Apply governance policies consistently across content.
• Integrate records management into automated lifecycle workflows. 

Many organizations rely heavily on the functionality of record immutability as a key compliance task in their information governance framework. This is why we adopted this new approach quickly while also providing a clear upgrade path for organizations still using the existing capabilities.  

Governance on Autopilot

Even as the underlying compliance framework evolves, Opus continues to do what it does best: automate information lifecycle.

Organizations can still: 

• Classify and govern content without user involvement.
• Apply records protections through policy automation.
• Manage records as part of broader lifecycle strategies. 

Effective governance should be consistent, automated, and policy-led — not dependent on manual intervention. 

Moving Forward with Confidence

Microsoft’s continued investment in Purview is shaping a more unified and scalable compliance framework for the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. By aligning with this direction, Opus empowers organizations to: 

• Maintain defensible records processes.
• Modernize governance strategies.
• Automate lifecycle management across their Microsoft 365 data. 

The result? Records management that’s future-ready, policy-driven, while continuing to keep that burden away from the business user. 

What This Means for Your Organization 

Organizations currently using legacy record declaration capabilities may need to upgrade to the modern records management framework supported by Microsoft Purview Records Labels. AvePoint Opus is already aligned with this direction and provides an upgrade path to help customers maintain compliant, defensible records protections. 

To understand how this change applies to your environment and whether any upgrades are needed, connect with your AvePoint representative to plan the next steps tailored to your governance objectives.