A World of Difference: Introducing Multi-geo Provisioning

The workforce is going global. If you haven’t noticed it in your business yet, chances are you will soon enough. According to a study conducted by global employment service provider G-P*, 66% of business leaders said having employees in multiple countries is part of their company strategy. But at the same time, about half of employees surveyed questioned if their company is ready to go global. 

Much of that concern comes from the need for collaboration tools to enable cross-border work. If you’re on Microsoft 365, you’ve got no shortage of tools for employees to work together across locations and time zones. But as an admin, properly provisioning employees in different regions is critical. It’s not just that teams in different locales need region-specific access—sometimes, regulations like GDPR necessitate the cordoning off of groups. 

This kind of provisioning usually requires a lot of manual work. But just as we’ve made simple work of M365 provisioning in general, we’re making it easier to create teams in multiple geographies. Our new multi-geo provisioning allows Orchestry users to customize their workspace templates, giving them the ability to enforce or offer choices based on their location. 

Get a complete picture of how Orchestry is the Microsoft 365 automation and management tool you always wanted. Download the Orchestry features sheet

With multi-geo provisioning, you can have different default preferred data locations (PDLs) based on where it’s being created in each workspace template. So if, say, you have a Berlin-based team subject to local data residency regulations, you can easily set your German PDL as default for any templates they use. 

On the surface this might seem fairly minor, for businesses subject to a variety of data residency and sovereignty requirements, it’s a major streamlining. Now, instead of instructing users to adjust PDLs as they create new workspaces, it can be done automatically. You can even restrict templates based on geography. So if a user is part of a geo-based Entra ID group, you can set it so they only see the instance of the template for their region. So when someone from the Berlin office browses workspace templates, they’ll only see, for instance, “Marketing (DE),” and not “Marketing (Global).” This reduces the risk of accidentally assigning the wrong PDL to a new workspace. 

Think Global, Act Local

We’re really excited to bring multi-geo provisioning to all our customers, especially the ones that have specifically requested it. We’re continuing to expand upon its capabilities to streamline your provisioning even further, so stay tuned. In the meantime, be sure to check out the  Orchestry features sheet for a complete picture of how we can help with Microsoft 365 automation and management.

* “2023 Global Growth Report: The Rise of the Everywhere Workforce.” G-P, www.globalization-partners.com/resources/report-global-growth/. Accessed October 25, 2024.