📢It’s good news for Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager.
You can now bulk import your updated improvement actions directly into Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager using the Improvement actions export report. With no APIs or programmatic interfaces, bulk import is a significant improvement.
Having the ability to work on your improvement actions outside of the Microsoft Purview Admin Center is extremely helpful. You can work on the improvement actions with multiple businesses and IT stakeholders without giving them admin rights. In the past, any changes to improvement actions had to be manually updated in Compliance Manager. Organisations often only focus on the initial export of data, so they miss out on automatic testing notifications, reporting and updates.
By using the Excel export file to bulk upload your changes into Compliance Manager, there is no need to rekey any information, which is a significant time-saving improvement.
Additionally, keeping the Compliance Manager updated lets you see the impact of changes to regulations or configuration changes via automated testing.
Read on to find out more.
Benefits of the updated Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager report
Historically you could export a CSV file, and there was no way to import data into Compliance Manager.
Now with the updated report, the key benefits are:
- Reference keys are provided for each action
- Ability to bulk upload your changes into Compliance Manager
- No need to convert to Excel to make it readable to users
- Customer managed controls and Microsoft Managed controls are included when you export the file from a specific assessment on the Assessment page
- Separation of controls between security, privacy, and compliance-related controls as these elements are often owned by different groups.
Considerations
Your Power Automate or Logic Apps workflows using the CSV file will need updating.
- File format has changed from CSV to Excel
- Some column names are different
- Some columns now contain different data
- Action Type
- Categories
What is the Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager export?
The Export Actions Excel file contains three sheets
- Action Update – Used to update data to Compliance Manager (instructions on sheet 3).
- Improvement Action details – Summary of current status. This is similar content to the original CSV file. ⚠️Warning it is not exactly the same.
- How to update actions – Details on the format of the Action Update sheet
Action Update sheet
You can import data back into Compliance Manager using the Action Update sheet. ⚠️Important. On the third sheet titled How to update Actions, you will find details on the formatting.
- Implementation status
- Implementation date
- Implementation notes
- Tests status
- Test date
- Test notes
- Other notes
- Documents
- Assigned to
- Testing source
- Action parent title
- Action parent product
Improvement Action details sheet
The Improvement Action details sheet provides a snapshot of your current compliance posture.
- Improvement action name = Name of control
- Products = the product the control relates to e.g. Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure or Universal
- Points achieved: the number of points achieved out of the total available by completing the action
- Regulations: the regulations or standards pertaining to the action
- Group: the group to which you assigned the action
- Solutions: the solutions to implement the action
- Assessments: the assessments that contain the action
- Categories = security, privacy or compliance
- Test status = test status of action, either manually or automatically
- Action Type = CustomerManagedAction or MicrosoftManagedActions
- Testing source: indicates whether the testing source for the action is manual, automatic, or inherited from a parent
How to Update Actions sheet
The How to Update Actions worksheet contains instructions on how to input and format data on the Action Update worksheet correctly.
⚠️Please note: The upload will fail if your data does not match the requirements.
How do I export my Improvement actions from Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager
You can download the ExportActions Excel file from two places in Compliance Manager.
Option 1: Download the export actions from the Improvement actions section.
From the Improvement action section you have the option to filter the data before you export it. Select Export actions to download the filtered view.
Option 2: Download ExportActions.XLSX from the Assessment section.
From the Assessments section Select your specific assessment, for example, ISO 27001-2013 and select Export Actions.
Alternatively, if you are in your specific assessment you can select Export Action in the top right-hand corner.
This Excel file has two additional sheets:
- Customer managed controls – status of the customer managed controls
- Microsoft managed controls – status of the Microsoft managed controls
These are useful pages to share with auditors.
How do I upload my changes back into Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager
Re-enter your updates in the Action Update tab in the ExportActions spreadsheet, following the detailed instructions of the last tab in the spreadsheet called How to update Action.
⚠️Remember your changes will overwrite any existing information in the columns
⚠️Important. The upload will fail if your data does not match the requirements.
You can upload your spreadsheet to the Compliance Manager via the Improvement actions or the Assessment sections.
Follow the wizard to ensure that you are following the correct process.
Select and upload your Excel file.
⚠️Warning if your data is formatted incorrectly, you will get a detailed error message. Check that you have entered the information correctly and re-upload the file.
Once uploaded successfully you are shown a summary of the changes and the impact on your overall score.
Confirm the change by selecting Update actions.
A confirmation will appear. Note changes may take 24 hours to appear in Compliance Manager.
Microsoft References
Find out more information on Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager at
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager – Microsoft Purview (compliance) | Microsoft Learn