How Microsoft and M-Files are Revolutionizing Content Management Together
Ian Story of Microsoft and Antti Nivala of M-Files discuss how their collaboration is aiming to bring the best of content management to users
For years, executives from Microsoft and document management platform provider M-Files would meet across the aisles at industry events, often as competitors. Today, the story has changed. The two companies are now partners, collaborating to build integrated solutions to help businesses work more productively and securely.
“All the years we would see each other at different events, we would be competing,” recalls Ian Story, principal architect for OneDrive and SharePoint at Microsoft. “I’m excited just to be sitting here now as partners.”
For Antti Nivala, founder and CEO of M-Files, the partnership aligns with his initial vision when founding M-Files.
“Right from the start, my core idea was to offer the best possible experience to end users,” he explains. “Most of the customers we work with use Microsoft tools as their digital workplace. So, it’s been important for me to make sure that M-Files integrates with Office tools, with the Windows operating system, and today with Microsoft 365 in the cloud.”
That integration has reached a new level as M-Files enables users to co-author and edit documents simultaneously in Microsoft 365 desktop applications while the M-Files platform organizes information, guides business processes, and automates security and compliance.
“Co-authoring is very important for M-Files users,” says Nivala. “M-Files serves customers best when it’s not just the system of record, but also the system of work. Compliance becomes automatic. You can just do your work while everything else happens behind the scenes.”
Story adds: “It provides 100 percent of the native co-authoring features of Microsoft 365 – comments, mentions, presence awareness, working with Copilot – not partial functionality.”
Underpinning these capabilities is Sharepoint Embedded, an API-only solution that enables app developers to utilize the Microsoft 365 file and document storage functionality.
“The solution uses the core storage technology, compliance and security capabilities of SharePoint, but not the user interface,” says Story. “Users only interact through M-Files’ user interface. It’s the best of both worlds.”
Co-authoring marks the beginning of what Nivala and Story envisage as a much deeper collaboration, with the development work the two companies have already done opening up new avenues for innovation.
“We now have this tight integration between M-Files and Microsoft 365, essentially using Microsoft 365 storage for the content,” says Nivala. “That brings quite a lot of possibilities. There are so many use cases that are ideal for M-Files – from simple sync and share to high-end document management. The partnership just makes a ton of sense.”
For Nivala, the real value of the new partnership for Microsoft customers comes from the contextual information M-Files can provide.
“We integrate with business systems like SAP and Salesforce, and use those business objects as context for documents,” he says. “It’s not just document management. From customer data to plant and equipment data – you can pull it all together with metadata inside Microsoft 365. That’s quite unique to M-Files.”
M-Files customers will now be able to make use of Sharepoint capabilities through the M-Files interface.
AI adds another layer of opportunity for Microsoft and M-Files to explore. “Having Copilot natively access content is an exciting prospect,” says Nivala.“ By exposing business context and documents in M-Files to Copilot, alongside the Microsoft Graph, you really get to the right conclusion for whatever the user needs.” Story can also foresee the companies working together to develop specialized AI agents.
“I can imagine future agents for tax and accounting, engineering or life sciences,” he says. “With the business object context from M-Files and collaboration data from Microsoft Teams and email in the Microsoft Graph, it’s a really powerful combination.” Security and compliance will remain a central focus of the collaboration.
“A very practical example is sensitivity labels,” says Nivala. “Now, thanks to the integration, we can create sensitivity labels automatically with metadata. If a document relates to a confidential project, metadata can trigger encryption and prevent oversharing.”
Story highlights the compliance advantages for customers when working on Microsoft 365 through the M-Files platform.
“There’s a simplicity in knowing all of your content is in one place,” he says. “You don’t have some in Microsoft 365 and some somewhere else. It’s protected by Microsoft Purview, with certifications like FedRAMP, SOC 2 and HIPAA. If customers ask if they have access to Microsoft Defender or Advanced Threat Protection, the answer is yes – it’s just like any other content in Microsoft 365. It’s all built natively into Word, Excel and even Acrobat. No plugins, no extra tools – it just works.”
Both Nivala and Story see the current integrations as just the beginning.
“The combination of Microsoft 365 and M-Files isn’t just about solving problems today – it’s about laying the groundwork for how people will collaborate in the future,” says Story. “With AI, compliance and seamless co-authoring built in, we’re helping customers move towards a workplace where content is always available, always secure, and always in context.”
Nivala agrees: “This is the start of a much bigger journey. The more intelligence and automation we bring into the daily flow of work, the closer we get to making information management effortless. That’s the vision – and we’re only getting started.”
Transforming the Energy Sector with M-Files: Solutions for Enhanced Efficiency and Compliance
The energy sector is a critical component of modern society, powering homes, industries, and transportation systems. Companies in this industry must navigate complex processes, manage vast amounts of data, and ensure safety and reliability in their operations. M-Files offers innovative document management system solutions that can streamline workflows, improve decision-making, and support sustainability efforts.
Energy Industry Challenges
The energy sector, including electric power, the renewable energy sector, and the oil and gas industry, faces several significant challenges:
Rising Electricity Demand: We are experiencing a surge in electricity demand, driven by unprecedented electrification of industrial operations, transportation and everyday lives. This requires smarter business models and more advanced data management tools.
Renewable Energy Integration: The integration of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, into the grid is a major challenge. This also requires significant investment in grid infrastructure,energy storage, and renewable energy management technologies. For the renewable energy sector, this means greater complexity in coordinating assets, compliance, and information flows.
Regulatory and Compliance Pressures: Increasing regulations around sustainability and environmental impact require companies to adapt their processes. This includes compliance with new rules, laws, and regulations to make investments in green hydrogen or offshore wind power possible, demanding robust document management for energy companies and airtight data security practices.
M-Files Document Management System Solutions for Energy Companies
M-Files offers a comprehensive suite of digital solutions tailored to meet the unique challenges faced by energy companies, the renewable energy sector, and the oil and gas industry as they undergo digital transformation. These solutions include:
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
Challenges:
Inefficiencies and transparency issues in managing asset information.
Delays in decision-making due to scattered information across multiple systems.
Solutions: M-Files optimizes asset management by providing a holistic view of critical content, improving productivity and efficiency. Our metadata-based approach ensures that all asset information is centralized in a single document management system, making it easier to access and manage. This leads to enhanced decision-making capabilities, reduced downtime, and improved operational efficiency across the energy industry.
Project Information Management (PIM)
Challenges:
Big projects require thorough planning and documentation, leading to overwhelming amounts of information.
Information is often siloed across different systems, hindering collaboration and transparency.
Manual processes can slow down approvals and tracking.
Solutions: M-Files streamlines project information management by automating workflows, permissions, and providing a single source of truth. Our document management software ensures that all team members, both internal and external, are aligned, leading to seamless transitions between project phases. This enhances collaboration, improves communication, and boosts productivity while helping improve efficiency.
Risk & Compliance Management (RMS)
Challenges:
Complex compliance requirements with a broad scope.
Documentation for evidence of compliance is often scattered and difficult to manage.
Lack of centralized compliance management and information.
Solutions: M-Files ensures compliance with industry regulations by automating the management of regulatory documents and providing real-time integration. Our centralized compliance management system for energy companies enhances our clients’ reputation and efficiency in compliance activities. This helps reduce the risk of fines and penalties, ensuring operational excellence even during challenging times.
Improving Collaboration with Intelligent Data Management
M-Files fosters seamless collaboration across departments, improving communication and coordination. This leads to better project outcomes and increased productivity. Our document management system ensures that all team members, both internal and external, are aligned, leading to seamless transitions between project phases.
Effective collaboration is essential in today’s fast-paced business environment. It involves seamless communication across departments, ensuring that everyone is on the same page. A prime example is the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.
Imagine a company requiring a specific spare part, with several external suppliers bidding for the contract. For this process to be smooth, there needs to be clear and transparent communication. All specifications and evaluations must be accessible to the relevant stakeholders, enabling informed decision-making without delays. With M-Files, these types of processes can be easily handled with transmittals and external portal access powered by digital technologies, rather than the old way of sending emails back and forth.
Similarly, when external vendors contribute to a design document, real-time updates and feedback loops are crucial. This ensures that all parties have the latest information, reducing errors and miscommunications. The information stays in the system, with full audit trail accumulating constantly. These capabilities are especially valuable in the energy industry, where precision, accuracy, and data security are non-negotiable.Reliable document management plays a key role in ensuring that teams can access the most current information and work from a single source of truth.
Such structured and well-coordinated collaboration leads to better project outcomes, enhanced productivity, and stronger business relationships — and better compliance.
Enhanced Decision-Making and Energy Management
By providing quick access to accurate information, M-Files enhances decision-making processes, ensuring that energy companies can respond swiftly to changing market conditions. Our approach supports proactive planning, compliance, and overall document management, helping reduce the risk of fines and penalties while improving visibility into real-time operation data.
Comprehensive Audit Trail
M-Files offers an advanced audit trail feature that provides full visibility into the lifecycle of a document, business asset, or any relevant topic within your organization. This comprehensive audit trail logs every action taken, from creation and modification to access and deletion, ensuring complete transparency and accountability, which is key for the energy industry and its regulatory environment
Such a detailed audit trail helps businesses maintain compliance with industry regulations by offering verifiable evidence of document management activities and process adherence. It also enables organizations to quickly identify and address any discrepancies or unauthorized actions, safeguarding the integrity and data security of their critical information.
By leveraging M-Files‘ audit trail feature, companies can ensure that all stakeholders are informed about the history and status of crucial documents and assets, thus facilitating better decision-making and enhancing overall operational efficiency.
M-Files Aino: Enhancing Knowledge Work with AI
M-Files Aino is a natural language assistant that leverages AI to help users find information, work with information, and automate tasks. Aino enables users to become more efficient and effective by providing easy access to the information they need. It can for example summarize documents, translate summaries, find answers from documents, and save the summaries and answers as metadata, and it gets more and more capabilities or skills all the time.
This AI-driven automation enhances knowledge work productivity and supports the energy sector in managing vast amounts of data, handling complex project documents, and ensuring compliance through smart document management software and digital technologies Aino represents a key drive of digital innovation, in the energy sector, helping companies work smarter, faster, and more securely.
Driving Sustainable Growth Through Digital Transformation
The energy sector is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by the need for sustainable energy solutions, enhanced operational efficiency, and improved regulatory compliance. M-Files offers a comprehensive document management system tailored to meet the unique challenges faced by energy companies, ensuring seamless access to critical information, automating compliance, and boosting collaboration across operations.
By centralizing critical documents and linking them with your business objects, automating workflows, and providing AI-driven boosts, M-Files enhances operational efficiency, compliance, and collaboration. These digital solutions help companies secure data, modernize document management, and unlock the potential of modern business models, allowing them to navigate the complexities of the energy industry and drive sustainable growth.
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