Microsoft legal team adds third-party software to SharePoint

Microsoft Legal Department to become beta tester for Office 365

Microsoft's legal team has integrated Colligo's Contributor V4.2 software into SharePoint so that it can access and send email from inside the collaboration platform.

The Colligo software enables users on the team to store critical emails into a central repository within SharePoint, without losing the integrity of the data.

“The legal department began looking for an information management programme because it needed a simple way to bring emails into SharePoint, it came up with Colligo Contributor,” said Nishan DeSilva, director of information management and compliance at Microsoft.

Previously Microsoft Legal users were saving necessary emails onto the desktop and then uploading them into SharePoint, meaning critical information was sometimes lost.

The newly integrated software allows users to directly upload emails into SharePoint from Outlook without losing any integrity.

“We starting piloting this software in April, and by December we expect it to be accessible to 80 per cent of the legal team,” said DeSilva.

Microsoft received a discounted price for the Colligo software at just under £15,000 – but DeSilva suggests a similar sized bespoke integration would cost a company about £37,000.

DeSilva also revealed that the legal team is testing Microsoft's Office365 cloud-based productivity suite, which he said should help it to work more effectively with outside agencies.

“The biggest hurdle currently facing the legal team is collaboration with outside council. Because they are often running on older Microsoft technology, interoperability is a major concern,” he said.

“By becoming a beta tester of Office365 we will be able to collaborate in the cloud where the experience will be the same for both parties.”