Canadian Digital Content Preservation & Governance with Preservica & Gravity Union in Microsoft 365

Canadian organizations are facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities in preserving, governing, and leveraging their ever-growing volumes of digital content. As digital transformation accelerates across the public and private sectors, the mandate for robust information governance, seamless compliance, and future-proofed content access has never been clearer. It is within this context that the recent partnership between Preservica and Gravity Union offers a potential sea-change for organizations invested in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, particularly those with stringent regulatory and long-term archival needs.

Empowering Long-Term Digital Preservation in Microsoft 365​

Preservica, recognized globally for its proprietary Active Digital Preservation technology, has joined forces with Gravity Union, a Canadian consultancy known for expertise in information governance, automation, and AI within Microsoft environments. This collaboration sees Gravity Union become an authorized reseller and integrator of Preservica’s Enterprise and Preserve365® solutions for customers from coast to coast. The alliance is strategically significant, giving Canadian enterprises and public sector bodies new tools to address not only compliance, but also rapid technological evolution and growing expectations around data utility—especially as AI continues to redefine how organizations extract value from their records.

The Rising Imperative for Active Preservation​

As digital records proliferate and regulatory requirements tighten, traditional approaches to archiving (simple file storage, passive backups) are increasingly unfit for purpose. File format obsolescence, shifting compliance frameworks, data sovereignty mandates, and emerging AI-driven knowledge workflows require solutions that are proactive, adaptable, and deeply integrated within daily work. Preservica’s Active Digital Preservation platform goes beyond inert storage, using patented methods to automatically migrate files to future-proof formats, maintain integrity, and ensure accessibility far into the future.
Notably, institutions such as the UK National Archives and MoMA already trust this solution for safeguarding assets that must “stand the test of time.” This pedigree brings assurance for Canadian organizations facing new or evolving legal obligations—including Canadian-specific requirements around data residency, privacy, and discoverability.

Streamlining Archival Workflows: Introducing Preserve365​

At the heart of this partnership is Preserve365, a next-generation archiving and governance tool developed by Preservica in close collaboration with Microsoft. Unlike bolt-on or siloed archive repositories, Preserve365 is natively embedded within the fabric of Microsoft 365 and SharePoint workflows. This means high-value or sensitive content is preserved automatically as part of existing collaboration and business processes—without users needing to switch platforms or endure cumbersome manual interventions.
Key capabilities include:

• Automated archival and retention scheduling within SharePoint and Microsoft 365.
• Protection against file format obsolescence through continuous migration and format normalization.
• Seamless integration with Microsoft Purview, Power Automate, Azure AI Services, and Copilot, advancing compliance and driving operational efficiency.
• Support for both native Microsoft and non-Microsoft files, ensuring even legacy content remains accessible and legally defensible.

This tight integration is especially relevant as more organizations adopt Microsoft Copilot and other AI-powered assistants, which depend on well-governed, high-fidelity data to unlock accurate discovery, analytics, and workflow automation.

Addressing the Canadian Context: Data Sovereignty and Compliance​

A major impetus for this announcement is the increasing regulatory scrutiny on where and how digital records are stored and managed. Canadian organizations, from government departments to healthcare providers and financial institutions, face unique data sovereignty requirements—a reality reinforced by data residency regulations and strict privacy mandates at both federal and provincial levels. With Preserve365 now available as a fully managed service on Microsoft Azure within Canada, organizations can be confident their archives remain within national borders, satisfying compliance while leveraging the scalability and security of the cloud.
Gravity Union, for its part, brings deep experience navigating Canada’s regulatory landscape alongside technical mastery across the Microsoft stack. This dual expertise positions them to help clients design, deploy, and optimize information governance strategies that are not only secure and compliant, but also future-ready.

Critical Use Cases: More Than “Just” Compliance​

Beyond legal mandates, there are myriad drivers for modern digital preservation in M365 environments:

• Freedom of Information (FOI) and e-Discovery: Fast, accurate retrieval of records in response to legal or public requests.
• Operational continuity: Ensuring business-critical knowledge persists despite staff turnover or technology shifts.
• AI/Analytics-readiness: Providing clean, context-rich data for Copilot and advanced analytics tools.
• Knowledge reuse and organizational memory: Breaking down silos and making legacy content findable and actionable for new workflows.

The ability to manage long-term records, spanning formats and decades, is no longer a niche archival concern—it's a mainstream business need.

Unpacking the Technical Proposition​

To understand the unique value proposition here, it's essential to dive deeper into how Preservica’s technology works in the context of the Microsoft 365 platform.

How Active Digital Preservation Differentiates Itself​

Traditional digital archives typically store files “as-is” and depend on future users having the right software to access them. Over a long enough timeframe—even as little as five to ten years—file formats may become obsolete, proprietary software may vanish, and crucial metadata may be lost. Preservica’s platform counteracts this by:

• Continuously monitoring and migrating content to widely supported, non-proprietary formats.
• Capturing technical and contextual metadata to prove authenticity, chain of custody, and compliance over time.
• Providing APIs and workflow automation hooks to ensure preservation happens in concert with business processes, not as an afterthought.

This is critically important for Canadian public authorities, cultural institutions, and major corporations alike, all of whom face scrutiny over digital evidence and the ability to demonstrate records are unaltered and retrievable.

Preserve365’s Seamless Integration with the Microsoft Fabric​

One of the standout features of Preserve365 is its “invisible” integration. Instead of requiring staff to learn a new system or export digital assets to an external repository, the archiving functionality lives inside the familiar Microsoft 365 interface. Archive management, discovery, and access all remain tightly woven into SharePoint and Teams, minimizing resistance and maximizing adoption.
Notably, the solution taps into key Microsoft capabilities:

• Microsoft Purview for governance: Enables fine-grained policies on retention, deletion, and access, which Preserve365 leverages for automated lifecycle management.
• Power Automate and workflow integration: Allows organizations to customize triggers for archiving, review, or retrieval actions—e.g., archiving all contracts older than seven years, or surfacing high-value knowledge for audit requests.
• Azure AI Services and Copilot: By maintaining exceptionally high-quality, context-rich archives, organizations empower AI tools to deliver more accurate, auditable insights and automate tedious compliance checks.

IT and User Experience Advantages​

The architecture of Preserve365 provides several notable strengths for IT leaders:

• Reduced storage costs: Automated retention and defensible deletion prevent unnecessary data hoarding, freeing up expensive M365 storage.
• Lower compliance risk: By proving records are preserved and unaltered over decades, exposure to legal or audit penalties is reduced.
• Future-proofed data architecture: The adoption of open preservation standards ensures continued access to information no matter how technology evolves.
• Centralized governance: Eliminates scattered, siloed archives (e.g. email inboxes, network drives, legacy repositories), consolidating everything under a single compliance and discovery umbrella.

Users, meanwhile, benefit from “invisible” preservation—no extra steps, no new tools, and confidence that anything they create will remain discoverable when needed.

Gravity Union: Local Expertise With Global Reach​

Founded in 2015, Gravity Union has established itself as a respected player in the Canadian and US markets for information governance, automation, and Microsoft 365 enablement. Their team, led by CEO Michael Schweitzer, has successfully executed compliance-driven IT transformations for hundreds of departments—bridging gaps between technical potential and day-to-day operational reality.
One of Gravity Union’s key differentiators is a holistic approach to project delivery. Their services span planning and governance, end-user training, technical integration, and long-term support, ensuring that compliance is sustained rather than treated as a one-off project.
Crucially, Gravity Union’s deep familiarity with Canadian regulation, from PHIPA (health data) to PIPEDA (private sector privacy) and internal government data directives, allows them to tailor implementations not just for generic best practices, but for the very specific needs of municipalities, ministries, hospitals, and financial services firms operating within Canada.

Industry Reactions and the Competitive Landscape​

The joint announcement has sparked notable interest among Canadian IT leaders, archivists, and compliance officers. For many, the promise of a completely integrated, AI-ready archival solution within their existing Microsoft 365 footprint addresses several long-standing pain points.

Strengths of the Partnership​

Among the most appealing aspects of the Preservica–Gravity Union partnership:

• Seamless, standards-based preservation: Ensures even non-Microsoft formats and legacy assets are protected for decades.
• Lower adoption barriers: Native M365 integration means high user acceptance, less training, and faster ROI.
• Canadian data residency: Explicit hosting on Canadian Azure data centers meets burgeoning data sovereignty mandates.
• AI-readiness: The timing dovetails perfectly with Microsoft’s broad rollout of Copilot and other machine learning capabilities, giving early adopters an advantage.
• Proven track record: Both vendors have impressive, referenceable case studies at major institutions.

Potential Weaknesses and Open Questions​

However, there are areas that warrant close scrutiny:

• Vendor lock-in: While Preservica emphasizes open standards, the tight integration between its proprietary platform and M365 could present switching costs down the road. Prospective customers should review migration and export options thoroughly.
• Complexity for smaller organizations: Highly customizable, enterprise-grade solutions sometimes present resource or skill challenges for midsized clients. Gravity Union’s breadth of services somewhat counterbalances this, but the issue is common across the sector.
• Long-term cost management: As with all SaaS and managed services, organizations should be wary of so-called "pricing creep" over time, and seek clarity on predictable licensing, storage, and support costs.
• Reliance on Microsoft cloud infrastructure: For organizations with hybrid or multi-cloud mandates, the heavy dependence on Azure hosting may be a limitation.

Further, while Preservica’s format migration and active preservation features are widely lauded, IT leaders should ask for demonstrable references relevant to their particular use cases—especially those involving non-standard file formats, very large data volumes, or unique compliance requirements.

The Bigger Picture: AI, Analytics, and the Future of Digital Governance​

Perhaps the most compelling part of this announcement is its alignment with broader trends around data-driven decision-making and AI adoption within the Microsoft ecosystem. As business processes become ever more automated and data-hungry, organizations that invest early in reliable, compliant, and accessible digital memory will be ahead of the curve.
Microsoft’s aggressive push to embed tools like Copilot across M365 makes the quality, governance, and discoverability of historical content even more critical. AI cannot “hallucinate” compliance—if the underlying data is missing, corrupted, or inaccessible, no amount of machine learning can compensate. By building a trusted content foundation today, Canadian organizations ensure that tomorrow’s AI projects can draw from deep, authoritative sources of corporate knowledge, historical records, and customer insights.

Strategic Recommendations for Canadian Organizations​

For Canadian enterprises, public sector bodies, and regulated industries considering this new offering, several best practices stand out:

• Conduct a detailed records inventory: Know what you have, where it resides, and what compliance mandates apply.
• Engage both IT and compliance early: Effective governance is both a technical and policy challenge. Bring stakeholders together in planning.
• Insist on demonstrable retention, migration, and retrieval policies: Don’t rely on vendor promises alone—demand clear evidence the solution can meet your specific long-term needs.
• Model total cost of ownership over 10+ years: Active digital preservation is a decades-long commitment. Assess cost, exit strategies, and support plans accordingly.
• Plan for evolving AI and analytics use cases: Retain flexibility to surface legacy knowledge in future AI-driven workflows.

Conclusion: A Forward Path for Digital Confidence​

The Preservica–Gravity Union partnership represents a significant leap forward for digital preservation, governance, and AI-readiness in the Microsoft 365 landscape, especially tailored for the Canadian context. By joining trusted, Canadian-housed innovation (via Gravity Union) with global leadership in preservation (Preservica), this initiative meets the pressing demands of today—compliance, security, efficiency—while paving a path for the data-driven, AI-empowered organizations of tomorrow.
As the volume, variety, and value of digital content continue to surge, solutions that simplify and automate preservation—while keeping content within familiar platforms like Microsoft 365—will be essential. For Canadian organizations committed to long-term digital stewardship, both the opportunity and the challenge are clear: leveraging this new integration to build enduring, accessible, and trustworthy digital archives that drive business, support compliance, and unlock future innovation.

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Source: The Globe and Mail Preservica and Gravity Union Partner to Streamline Long-Term Data Archiving and Governance in Microsoft 365 for Canadian Organizations