AutoTag v3 ships two big shifts. A brand-new Bot type, AutoTag Governance Bot, brings sensitivity and retention labelling into the AutoTag platform. And substantial improvements to the existing Metadata Bot type: smarter AI, real-time tagging, and a redesigned admin experience.
What’s new for AutoTag Metadata Bot
Smarter AI
- New providers. OpenAI, OpenRouter, and Azure Computer Vision OCR. The last is especially valuable for scanned documents and images sitting in SharePoint libraries.
- AI-only bots. Bots can now run AI classification without requiring a source column to map from. Previously every bot needed a lookup source list; AI-only bots skip that requirement and write straight to the target library.
- Taxonomy-aware AI matching. When AI extracts phrases and the target column is a managed-metadata (taxonomy) column, AutoTag matches those phrases against the term set, with exact-match-first and case-insensitive contains fallback, instead of only accepting exact term names. Dramatically improves AI tagging precision against strict term sets.
- Saved AI connections. Configure once, reuse across bots. Provider-aware endpoint hints; clearer confidence-range feedback in the admin UI.
Real-time tagging
Webhook-driven tagging now triggers within seconds of a document change, rather than waiting for a scheduled scan. The async scan worker respects SharePoint’s 5-second webhook response deadline so your tenant stays responsive.
Per-bot approval workflow
Administrators can now set an approval timeout per bot (ApprovalTimeoutHours, 1–720 hours) for bots configured with multi-source approval. Previously this was a global 24-hour default. Now it’s tunable to the workload.
Stale-bot cleanup
Bots sitting in New status without configuration are automatically cleaned up after a TTL window (14 days). No more lingering half-created bot rows.
Redesigned admin UI
- Single Lookup / AI / Both picker to choose how a bot determines values
- Cleaner 3-section layout: Bot Identity, Value Strategy, Details
- Lookup Processing, Source Processing, and Automation now grouped inside the Column Mapping dialog
- Inline save feedback, required-field validation, and unsaved-changes warning
- Change Log per bot and configurable approval timeout (1–720 hours)
New bot lifecycle
- Clear “Needs configuration” state for unfinished bots
- Simplified cross-site bot creation: basic info first, details later
- Bots list now shows Status and AI Configured columns
- Unconfigured bots auto-cleaned after 14 days
Better delete experience
- Reliable single-list removal with pre-delete warnings
- Bots with no remaining lists are automatically removed, and you’re told
- Accurate success messaging on every delete
Tenant settings
Reorganised into Activity log retention and Reprocessing cooldown (D/H/M on one row).
Security & reliability
Hardened authentication. Sensitive credentials are removed from the client.
And introducing the AutoTag Governance Bot
A new Bot type, alongside the existing Metadata Bot, that applies sensitivity and retention labels to files at scale and runs drift-detection reports across your tenancy. Container governance for groups, sites, and OneDrive is on the next-phase roadmap; channel sites, Loop, and Viva Engage are on the longer roadmap.
The Governance Bot uses the same operational platform as Metadata Bots: the same discovery model, the same tenant deployment, the same cost-aware batching. The difference is what it writes. Where Metadata Bots tag managed-metadata columns, Governance Bots apply Microsoft 365 sensitivity and retention labels using the surfaces Microsoft exposes for that purpose.
What’s next
The Phase 2 roadmap covers container governance for Microsoft 365 Groups, Teams sites, SharePoint sites, and OneDrive, applying the same label-orchestration model to the containers themselves. Phase 3 extends to channel sites (private and shared), Loop workspaces and pages, and Viva Engage communities.
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