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  1. Security & Compliance
  2. Microsoft Compliance Manager
Microsoft Compliance Manager

Compliance Manager, framework scoring with closed-loop remediation.

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Microsoft
Compliance Manager
Cloud Solution Partner
  • 35+Compliance Manager tenants
  • 6+Frameworks supported
  • ContinuousScore tracking
  • 24/7Coverage
Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager
What an engagement covers

Six compliance-management disciplines.

Compliance Manager turns regulatory abstraction into a tracked, scored, evidenced operational program. We do the configuration and the operations together.

Framework templates

Activation of 200+ Microsoft compliance templates: ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOX, NYDFS Part 500, GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, NIST. Custom templates for industry-specific frameworks.

Control implementation

Every control tracked individually, given an owner, and linked to the Microsoft 365 configuration that evidences it. The loop closes from gap to evidence rather than stopping at a task list.

Compliance scoring

Scoring runs continuously against whichever frameworks are live, with trend reporting and summaries a board can read. Any proposed change to a control can be modeled for its effect on the score before anybody makes it.

Evidence collection

Each control carries its own evidence: configuration captures from the tenant, audit log extracts, and the policy document behind it. The chain is assembled in a form an auditor can work through directly.

Risk assessment

Remediation ordered by risk rather than by control number, an impact assessment before any change that touches a regulated area, and dashboards covering risk across the whole organization.

Auditor support

Auditors get direct access to the evidence packages, extracts can be generated per regulator automatically, and every score movement and evidence update leaves a trail.

Intelligent compliance platform

Four numbers behind a tuned Compliance Manager program.

Figures drawn from the Compliance Manager engagements we run across financial services, healthcare, professional services, and the public sector, averaged over twelve months of managed operation.
300+
Pre-built templates

Activated across regulatory regimes (ISO, NIST CSF, NIST, GDPR, SOX, NYDFS Part 500, PCI, HIPAA, SOC, sector-specific).

95%
Time saved on assessments

How much faster evidence gets produced compared with spreadsheet tracking, measured against the position before we started.

60%
Risk reduction

How far residual risk falls once remediation runs as a closed loop across twelve months of operation.

10M+
Control evaluations

Automated evaluations run across managed tenants each quarter, with Microsoft-managed controls assessed continuously in between.

How it works

Four-step compliance process.

This turns a vague intention to be compliant into a program that is tracked, scored, and evidenced. Every step has a defined deliverable and a success test before anybody moves to the next one.
  1. 01
    Step 1· 1-2 weeks

    Assessment

    Choose from more than three hundred prebuilt templates, or build a custom assessment shaped around requirements nobody has written a template for. You receive an activation plan.

    • Pre-built template selection (ISO 27001, NIST CSF, GDPR, etc.)
    • Custom assessment builder for industry-specific frameworks
    • Multi-regulation support and overlap mapping
    • Risk-based prioritization across all controls
  2. 02
    Step 2· 4-12 weeks

    Implementation

    Work through guided implementation plans with defined actions, assign each one to somebody, and track progress across every team involved. The loop closes from gap all the way to evidence.

    • Action assignment with owners and due dates
    • Progress tracking with status per control
    • Team collaboration via comments and notes
    • Document management with evidence linkage
  3. 03
    Step 3· Continuous

    Monitoring

    Compliance status is monitored continuously through automated scanning, with alerts as things change and risks surfaced before they become findings.

    • 24/7 automated monitoring of M365-managed controls
    • Real-time alerts on configuration drift
    • Trend analysis with score-over-time charts
    • Risk detection with prioritized remediation
  4. 04
    Step 4· Continuous

    Reporting

    Produce full reports for auditors, for your leadership, and for regulators, with the documentation assembled automatically rather than by hand.

    • Automated reports per framework
    • Audit trails of every score change and evidence update
    • Executive dashboards with board-pack quality
    • Regulatory submission packages
Why GR IT for Compliance Manager

Four reasons clients pick us for the deployment.

Everyone holding the E5 Compliance licensing already has this switched on. Almost nobody runs it as an operational program. The value is entirely in the tracking, the evidence, and the remediation discipline behind it.

35+ Compliance Manager tenants

Pattern recognition matters. We have configured Compliance Manager for NYDFS Part 500, SOX, ISO 27001, and NIST CSF reviews. We know which controls auditors verify.

Framework expertise

Engineers holding ISO 27001 Lead Auditor, CIPP, and CISM. Framework templates configured against what your regulator actually requires rather than a generic mapping applied to everyone.

Closed-loop operations

Find the gap, plan the fix, capture the evidence, watch the score move. That cycle is the difference between a dashboard somebody opens twice a year and a program that actually runs.

Senior compliance engineers

Senior compliance engineers working remote-first with US businesses, aligned to your audit cycles and the regulatory context of your auditors.

Supported regulations and standards

Frameworks we configure and operate against.

More than three hundred templates ship with the product. These sixteen are the ones we switch on most often for American companies, spanning privacy, financial, healthcare, and information security regimes at both federal and state level.
ISO 27001
NIST CSF
GDPR
HIPAA
PCI DSS
NIST CSF
SOX
SOC 2
CCPA
USA DPL
PIPEDA
SOX
Basel III
MAS
HITECH
FDA 21 CFR Part 11
Industries using Compliance Manager

Compliance Manager deployments by sector.

Six industries where this turns an abstract framework into something people actually do.

Financial services

SEC- and NYDFS-regulated firms tracking regulator-required ISO 27001, SOX, NYDFS Part 500 controls. Continuous scoring, audit-evidence packaging, regulator-ready reports.

Healthcare

Hospitals and clinics tracking HIPAA and HITECH alongside the compliance controls in ISO 27001. Controls implemented with protected health information in mind, and evidence assembled the way an assessor expects to receive it.

Professional services

Law firms and consultancies tracking ISO 27001, business continuity under ISO 22301, and whatever frameworks their largest clients have imposed by contract. Scored across all of them at once.

Tech and SaaS

Software companies tracking SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, and the state privacy statutes, because the evidence is what unblocks the sales cycle. Compliance maintained continuously rather than assembled when a prospect asks.

Retail and e-commerce

Retail groups tracking PCI DSS, GDPR, NIST CSF. Multi-store compliance posture, store-level scoring, executive-summary dashboards.

Education

Schools and universities tracking FERPA, COPPA, GDPR for international students. Multi-framework compliance dashboards.

Government

Federal agencies and state and local government bodies tracking FedRAMP, NIST 800-53 and CMMC obligations alongside ISO 27001 alignment, with continuous evidence collected for authorizing officials and inter-agency audits.

Manufacturing

Manufacturers tracking ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 alongside the safety regulations specific to their sector, with evidence that plant systems are genuinely separated from business systems, and dashboards covering the supply chain.

How compliance score is calculated

The four components behind your score.

The score is risk-weighted and built from four components. Understanding how it is calculated is what tells you which remediation actions will actually move the number rather than merely closing tasks.

Technical Implementation (40%)

  • Security controls
    Endpoint, identity, network, cloud configuration
  • Data protection
    Encryption at rest and in transit, key management
  • Access management
    RBAC, conditional access, privileged-access workflows
  • Monitoring systems
    SIEM coverage, audit logging, alerting

Procedural Compliance (30%)

  • Policy coverage
    Information-security, data-handling, IR, BCP policies
  • Procedure completeness
    Runbooks for routine and incident operations
  • Documentation quality
    Up to date, version-controlled, owner-assigned
  • Training records
    Annual security awareness, role-based training

Risk Assessment (20%)

  • Threat exposure
    External attack surface, threat-intel relevance
  • Vulnerability management
    Scanning, prioritization, patch SLA
  • Incident history
    Past incidents and lessons-learned actions
  • Risk mitigation
    Compensating controls and residual-risk acceptance

Continuous Monitoring (10%)

  • Monitoring coverage
    Percentage of controls under continuous check
  • Alert response
    P1 / P2 / P3 SLA adherence and MTTR
  • Continuous improvement
    Action items closed quarter on quarter
  • Trend analysis
    Score trajectory and remediation velocity
Compliance Manager vs spreadsheet-based tracking

Why dedicated compliance tooling beats spreadsheets.

Plenty of companies run compliance out of a spreadsheet: a list of controls, a status column, and evidence somewhere in SharePoint. Compared honestly:
Real-time scoring
Spreadsheet tracking
Compliance Manager
Automated evidence linking
Spreadsheet tracking
Compliance Manager
Multi-framework coverage
Spreadsheet trackingManual mapping per framework
Compliance ManagerNative multi-framework
Audit-trail of changes
Spreadsheet trackingExcel version history
Compliance ManagerNative audit log
Stakeholder dashboards
Spreadsheet tracking
Compliance Manager
Auditor-ready evidence packages
Spreadsheet trackingManual export
Compliance ManagerAutomated package
Cost of compliance work
Spreadsheet trackingHigh labor
Compliance ManagerLower labor, higher tooling cost
Feature
Spreadsheet tracking
Manual updates
Compliance Manager
Operational tooling
Real-time scoring
Automated evidence linking
Multi-framework coverage
Manual mapping per frameworkNative multi-framework
Audit-trail of changes
Excel version historyNative audit log
Stakeholder dashboards
Auditor-ready evidence packages
Manual exportAutomated package
Cost of compliance work
High laborLower labor, higher tooling cost
Licensing reality check

Compliance Manager is part of Microsoft 365 E3 / E5.

Most companies are already paying for this and have never switched it on. E3 gives you the basic version with over fifty templates. E5 opens the full set, past three hundred templates, plus custom assessments, deeper analytics, and API access. On Business Premium, the E5 Compliance add-on gets you everything without relicensing the entire tenant.

  • E3 gives you the basic product, more than fifty templates, and standard scoring
  • E5 opens everything: three hundred plus templates, custom assessments, and API access
  • The E5 Compliance add-on brings this and Purview without moving the whole tenant to E5
  • Premium assessments covering NIST, FedRAMP and the sector frameworks need E5 or a license per assessment
  • Microsoft scores its own platform controls; yours require evidence from your side
Get a licensing review
Built into the Microsoft compliance estate

Three integrations that turn Compliance Manager into operational tooling.

The scoring happens on its own once the underlying Microsoft controls are configured properly. We deploy those integrations alongside it, so evidence arrives without anybody curating it by hand.

Microsoft Purview

Sensitivity labels, loss prevention, retention, and audit logging in Purview all evidence their scores here without manual input.

  • Sensitivity-label coverage feeds Information Protection controls
  • DLP policy state evidences data-loss-prevention controls
  • Retention policies satisfy records-management requirements
  • Audit-log retention closes evidence-preservation controls

M365 Defender + DLP

Configuration in Defender for Endpoint, Identity, Office 365, and Cloud Apps evidences the security controls automatically.

  • Endpoint EDR coverage maps to threat-protection controls
  • Conditional access posture evidences access controls
  • Email anti-phishing satisfies email-security requirements
  • Cloud Apps CASB closes shadow-IT and SaaS controls

Azure Security Center

Evidence from Defender for Cloud, covering both posture management and workload protection, flows through for Azure-native and multi-cloud controls.

  • Multi-cloud posture (Azure, AWS, GCP) feeds infrastructure controls
  • Defender for Cloud secure-score maps to platform controls
  • Container, Kubernetes, and SQL coverage closes workload controls
  • Regulatory-compliance dashboards align to active frameworks
The cost of non-compliance

Stop failing audits and compliance checks.

American companies lose deals and pay penalties for one reason above all others: when somebody asks them to prove compliance, they cannot. Compliance Manager turns evidence collection into something that happens quietly in the background rather than a fire drill every quarter before an audit.

  • Maximum GDPR fine: USD 10M (or 4% of annual revenue, whichever is higher)
  • Compliance requirements now sit as a hard gate in the substantial majority of enterprise procurement processes
  • Getting there manually takes months of somebody full-time attention
  • Contracts get lost at the compliance question, not at the price question, and the loss is invisible because nobody tells you that was the reason
  • Running this continuously is the only model that survives more than one audit cycle
Book a compliance gap analysis
How an engagement runs

From framework selection to managed operations.

Every engagement follows the same route: documented, evidenced, and delivered against a fixed date.
  1. 1

    Framework scoping

    1-2 weeks

    We establish who regulates you, decide which frameworks matter first, and inventory the controls. You receive an activation plan and a map showing who owns what.

  2. 2

    Configuration

    2-4 weeks

    Templates switched on, controls assigned to named people, evidence collection workflows configured, and the integrations with Purview and the rest of the Microsoft controls wired up.

  3. 3

    Baseline

    2-3 weeks

    An initial assessment of every control, remediation ordered by risk, and the historical evidence backfilled. You receive a starting score and a plan covering the next ninety days.

  4. 4

    Operate

    Continuous

    Frameworks reviewed each quarter, evidence kept current rather than refreshed annually, every proposed control change assessed for impact, and evidence packaged whenever an auditor asks.

Real compliance success stories

How clients turned compliance gaps into closed deals.

Four engagement patterns we see repeatedly, drawn from work across the group. The industry, what went wrong, what we did, and how it ended.
Manufacturing
Challenge

Halfway through an ISO 27001 audit the team could not locate half the documents they were asked for. When the auditor asked to see the data retention policy, it turned out nobody had ever written one down.

What we did

The ISO 27001 template went live, evidence collection was automated, and every missing policy was written from scratch. Each control ended up with a named owner, a link to its evidence, and a documented implementation status.

Outcome

Passed ISO 27001 audit with zero findings, averting six figures in potential contract losses

0 audit findings
Software company
Challenge

A prospect made a SOC 2 report a condition of signing a seven-figure contract. Nobody on the team knew what SOC 2 actually involved, let alone how to get there before the deal went cold.

What we did

The prebuilt SOC 2 assessment was activated, existing controls were mapped against it, and the gaps were listed honestly. Sixteen weeks of remediation followed with a check-in every week, reaching Type 1 in the fourth month and Type 2 by the tenth.

Outcome

SOC 2 reached inside four months, the original contract signed, and three further deals won that had the same requirement

Seven-figure contracts won
Online retailer
Challenge

A privacy enforcement notice arrived over missing data-processing documentation. The team had assumed the rules did not reach them because the company was not based in that jurisdiction.

What we did

The privacy template was activated, processing records documented properly, a breach notification workflow built against the applicable deadlines, and the consumer rights workflow connected through Microsoft Priva.

Outcome

Compliance achieved and the penalty substantially reduced against a documented remediation plan

Fine reduced 97%
Financial technology
Challenge

Their banking partner required an annual security assessment. Each year the team spent six figures on consultants assembling the reports by hand, and each year it was a fresh scramble from a standing start.

What we did

Configured against the ISO 27001, NYDFS Part 500, and NIST CSF templates, with evidence collected automatically from the Microsoft controls. Quarterly reports now take minutes, and the annual report is assembled from evidence that was accumulating all along rather than rebuilt from nothing each year.

Outcome

Reduced compliance costs by 80%, improved compliance score from 45% to 92%

80% cost reduction
Common questions

Microsoft Compliance Manager, frequently asked.

The basic version, carrying the data protection baseline, comes with every commercial Microsoft 365 plan. The premium templates covering NIST, FedRAMP, PCI DSS, HIPAA and the sector-specific frameworks need E5 Compliance or licenses bought per assessment. Which ones you actually need gets established during discovery rather than assumed.

Yes, through custom assessments. The usual reasons are an industry framework Microsoft has no template for, a control framework your own company wrote, or requirements a large customer has written into the contract, such as SOC 2 Type 2 with their own addenda bolted on.

Anything configured in Purview, whether that is sensitivity labels, loss prevention, or retention, evidences itself automatically here. Configure the control and the score moves without anybody uploading a screenshot. It removes a substantial share of the manual evidence work.

Controls Microsoft manages, meaning the platform itself, are scored for you automatically. Controls you manage, meaning your own configuration and your own processes, need your evidence and your attestation. The score is only ever as good as the evidence behind it, so evidence discipline is something we coach during the engagement rather than assume.

Yes, through guest accounts scoped to specific assessments. It is standard practice for ISO 27001 and SOC 2 auditors, and every action the auditor takes is recorded in the trail.

Where you already run OneTrust, ServiceNow, or Archer, the split is straightforward: Compliance Manager owns the Microsoft-native controls and your governance platform owns everything wider. We design the join so the same evidence never gets collected twice.

The first framework is live inside a week. An initial control baseline takes two to three. A score that genuinely reflects a mature program takes three to six months, because backfilling evidence and closing gaps takes as long as it takes. We commit to a visible milestone every thirty days along the way.

Yes, and it is common work. A takeover usually means cleaning up framework templates somebody activated and abandoned, improving the quality of the evidence attached, and establishing who actually owns each control. Four to six weeks in most cases.
Further reading

Resources for compliance leads.

Microsoft Purview

The data protection platform whose controls evidence themselves here automatically: sensitivity labels, loss prevention, retention, and audit logging.

Learn more

Microsoft 365 Reporting & Auditing

Custom dashboards and audit evidence packaging that sit alongside the scoring here. The two are frequently deployed together where reporting has to reach a board.

Learn more

Cybersecurity audit

Independent compliance posture audit. Framework gap analysis, written remediation program, alignment with Compliance Manager scoring.

Learn more
Ready to operationalize compliance?

Talk to a compliance specialist.

Three minutes of typing. The compliance team replies the same working day to arrange a discovery session, and you will be told which frameworks to switch on first based on who is actually applying pressure, whether that is a regulator or a customer.

Get a quoteSee cybersecurity audit

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