The first ever Microsoft 365 Copilot related Credential is now available in this NEW Applied Skill! Prove to everyone you can help organizations get Copilot ready with the Prepare security and compliance to support Microsoft 365 Copilot applied skill! Did I mention… it’s totally free! No proctor, no scheduling, just dive in and prove your skills. Watch now to get the details and pass on your first try!
Video Summary
- SharePoint Premium Feature: The new SharePoint site access reviews feature is highlighted. It’s brand new, so many might need a SharePoint Premium trial to access and test it.
- Comprehensive Skill Set: The applied skill covers a wide range of products including Defender for Office 365, Defender for Cloud Apps, data loss prevention, sensitivity labels, and Intune. It’s a big challenge reflecting the complexity of preparing for Copilot.
- Excitement and Preparation: The speaker is excited about taking the applied skill and plans to do so soon. They encourage viewers to share their experiences and thoughts on whether the skill reflects real-world Copilot deployment.
- Importance of Getting Ready: Emphasizes that getting Copilot ready will be a major focus towards the end of 2024 and into 2025. Many organizations will work towards being AI-ready even if they haven’t purchased Copilot yet.
- Call to Action: Encourages IT professionals to take the applied skill, share the video, and challenge colleagues to ensure more secure Microsoft 365 environments. Also, invites viewers to subscribe for the latest updates on Microsoft credentials and Copilot news.
For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!
Video Transcript
It’s finally here! I know a lot of you have been waiting for this moment, but Microsoft just released the first Microsoft 365 Copilot applied skill, which is the first Microsoft 365 Copilot credential to come out. This one is for IT professionals. It’s the “Prepare Security and Compliance to Support Microsoft 365 Copilot” applied skill, and it’s available today.
For those of you who don’t know much about applied skills, let me give you a quick 20-second introduction. Applied skills are the new Microsoft verified scenario-based credentials that prove you have a skill in a critical business challenge.
The difference with these credentials is that applied skills validate a very specific skill set. They are very specific, not broad for a full role. They are project-based and hands-on, so you don’t have multiple-choice questions, and you don’t need to remember PowerShell parameters by heart. Everything is hands-on and open book, with full access to the internet, just like in your day-to-day job.
The best part is they are absolutely free, so you can get your first Microsoft 365 Copilot credential for free right after watching this video. But before you go do that, the link will be in the description below. Let’s cover together what you need to know before you get started.
To earn this Microsoft applied skill credential, learners demonstrate the ability to prepare Microsoft 365 security and compliance to support Copilot for Microsoft 365. Candidates for this credential should be familiar with Microsoft 365 services, Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Entra, Microsoft Intune, and Microsoft Purview.
Wow, I’ll be honest, that is quite the list. Last week, I did a video about this credential coming up, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a lot of Purview or a lot of SharePoint Premium, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t really expect to have Defender XDR and Intune in there. So, I’ll definitely have to study a little bit before I go take this applied skill. Let’s go a bit more in detail.
For applied skills, Microsoft publishes the tasks that you need to be able to perform. It’s probably three or four, or maybe two of those things that you will have to do hands-on as part of your applied skills. Let’s take a look at them.
First, you’ll need to know how to prepare your Microsoft 365 environment to support Copilot for Microsoft 365. You’ll need to know how to configure identity governance to support Copilot for Microsoft 365. By the way, they did not rename it here; it should be Microsoft 365 Copilot.
A small detail, it has recently been rebranded by Microsoft, so I’m sure we’ll get the proper name here soon as well. You’ll also need to know how to configure device management to support Microsoft 365 Copilot, how to configure and manage compliance settings for Microsoft 365 Copilot, and finally, how to configure and manage access to information for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Okay, I don’t know about you, but I love this list, but at the same time, it tells me nothing. It’s so big. It’s like you just need to know how to prepare for Copilot for everything in your IT environment. So, you know what? Let’s go open up the study guide that Microsoft provides that goes a lot more in detail on how you can prepare.
I’m here in the browser right now, on the applied skills page. You will have the link to it in the description below the video. You see, we have the “Prepare Security and Compliance to Support Microsoft 365 Copilot” applied skill, and I could just go and take the assessment right away if I wanted to, but I cannot show you that part. So, what we will do for now is let’s scroll towards the bottom. Really important, you see you’ll have two hours to complete this assessment, so quite a lot of time. I expect it to be quite big, but I guess I’ll find out when I do it.
Again, I’m honest, I still need to study a little bit before I go take it. I hope to take it in the next week or so. What I want to show you is the study guide for the applied skills. If I click on it, here is where you will see all the different details in detail about what you need to know before you go take the applied skill.
For the “Prepare Your Microsoft 365 Environment to Support Copilot,” you need to know how to configure Copilot-related settings in Defender for Office 365, including preset security policies and analytics. You need to know how to configure Copilot-related settings in Defender for Cloud Apps. Wow, you need to know how to configure Copilot access to Microsoft Graph connectors and plugins.
You need to know how to select an appropriate Microsoft 365 apps channel, how to configure tenant-level settings for Copilot for Office. I guess this should be Microsoft 365 Copilot, including your Edge browser settings, unified audit log, and more. Then, if we go into the identity governance requirements for Microsoft 365 Copilot, you need to know how to configure security defaults. I’ll be honest, most companies that invest in Copilot probably will use conditional access, which is way more advanced and is the next item here.
So, you need to know how to configure conditional access policies for Copilot and how to configure access to Copilot, of course, including users, groups, privileged access, and access reviews. Wow, quite a few things to know.
Then we have the device management part. Again, I will not cover it all because it might change a little bit in the future. I’d rather show you where you can go get the latest information. However, one of them that I really wanted to show you, really important, when I did the video last week, one of the things I wasn’t sure about was whether they would cover SharePoint Premium as well.
There’s not a lot of SharePoint Premium in this applied skill except for this one: configure SharePoint site access reviews. Now, this feature is brand new, so a lot of you might need to go get a SharePoint Premium trial in order to have access to SharePoint site access reviews and then be able to test it, play around with it, and everything. So, make sure you go play around with SharePoint Premium. There’s a ton of videos on my channel if you want to get started. But yeah, so we have Purview, we have SharePoint Premium, we have Defender for Office 365, Defender for Cloud Apps, we have data loss prevention, sensitivity labels, Intune.
This is a pretty big applied skill, and I’ll be honest, it kind of reflects the challenges that organizations have to get Copilot ready. It’s not only one product, but it’s about ten different products that you need to configure properly for a successful Copilot deployment.
But now my question for you is, are you taking this applied skill? I don’t know about you, but I am super excited about it. I can’t wait to take it. A few more things than I expected to be on it, but hopefully in the next week, we will talk on LinkedIn or in the comments on YouTube, and we will all have passed it. So, let me know in the comments: do you plan to take it? Did you already take it? And let me know what you thought about it.
Does it actually reflect what a Copilot deployment is like? Make sure that you share this video with your IT professional friends. I really think that getting Copilot ready will be a big topic towards the end of 2024 and even all of 2025 because so many organizations might not be buying Copilot yet, but they will all for sure work towards getting Copilot and AI ready. So, I definitely think every Microsoft 365 IT pro should go get this applied skill. Make sure you share this video on LinkedIn, challenge your IT pro friends and colleagues to go pass it as well, and let’s all make sure that we have more secure Microsoft 365 environments.
This is it for this video. I really hope you enjoyed it and found it valuable. If you want to get the latest Microsoft credentials and Copilot news, make sure you subscribe to the channel and please like this video if you enjoyed it. It would be very, very appreciated. Thanks again for watching.
