Some SharePoint environments are labeled as GCC or GCC High. Can you get one of these? Do you even need one? And can you make it work with your favorite form designer tool?
In this article, I'll try to answer all questions you might have:
Microsoft has several licenses built for government use, namely GCC, GCC High (also known as GCCH) and DoD. In this article, we'll focus on the former two.
GCC stands for Government Community Cloud. This is a special Microsoft 365 license plan for handling sensitive government data.
Although GCC data is separated from that of regular customers, it could be hosted abroad or accessed by foreign Microsoft employees for support purposes.
Microsoft 365 GCC High is an environment created by Microsoft to meet stringent government security requirements for the Department of Defense and defense contractors.
The meaning of GCC High is "Government Community Cloud High". Microsoft 365 GCC High licenses are only available for organizations handling data that can't be stored or processed outside of CONUS, such as defense contractors. Microsoft personnel have to undergo a background check to even come close to GCCH data. You can find more details on the security measures in this documentation article on GCC High from Microsoft.
There are a lot more limitations to this type of license than with GCC, but all basic functions of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Office are available in GCC High.
Compliance and compatibility with third-party tools highlight the main distinctions between GCC and GCC High. Let's take a closer look at each of these areas.
Both GCC and GCC High are compliant with a range of security standards (or can be compliant given the right setup). The list includes CJIS, HIPAA, FedRAMP High, and DFARS 7012.
GCC is good for DoD CC SRG, but only up to level IL2. GCC High is compliant with DOD CC SRG Level IL4.
For ITAR compliance, use GCC High only.
Finally, GCC is enough for compliance with CMMC 1, but for levels 2 and 3, Microsoft recommends deploying to GCC High.
Making an app available for GCC and GCCH tenants requires the developer to follow certain safety requirements, which means that not all make it.
Third party integrations are limited on GCC High. Therefore, some third-party Office 365 tools may not function. You may have to examine the third-party integrations you already have to decide what works and what does not work.
Unfortunately, there is no centralized list of all applications available in GCC and GCC High. You have to look up the compliance of each individual integration, which brings us to the next question: "Are Plumsail Forms fit for GCC/GCCH environments?"
The short answer is yes, Plumsail Forms for SharePoint work great both in GCC tenants and GCC High ones. This is what Steven Philson, one of our clients, had to say about their experience with Plumsail forms in GCC High:
Trust me, if I showed you some of thing things I have made SharePoint do, and how I am using your forms application, it would blow your minds đ.
But if you wanted a list of features I use most and like the most:
- Ability to run Javascript behind the forms for additional customization and features (#1 reason I selected Plumsail forms).
- Linking two (or more) lists in a single form with the List/Library feature.
- The ability to layout the forms in the grid (took some time to figure out how best to make this work for me, but now it is second nature).
Plumsail Forms for SharePoint never store or transfer client data. From the safety standpoint, using Plumsail Forms is a lot like applying custom CSS to the page or simply changing the theme in SharePoint; the look of the page may change, but the data stays intact. This allows our users to easily set up Forms in their GCC and GCC High environments.
When using Plumsail Forms for SharePoint, your data is always stored and processed within your SharePoint tenant. The app doesn't have any servers of its own, so you could even set it up on a tenant without internet access if you had to.
Q: How did you know that Forms is compliant with all applicable regulations and poses no safety risks to the client's GCC High environment?A: Our security analysis based the approval on the fact that the data never leaves our tenant. Although Plumsail can customize forms in SharePoint Online, the library contents remain in the government cloud meeting its strict compliance and regulations like FEDRAMP. This enables us to provide our users with feature rich experience without degrading our compliance maturity.
Q: Did you face any problems with setting up Forms in a GCC High environment? What did it take to resolve these problems?A: We were unable to use the Wizard due to the authentication into Microsoft.us (vs .com) in the gov-cloud. Because of this, we had to download the app package from Plumsail and upload it into our App Catalog following the recommendation from the Plumsail team. https://forms.plumsail.com/webpart/Plumsail.Form.sppkg
Q: Which features of Forms did you find the most useful when working in a GCC High environment?A: Although the main use is form UI customization, it's the ability to easily include css and JavaScript code in the form that we really taken advantage of. SharePoint doesn't provide a lot capabilities to manage row-level security or a good interface for attachments and Plumsail really excels at providing this functionality in a secure and cost-effective manner.
Plumsail customizes some of the SharePoint pages but never handles any data. We have no idea how each client uses this software, and that's how it should be.
All our products are CCPA-compliant, meaning you have control over your data. On top of that Plumsail Forms for SharePoint is completely autonomous and could be set up on a server with no internet connection, making it suitable for environments with the most strict safety requirements. You can find more information in our Trust Center.
Quite a few of our customers use Forms in GCC and GCCH, and recently we've released an update that makes it much easier to install the app in these environments.
However, Plumsail Forms for SharePoint is not a security tool and can't be used to manage access settings or protect your data from malicious actors. It's a tool for customizing user experience, and you should use a dedicated solution for data security purposes.
First, you need to purchase a Forms for SharePoint Online license in the Plumsail store. Remember the credentials of your Plumsail account, you will need it later.
Download the app package using this direct link and upload it into the site collection App Catalog.
After you're done, it's time to connect your environment to your Plumsail account. Up until recently, we had to manually enter GCC and GCC High domain names into our system, but now it's as easy as with regular SharePoint tenants.
Download and install our Forms Designer app. Connect to the target tenant and try opening any form. You will be prompted to start your 30-day trial:
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Log in to your Plumsai account:
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All done! You can start customizing your forms.
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Purchase a license and follow these installation instructions to set up the app.
Want to test the solution before committing? Sure thing! As you might have noticed, we have a 30-day trial period. Just make a Plumsail account without purchasing the subscription and bind it to your tenant.
Happy automation!
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