Configure Microsoft 365 Outlook for the Next Generation API Data Protection

To configure Outlook (Commercial & GCC) for the Next Generation API Data Protection, follow the instructions below.

Prerequisites

Before configuring Microsoft 365 Outlook (Commercial & GCC) for Next Generation API Data Protection, please review the prerequisites.

• Review the Microsoft Office 365 Outlook licenses here.

• Netskope does not support Microsoft 365 apps during the migration of your Microsoft tenant between data centers. Ensure the migration is fully completed before granting access to Netskope. For more information about Microsoft tenant migration, see:

  • Features Affected

  • Migration

• A global administrator account is required to grant access to Netskope. Post-grant, you can either delete or downgrade this account.

  The way permissions work in Azure/Office 365 is that Netskope requires an administrator to grant enough privileges for Netskope to perform specific actions. Note that the Netskope app does not receive global admin permissions. It only receives permissions for the scope Netskope requests.

• You must turn on audit logging in Microsoft 365 admin center. To enable audit logging, follow the steps below:

  1. Log in to https://purview.microsoft.com/.On the left navigation, click Solutions > Audit.

     If auditing is not turned on for your organization, a banner is displayed prompting you to start recording user and admin activity.

     

  2. Click the Start recording user and admin activity banner.

     It may take up to 60 minutes for the change to take effect. After enabling, the first application event contents can take up to 12 hours to show up in Skope IT.

• If you have guest or external users in your SaaS environment belonging to domains considered internal, you must set the appropriate internal domains for Netskope to classify exposure accurately. To set up internal domains, follow this article.

Configure Netskope to Access your Outlook Account

To authorize Netskope to access your Outlook account, follow the steps below:

1. Log in to the Netskope tenant UI and go to Settings > Configure App Access > Next Gen > CASB API.

2. Under Apps, select Outlook and click Setup CASB API Instance.

   The Setup Instance window opens.

3. Under Office 365 Environment, select either Commercial or GCC.

   GCC & GCC High are designed for U.S. federal, state, and local government customers.

4. Under Administrator Email, enter the email address of the user who will receive an email notification when a policy violation or event triggers. This step is optional.

5. Under Instance Name, enter the name of the SaaS app instance. This step is optional and if left blank, Netskope will determine the name of the app instance post grant.

6. Click Grant Access.

   The Microsoft Login window opens.

7. Enter the global administrator username and password.

8. Keep Consent on behalf of your organization unchecked and Accept the permissions.

   

   Justification for Permissions Requested

   Permissions required by Netskope	Claim Value	Description	Purpose	Trade-off if not allowed
   Sign in and read user profile	User.Read	Allows – users to sign-in to the application, – the application to read the profile of signed-in users, – the application to read basic company information of signed-in users.	Allows sign-in and to obtain information about signed-in users.	Required for sign-in workflows.
   Read all users’ full profiles	User.Read.All	Allows the application to read user profiles in your organization’s directory.	Allows Netskope to read user profile data in the configured Outlook instance.	Cannot obtain user profile information and affects subsequent user exposure computations.
   Read mail in all mailboxes	Mail.Read	Allows the application to read mail in all mailboxes in the Outlook instance.	Allows Netskope to monitor outgoing emails in the configured Outlook instance in order to perform content scanning.	Cannot perform content scan of outgoing emails in the instance.
   Read directory data	Directory.Read.All	Allows the application to read data in your organization’s directory such as users, groups, and applications.	Allows Netskope to read users, groups and apps data in the configured Outlook instance.	Cannot obtain user/group-related information and affects subsequent inventory and exposure computations.
   Read activity data for your organization	ActivityFeed.Read	Allows the application to retrieve information about user, administrator, system, and policy actions and events from Office 365 and Microsoft Entra ID activity logs via the Office 365 Management Activity API.	Allows Netskope to retrieve audit logs and events from Office 365 and Entra ID activity logs.	Cannot provide visibility via Skope IT application events and other UEBA capabilities.

   The Netskope CASB API app is installed in Azure AD with additional permissions once you grant access to the Outlook app.

9. After accepting the permissions, you will be redirected to the successful result page. Click Close.

Refresh your browser, and you should see a green check icon next to the instance name.

Post grant, you can either delete or downgrade the global administrator account. To know more: Delete or Downgrade the Global Administrator Account.

Next, you can view the Next Generation API Data Protection Inventory page to get deep insights on various entities on your Microsoft 365 Outlook account. For more information on the Inventory page, see Next Generation API Data Protection Inventory.

You can receive audit events and standard user behavior analytic alerts in Skope IT. To know more: Next Generation API Data Protection Skope IT Events.

Next, you should configure a Next Generation API Data Protection policy. To do so, see Next Generation API Data Protection Policy Wizard.