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Handling SharePoint Online Document Mismatch Notifications
I first wrote about SharePoint Online document mismatch notifications soon after their introduction in 2020. SharePoint sends these messages when users upload (or create) a document in a site that has a higher-priority sensitivity label than the label assigned to the site. The message (Figure 1) is intended to alert the author that they might have made a mistake when choosing a label or perhaps have stored sensitive information in a site intended for lower-level content.
Although SharePoint Online creates audit events when document mismatches occur, the audit events don’t contain details of the author who provoked the mismatch. To find that information, you need to correlate the notification with other audit records. This method works and it’s a good way to keep an eye on trends.
Suppressing Document Mismatch Notifications with a Mail Flow Rule
So far, so good. However, some organizations dislike document mismatch notifications because they cause users to call the help desk to ask what’s happening and what they should do next. The easy answer is to say that this is a simple matter of lack of user training. Before an organization implements sensitivity labels, they should educate users about the meaning and usage of the labels published to accounts. Just because a user doesn’t understand the difference between “General access” and ”Confidential” is not a reason to suppress informational emails. Another point I’ve heard made is that users tend to ignore system-generated messages, especially if they don’t understand why they received the email.
Another way of thinking about the situation is that if mismatches occur, fast intervention should occur to coach users about how to label information correctly. But to be able to intervene, the help desk (or another body) must know about the mismatch. It’s possible to scan for audit events daily (or more frequently) to find the data. Another solution is to use a mail flow rule to redirect mismatch notifications to an email address where those who help users to understand how to handle sensitive information can learn about issues as they happen.
The mail flow rule is straightforward (Figure 2). The rule looks for messages originating from a specific sender, which is the email address used for the document mismatch notifications (see discussion below). Only messages that match the subject of the notifications are diverted to one or more selected recipients. The targets can be individual recipients or groups. They do not have to be known Exchange Online mail-enabled objects.
Once the rule is enabled, the Exchange Online transport service intercepts document mismatch notifications and redirects the emails to the nominated recipient.
Domain-Specific Address for Service Emails
In both the figures, you’ll notice that a custom email address is used for the sender of the document mismatch notifications. This is a feature known as bring your own domain address for service messages. In other words, you can replace the default addresses used by Microsoft (like noreply@sharepoint.com) with an address that makes sense to those who receive notifications and other service messages. The address must be functional because users might respond to service messages requesting more information. I use a shared mailbox for this purpose.
According to message center notification MC705761 (10 January 2024, Microsoft 365 roadmap item 375694), Teams will soon give tenant administrators the option to send information messages from a selected domain. The update is coming to standard release tenants in mid-February 2024.
No Right Answer
There’s no right or wrong answer for how to deal with document mismatch notifications. It all depends on the individual circumstances within a tenant. Some users are very conscious about information protection and understand the most appropriate label to apply in any condition. Others are unsure. Coaching helps, but sometimes a little extra help doesn’t go amiss.
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