Microsoft Purview Masterclass: Free Hands-On Course Guide

The Microsoft Purview Masterclass teaches Microsoft Purview by securing one company’s data from start to finish across 18 hands-on modules. It is for Microsoft 365 administrators, security and compliance professionals, and IT teams who need to protect, retain and govern data in a real tenant, not just read about the features.

The whole course follows one fictional company, Pragati Industries. You start on the Purview command line and design the company’s architecture blueprint, then work through realistic scenarios such as classifying the most sensitive data, stopping a payment card leak, meeting a seven-year retention mandate, placing a litigation hold, passing an ISO audit and dealing with Copilot seeing too much. All 19 videos are free on YouTube and listed on the Microsoft Purview Masterclass course page.

Who this course is for

• Microsoft 365 and security administrators who have been asked to “set up Purview” and want a clear path through it.
• Compliance, risk and legal-facing IT staff who need to understand what Purview can do for retention, investigations and audits.
• Teams rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot who are worried about what data Copilot can reach.
• Architects who want to see Purview designed as a blueprint and scaled across a large organisation.

The catalog marks it Intermediate. You should know your way around Microsoft 365 administration. The modules are hands-on, so you will want a tenant to practise in.

What you will learn

1. Foundations and design. Day One on the Purview Command Line and Designing the Pragati Industries Blueprint start with tooling and architecture. Planning the blueprint before you switch on policies is what keeps a Purview rollout from turning into a pile of conflicting rules.

2. Protecting sensitive data: classification, labels and DLP. Classifying the Crown Jewels, Stopping the Payment Card Leak and Labels Everywhere cover finding sensitive data, labelling it and preventing it from leaving the company. The course summary names sensitivity labels and DLP as core topics.

3. Retention and records. The Seven Year Retention Mandate and Making the Contract Immutable deal with keeping data for as long as required and making sure important content cannot be changed. Retention is the other core topic named in the course summary.

4. Investigations and legal requests. The Departing Engineer, The Harassment Complaint, The Litigation Hold and Who Deleted the Site are built around situations every compliance team eventually faces. Each one is framed as a real request, which makes the purpose of the tools clear.

5. Audit, data products and AI. Passing the ISO Audit, Publishing the Finance Data Product, Copilot Sees Too Much and The Rogue Flow extend Purview to audits, data governance, Copilot and automated flows.

6. Operating at scale. Governance as Code, Scaling to Forty Countries and The Pragati Industries Compliance Review finish the course by automating governance, taking it global and reviewing the whole programme.

How the course is organised

There are 19 videos and about 6.6 hours in total:

• Video 1: a short course overview.
• Videos 2–19: 18 numbered modules, each about 18–26 minutes long and each built around one Pragati Industries scenario.

The modules tell one continuous story about the same company. It starts with the command line and the blueprint and ends with a compliance review in module 18, so follow them in order.

How to study it step by step

1. Watch the overview to meet Pragati Industries and see where the course ends.
2. Use a test tenant, not production. Purview policies affect real mail, files and users.
3. Do modules 01 and 02 carefully, and keep your own copy of the blueprint. Refer back to it in every later module.
4. For each scenario, pause after the problem is set out and write down how you would solve it before you watch the solution.
5. Group your revision by theme: protection (03, 04, 14), retention (05, 06), investigations (07–10) and audit, data and AI (11–13, 15).
6. Finish with modules 16–18 and compare the final compliance review with your own notes.

This course currently has no Skills Pragati hands-on lab guide, practice simulation or mock exam.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Microsoft Purview Masterclass free?

Yes. All 19 videos are free on YouTube. Follow them in order from the course page.

How long does it take?

About 6.6 hours of video. With the hands-on work for each module, plan for three to four weeks at a steady pace.

Do I need a Microsoft 365 tenant?

To follow along hands-on, yes. The modules are practical, so use a test tenant where you have admin rights, never your production environment.

Is this course for a certification exam?

No. It has no exam code and is a hands-on masterclass. For related security courses, see SC-300 Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator Step By Step, which prepares you for the SC-300 exam, or the Microsoft Entra Suite Masterclass.