SharePoint Governance Framework for UAE Organizations

Without governance, SharePoint becomes an unmanageable mess. Here's how UAE organizations can implement governance that keeps SharePoint productive and secure.

SharePoint Online is the document management and collaboration backbone for thousands of UAE organizations. But without governance, SharePoint environments quickly become unmanageable — sprawling sites with duplicate content, broken permissions, and no clear ownership. Governance provides the structure that keeps SharePoint productive.

Core Governance Pillars

Information architecture defines how content is organized: site hierarchy, document library structure, metadata taxonomy, and navigation. Security governance establishes permission models, sharing policies, and access review processes. Lifecycle governance manages site creation, review, archival, and deletion. Compliance governance ensures content retention meets regulatory requirements.

Permissions and Sharing

SharePoint permissions in UAE organizations must balance collaboration with data protection. Implement role-based access using SharePoint groups (not individual permissions). Restrict external sharing to approved domains. Enable sensitivity labels from Microsoft Purview to automatically protect classified documents. Conduct quarterly access reviews to remove stale permissions.

Automation and Enforcement

Use Power Automate and SharePoint automation to enforce governance: automatically apply retention labels based on content type, notify site owners when sites are inactive, provision new sites through a request workflow rather than allowing self-service creation, and generate compliance reports for management review.

Bayden implements SharePoint governance frameworks for UAE organizations, combining technical controls with organizational processes to maintain a productive, secure, and compliant collaboration environment.