Short answers for organizations that use SharePoint Embedded with Notate.
What is SharePoint Embedded?
SharePoint Embedded is Microsoft's storage service for applications. It gives an application its own storage container inside your Microsoft 365 tenant, with SharePoint's versioning, compliance and security, but without exposing the content as SharePoint sites. For Notate, each user gets one container, called Notate Drive, that only Notate can read or write.
Where does your data live?
In your own Microsoft 365 tenant and your own Azure region. Notate reads and writes the containers through Microsoft Graph. Shafer Systems runs no storage service and never sees document content. Notate's only server, used for licensing and sharing invitations receives none of your corporate information nor PII.
Who can see the documents in Notate Drive?
The user, through Notate, and your compliance tooling. Other users, other applications with Graph permissions, and other services in your tenant cannot open a Notate container. Microsoft Purview retention, DLP, eDiscovery and audit logging apply to the containers the same way they apply to SharePoint sites.
What does it cost, and who bills us?
Microsoft bills your Azure subscription directly, pay as you go, on three meters: storage per GB, Microsoft Graph API transactions, and egress per GB. Downloads to Office desktop and web apps are exempt from egress. Shafer Systems is not in the payment path and adds no markup. You can watch usage in Azure Cost Management filtered by the SharePoint Embedded product; usage takes up to 24 hours to appear. The costs that you can expect for an average Notate user with less than 1GB of data is roughly $15/year.
Do we need an Azure subscription?
Yes. Pay-as-you-go billing for SharePoint Embedded is anchored to an Azure subscription and a resource group, and the small provisioning function Notate provides runs in the same resource group. Choose the region deliberately: the function needs App Service quota there, and many subscriptions carry zero quota in some regions.
What is the provisioning function, and why do we have to deploy it?
Microsoft requires SharePoint Embedded containers to be created by a service identity rather than by a mobile app. Rather than run a server of our own and break the promise that your data never leaves your tenant, Notate provides a small Azure Function that you deploy in your own subscription. It creates a user's container the first time they need one and does nothing else. It never sees document content, holds no standing access to containers, and uses a passwordless managed identity, so there is no secret to rotate. Setup takes about 30 minutes.
How long does the whole setup take?
Roughly one hour of standard Microsoft 365 and Azure groundwork (tenant roles, subscription, billing, admin consent) plus about 30 minutes for the provisioning function. The Deployment Readiness Guide in the resource kit lists what to have in place before you start.
Does this apply to Exchange on-premises customers?
No. Microsoft is retiring Exchange Web Services only for Exchange Online. If your users' mailboxes are on an Exchange server you run, Notate continues to store notes there and nothing changes. You may still update to Notate 2026 for the new interface.
What happens to the notes our users already have in Exchange?
When you set the app policy notateDriveMode to migrate, Notate copies each user's notes and folders from Exchange into their SharePoint Embedded container, with progress shown and resume if interrupted. Nothing is deleted from Exchange. After the copy, the mailbox copy is frozen and remains visible in Outlook. Any note that could not be copied is listed and remains usable in Exchange.
Can we start using Notate 2026 without SharePoint Embedded?
Yes. SharePoint Embedded is optional, and we recommend OneDrive for new deployments. See Notate Drive and OneDrive.
What happens if we turn SharePoint Embedded off?
If you turn off SharePoint Embedded or disconnect the linked Azure subscription, every user immediately loses access to Notate's storage, and every application built on the service. Read and write permissions are revoked instantly. Treat it as you would decommissioning a file server.
Can we recover a deleted container?
Yes, for 93 days. A deleted container moves to a recycle bin and can be restored from the SharePoint admin center or with the Restore-SPODeletedContainer PowerShell cmdlet. After 93 days it is permanently deleted.
Does Notate Web need SharePoint Embedded?
No. Notate Web, at app.notatepdf.com, reads each user’s license and policy from their Notate Drive, whether it is in SharePoint Embedded or in OneDrive.
Where do we get help?
Write to support@shafersystems.com or your Shafer Systems representative. For a first deployment we recommend a 30-minute call with your Entra and Azure administrators rather than working from the guide alone.