Category Archives: MS Teams

October 29, 2024 · 10:54 AM

Microsoft Copilot Explains Why X1 Search is Far Better than Windows Search

By Chas Meier

We’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Copilot, Microsoft’s generative AI chat bot. So, we asked Copilot the following prompt:

“Is X1 Search better than the standard Windows Search?

Here is Copilot’s reply in full:

“Yes, X1 Search offers many advantages over standard Windows Search, especially if you’re dealing with large volumes of documents and emails. It integrates with multiple data sources, provides faster and more efficient searches, and offers advanced filtering and preview options that standard Windows Search lacks. For someone in your line of work, X1 Search could be a real game-changer.”

Intrigued, we explored further:

“What are the advantages of X1 search over standard Windows search?

Copilot:

“Great question! Here are some key advantages of X1 Search over standard Windows Search:

  1. Unified Search Across Multiple Data Sources: X1 Search can search across emails, documents, local files, cloud storage (like Google Drive, OneDrive, Box), and even archived emails. Windows Search, on the other hand, is limited to your local files and doesn’t integrate as seamlessly with cloud services.
  2. Speed and Efficiency: X1 Search uses advanced indexing and fast-as-you-type search capabilities, allowing you to find information almost instantly. Windows Search can be slower, especially when dealing with large volumes of data.
  3. Advanced Filtering and Preview Options: X1 Search offers powerful filtering options, keyword highlighting, and full fidelity previews of documents and emails without needing to open them fully. This makes it easier to quickly identify relevant information. Windows Search lacks these advanced features.
  4. Integration with Email and Collaboration Tools: X1 Search integrates deeply with email clients like Outlook and Microsoft Teams, allowing you to search through emails, attachments, chats, and more. Windows Search doesn’t offer this level of integration.
  5. Cloud Data Search: X1 Search can index and search data stored in cloud repositories like Google Drive, OneDrive, and Box, which Windows Search doesn’t support.
  6. User Friendly Interface: X1 Search provides a simple, unified interface with over 50 refine columns, making it easy to navigate and find exactly what you need. Windows Search’s interface is more basic and less intuitive.

Does this help clarify the advantages for you?”

Yes, it does! Thank you, Microsoft Copilot! We could not have said it any better.

X1 Search is available for individual purchase on the X1 website and large volume, enterprise purchase by contacting X1 at sales@x1.com. To learn more about X1 Search visit  www.x1.com/solutions/x1-search.

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Filed under Best Practices, Business Productivity Search, Cloud Data, Corporations, Desktop Search, eDiscovery, Enterprise eDiscovery, Enterprise Search, ESI, Google Workspace, Hybrid Search, Information Access, Information Management, m365, MS Teams, OneDrive, productivity, SharePoint, X1 Search 9

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July 23, 2024 · 10:55 AM

Enterprise Search is Dead. A New Approach is Here.

By John Patzakis

In today’s fast-paced digital world, employee productivity hinges on robust enterprise search capabilities that allow quick and easy retrieval of an organization’s documents, emails, and other unstructured data. Despite the critical nature of this capability, many organizations have historically invested considerable time, money, and effort into now-obsolete tools built on flawed enterprise search architectures. These legacy tools, often ineffective, have become completely untenable in the era of remote work and the widespread use of platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace (formerly G Suite).

The Limitations of Traditional Enterprise Search
Traditional enterprise search architectures rely on gathering all relevant data through crawling and mass migration tools, centralizing it into a single repository. This approach, though prevalent for years, has significant drawbacks:

  1. Security and Governance Risks: Duplicating and then centralizing sensitive data in a single repository creates a prime target for cyberattacks, runs afoul with data protection regulations, and is completely contrary to information governance principles.
  2. Scalability Issues: The sheer volume of data in modern enterprises, often amounting to hundreds of terabytes, makes central repositories impossible.
  3. Incompatibility with Modern Platforms: Legacy systems are ill-suited to integrate with platforms like Microsoft 365, which are now dominant in enterprise environments.

Duplicating vast amounts of sensitive data and centralizing it in an external repository is not only risky but also extremely impractical. Despite this, some vendors continue to push these outdated solutions, ignoring the evolving needs of modern enterprises.

X1 Search: A Revolutionary Approach
X1 Search addresses these challenges with a game-changing approach that offers a distributed, individualized enterprise search workflow. This innovative architecture brings several key benefits:

  1. Distributed Index and Search In-Place Technology: X1’s proprietary and patented technology enables scalable search capabilities while maintaining robust security. Each employee has an individual search index aligned with their permissions, ensuring they only access data they are authorized to see.
  2. No Mass Data Duplication: Unlike traditional systems, X1 does not require the mass duplication of data. Users interact with original documents and emails, facilitating actions like opening, replying to, or forwarding them directly from the search interface.

Enhancing Productivity with Unified Search
The latest iteration of X1 Search transcends its desktop origins, offering the ability to instantly search across various platforms, including Microsoft email, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, as well as local files and emails, all within a single unified interface. This powerful capability can significantly boost productivity, saving users hours each day by streamlining access to critical information. Additionally, X1 Search now supports Google Drive and Gmail, broadening its utility across different cloud ecosystems.

User Experience and Endorsements
A critical aspect of X1 Search’s success is its excellent user experience. With over 100,000 users, the solution has garnered widespread acclaim. Max Underwood, a long-time user from a large defense contracting firm, states, “X1 Search is my go-to, must-have search application on my desktop. Nothing even comes close to matching X1 Search’s speed and accuracy in finding what I am looking for exactly when I need it.”

Conclusion
As organizations navigate the complexities of remote work and vast amounts of unstructured data, traditional enterprise search solutions fall short. X1 Search’s innovative approach, leveraging distributed index and search in-place technology, offers a secure, scalable, and user-friendly alternative. By eliminating the need for mass data duplication and providing a unified search experience across multiple platforms, X1 Search is setting a new standard for enterprise search capabilities, empowering employees and enhancing productivity in the modern digital workplace.

X1 Search is available for individual purchase on the X1 website and large volume, enterprise purchase by contacting X1 at sales@x1.com. To learn more about X1 Search visit www.x1.com/products/x1-search.

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Filed under Best Practices, Business Productivity Search, Cloud Data, Corporations, Desktop Search, eDiscovery, Enterprise eDiscovery, Enterprise Search, ESI, Google Workspace, Hybrid Search, m365, MS Teams, X1 Search 9

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June 25, 2024 · 11:28 AM

X1 Achieves Unmatched Throughput and Results in Several Recent M365 eDiscovery and Information Governance Engagements

By John Patzakis and Chas Meier

As discussed previously on this blog, X1 and our active enterprise customers believe X1 Enterprise Collect is the best solution available to address M365 data sources as well as on-premises sources such as laptops and file shares. In recent weeks, our customers and partners have executed several projects on a massive scale and have captured and documented X1’s performance metrics.

No other solution in the industry can index data across the enterprise as fast or as scalable as the X1 Enterprise platform, including Microsoft Purview Premium. When compared to Microsoft Purview, with its built-in architectural constraints and throttling limitations, X1 can index nearly eight times the daily volume of Purview or any other competitive “connector” technology can achieve in the market. X1’s distributed index-in-place methodology, combined with horizontal scaling of our index hosts, make X1 the only solution truly capable of handling the rapid indexing, identification, searching and collecting/remediation of mass data sets in the TB’s or PB’s across the modern enterprise. X1 effectively addresses cloud and on-premises data sources in a unified manner, including distributed endpoints, network file shares, M365 data sources including Mail, OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint, as well as other cloud data sources.

In several recent large-scale eDiscovery and information governance projects, X1 Enterprise Collect, on average, was able to collect and index M365 data (MS Mail [including archived mail and modern attachments] Teams, One Drive and SharePoint) at a rate of approximately 350 GB per day. This is nearly 8 times faster than Microsoft Purview, with its documented throughput limitations at 2GB per hour. X1 can achieve even faster throughput by scaling out virtual cloud computing resources.

Daily indexing volumes for endpoints and on-premises file shares vary due to the performance characteristics of each machine, but X1 indexes and searches endpoints in parallel yielding extremely high aggregate daily indexing and collection throughput.

Detailed documentation on these metrics and a further briefing on these engagements can be provided upon request.

X1 achieves such scalability through a decentralized approach that does not rely on the M365 or Purview search Index, which has known issues with the number of file types supported, consistency of search results, accuracy, and throughput. X1’s approach enables a very scalable, accurate, defensible, and robust indexing and data collection at unmatched speeds.

In addition to greatly reducing risk, X1’s capabilities also enable massive cost savings. X1 Enterprise Collect significantly streamlines the eDiscovery workflow by bringing targeted collection results directly into the review platform, thereby eliminating over collection, over processing, and over importing just to cull. X1 will populate ESI (Electronically Stored Information) straight into Relativity from an X1 collection without multiple hand offs, extensive project management and inefficient data processing.

The ability to collect data directly and transparently from custodian laptops, desktops, M365 and other cloud sources into a RelativityOne/Relativity workspace is a game-changer that enables legal and compliance teams to begin review in hours rather than weeks. As facts become known and collection focus changes, X1 allows teams to pivot and respond in hours. With the ability to efficiently take multiple bites of the apple, X1 enables teams to start fast and stay agile.

For a demonstration of the X1 Enterprise Collect Platform, contact us at sales@x1.com. For more details on this innovative solution, please visit www.x1.com/x1-enterprise-collect-platform.

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Filed under Best Practices, Cloud Data, Corporations, ECA, eDiscovery, eDiscovery & Compliance, Enterprise eDiscovery, ESI, Information Governance, MS Teams, OneDrive, Preservation & Collection, SharePoint

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April 9, 2024 · 10:53 AM

New X1 Search 9 Provides the Best Means to Search Your Microsoft 365 Data Sources

By John Patzakis and Chas Meier

Last week X1 announced major new, robust features to our desktop productivity solution X1 Search. The next generation of X1 Search is no longer desktop-only focused, but instead provides a revolutionary ability to instantly search across your Microsoft email, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint as well as your local files and email all in a single unified search. This powerful capability supercharges your productivity, thereby saving hours a day. This added support also extends to Google Drive and Gmail.

While there are many innovations with X1 Search 9, the ability to search across all your M365 data sources with a single search is particularly game changing. No other enterprise or desktop search solution can match this functionality. The native Microsoft M365 search has a semblance of this, offering only a few search results displayed with a cursory preview, as opposed to full search results and full fidelity preview provided by X1.

“X1 Search is my go-to, must-have search application on my desktop,” said Max Underwood, long-time business and personal user from a large defense contracting firm. “Nothing even comes close to matching X1 Search’s speed and accuracy in finding what I am looking for exactly when I need it so I can get back to work, whether the source file is located on my local drive or hosted on a distant cloud via my company’s network. It’s an incredible time-saver, invaluable, way ahead of Windows Search or any other search tool I’ve seen – literally saving me hours each work week. X1 Search is essential to my day-to-day operations, and with the new ability to instantly search across all my Teams messages and accelerate my Gmail search on top of the current capabilities, the solution is even more compelling.”

No other solution enables you to instantly search across all your core data applications using a single prompt and return immediate results with hit highlighting and full fidelity preview capabilities. X1 Search unlocks the ability to find information no matter where it resides whether it’s lost in your spam folder, archived in your email 10 years ago, buried in a Teams chat or recently added to your OneDrive or SharePoint. X1 Search does the work for you, faster and far better than any other desktop or enterprise search offering.

The new X1 Search version 9 capabilities, include the following benefits:

• The ability to search through all your Microsoft Teams Chats and Channels history, including messages, attachments, emojis, reactions, and more, all from a single interface.
• Elevate your cloud data search capabilities with the new Google drive connector enabling you to search your complete Google drive history and immediately perform Post Search Actions.
• Index, search and find information in your Gmail 3 times faster with the new API-based Gmail connector.
• Patented fast-as-you-type search with built-in hit highlighting and full fidelity preview for immediate visibility into your results.
• Search across all your Outlook email, attachments, Outlook calendar, and contacts list via X1’s deep Outlook integration.
• Unified search across all your data sources to instantly search and find emails, attachments, documents, local files, and M365 data in a single search.
• Accelerate your email workflow with M365 Archived mail search capabilities – Rapidly index years’ worth of archived Outlook email in half the time.

X1 will be hosting a webinar on Wednesday, April 17 introducing the game-changing, new solution capabilities now available with X1 Search version 9.

The X1 Search solution is available for individual purchase on the X1 website and large volume, enterprise purchase by contacting X1 at sales@x1.com. To learn more about X1 Search visit www.x1.com/products/x1-search

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Filed under Best Practices, Business Productivity Search, Corporations, Desktop Search, Enterprise Search, ESI, Hybrid Search, Information Management, MS Teams, OneDrive, productivity, Records Management, SharePoint, X1 Search 9

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March 13, 2024 · 2:06 PM

Microsoft 365 Modern Attachments Pose Significant eDiscovery Challenges and Risk

By John Patzakis

In their excellent publication, 2023 eDiscovery Case Law in Review, Winston and Strawn, LLP, one of the top law firms in the US, highlights the challenges legal and eDiscovery professionals face with modern attachments. Modern attachments, also known as hyperlinks, are URL pointers that link to files or emails stored in another location. They are commonly found in Microsoft 365 Mail and Teams.

Winston and Strawn reports that “[r]equesting parties are increasingly sophisticated about this issue given the proliferation of Microsoft 365…and thus we have noted an uptick in requesting parties demanding that linked attachments be produced along with transmittal emails—in essence demanding that traditional email families be assembled from these pieces.” In re StubHub Refund Litig., 2023 WL 3092972 (N.D. Cal. April 25, 2023) is a case cited by the authors as a recent decision requiring the production of modern attachments in discovery.

The one area I disagree with in the report is its view that without investing in expensive services and Microsoft Premium licensing it may be very challenging and burdensome to identify and collect modern attachments. If you rely on Microsoft Purview for eDiscovery compliance and information governance, you must upgrade to expensive premium licensing that can add up to tens of millions of dollars in additional expense for larger enterprises. And even then, there are significant throughput and defensibility challenges.

eDiscovery service providers have stepped into the mix to provide manual services to address MS 365 challenges. But throwing services at the problem is disruptive, inefficient, and expensive as well.

X1 provides a different approach. X1 Enterprise Collect provides full support for modern attachments in MS Mail and in Teams. X1 is the only solution we and our partners are aware of that supports the search and collection of modern attachments in MS 365 without the need for a Premium (E5) license or additional manual services. This is because X1 Enterprise Collect does not operate by simply making bulk calls to the MS Graph API, like most eDiscovery tools, which also require a premium license to collect the key data such as modern attachments. X1 employs a targeted, custodian-based approach that minimizes 365 API calls, and does not rely on the MS Search Index, which has been demonstrated to be untrustworthy and with limited throughput. X1’s approach enables a very scalable, defensible, and robust data collection at speeds 10x that of other approaches.

The X1 Enterprise Collect Platform is available now from X1 and its global channel network in the cloud and on-premise. For a demonstration of the X1 Enterprise Collect Platform, contact us at sales@x1.com. For more details on this innovative solution, please visit www.x1.com/x1-enterprise-collect-platform.

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Filed under Best Practices, Case Law, Cloud Data, Corporations, eDiscovery, Enterprise eDiscovery, ESI, law firm, MS Teams, OneDrive

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