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New SharePoint Catalog Management: This FAQ answers your questions

New SharePoint Catalog Management: This FAQ answers your questions

Ragnar HeilM365 apps, Teams, Modern Work3 hours ago40 Views

Catalog management is the new kid on the SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) block, roll out started in December 2025. It groups your sites into clusters so you can apply governance, access policies, and Copilot grounding to whole “categories” instead of clicking through thousands of sites. Sounds great. But it also raises many questions. Here are the ones I keep getting asked.

What exactly is Catalog management?

It’s a SAM feature that gives you a central, structured view of your SharePoint landscape. Instead of staring at an endless list of sites, you see sites bucketed into clusters based on Microsoft 365 site and user metadata, plus admin-defined attributes. Think regions, departments, guest involvement, and information barrier segments. The goal: roll out lifecycle policies, access reviews, and Copilot readiness measures in a targeted, scalable way.

Do I need a special license?

Yes, two layers. First, a base license: Office 365 E3/E5/A5 or Microsoft 365 E1/E3/E5/E7/A5. Second, either at least one Microsoft 365 Copilot license in the tenant (which unlocks SAM for SharePoint admins) or the standalone SharePoint Advanced Management add-on. Access is for SharePoint admins or equivalent roles. To fulfill Microsoft’s license compliance requirements, all non-M365 Copilot licensed users need to get a SAM license for 3 US$/user/month.

Where do I find it?

SharePoint Admin Center → Reports → Catalog management. That’s it.

Which categories does it show by default?

Five standard properties:

Locale – where the content is hosted (e.g. North America vs. Europe)
Department – the org unit a site belongs to
User type – Guest vs. non-Guest
Preferred Data Location (PDL) – your Multi-Geo assignment
Information barriers segment – based on your IB policies

Microsoft also mentions “custom properties defined by you”, but the how-to for that isn’t documented yet. Stay tuned.

Can I just tag a single site with “Category = HR”?

Short answer: no. There is no “Category” field you slap on a site. Catalog management builds clusters from the underlying metadata. So “adding a category” really means: clean up the metadata that feeds those clusters – group properties, directory attributes, sharing settings, IB segments, PDL.

In other words: Catalog management is the mirror of your structure, not the place to define it.

So how do I influence the clusters for existing sites?

By tidying up the sources:

Department: make sure your M365 groups and the directory attributes of site owners are consistently maintained. Wild mixes give you ugly clusters.
Locale & PDL: only change via Multi-Geo moves – not a quick switch.
IB segment: driven by your Purview / Entra information barrier setup and group memberships.
User type: control via sharing settings and guest membership. Want a “sites with guests” cluster for access reviews? Then make sure guest access is actually reflecting reality.

What can I actually do inside Catalog management?

Three things, for now:

View the distribution of sites across properties and clusters.
Rename clusters to match your internal language (“HR-DE”, “External Projects EU”).
Download reports and use them as the basis for lifecycle, access, or Copilot policies.

Is this a replacement for the App Catalog or classic catalog publishing?

No, and the naming is admittedly confusing. The App Catalog manages SPFx solutions and add-ins. Catalog-based publishing is a classic on-prem feature with category and catalog item pages. SAM Catalog management is purely an admin governance view. Different worlds.

Can I add my own custom categories?

Sesha Mani (Director of Product – Partner Director of PM – Microsoft 365 Copilot & Agent 365 Security) shared on May 20st 2026, that there are going to be new capabilities to add new categories (by uploading, working with keywords, Site property bag properties, and Entra ID extension attributes).

When is it generally available?

Public preview started mid-November 2025. GA is started somewhere between mid-December 2025 and end of February 2026.

My honest recommendation

Turn it on, look at your initial clusters, and treat what you see as a data quality report. The cleaner your departments, IB segments, and sharing setup, the more useful the clusters – and the easier your Copilot and oversharing story becomes. Custom properties will come. Until then: fix the foundation.