Fundamentals of the Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance Suite

• The compliance and governance services included in the Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance suite were previously only available stand-alone or in the Microsoft 365 E5 suite.
• Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance includes the compliance and governance features in Microsoft 365 E3 and adds features for enterprises.
• These services are of particular interest to organizations with governance or data compliance regulatory needs that apply to data in Microsoft hosted services.
• To exploit these compliance services, organizations will face a complex learning curve to apply the technology correctly and make use of the tools over time.

The Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance suite adds key capabilities for regulatory compliance to the Microsoft 365 E3 suite. It will interest organizations that keep regulated data in Microsoft 365 services and software, but do not need or want the full set of security, communications, and reporting technologies in the Microsoft 365 E5 suite.

What Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance Adds to E3

Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance is a Per-User Subscription License (User SL) that adds rights to Microsoft 365 E3. (For more information about the Microsoft 365 E3 suite of services, see the sidebar “Microsoft 365 E3 Is Compliance Foundation.”) Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance cannot be licensed independently; it can only be purchased as an add-on to Microsoft 365 E3 User SLs.

Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance adds the following two major components: