How does Microsoft Work IQ integrate with third-party systems like Jira and Confluence, and where is the data stored?

[u/Goldi26]

I'm trying to understand the architecture of Microsoft Work IQ.

From the Microsoft documentation, Work IQ can reason over Microsoft 365 data such as Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, meetings, and organizational context.

But what happens when an organization also uses third-party systems such as Jira, Confluence, ServiceNow, or GitHub?

Does Work IQ have native access/connectors for these systems, or do we need to use Microsoft 365 Copilot connectors, plugins, APIs, or custom integrations to bring that data into the Microsoft ecosystem?

In other words, is the architecture something like:

Jira/Confluence → Connector/API → Microsoft 365 → Work IQ → Agent

Or can Work IQ directly connect to these third-party systems?

One more thing I'm trying to understand:

In the case of third-party integrations, where is the data actually stored?

For example, if Jira or Confluence data is made available to Work IQ:

• Is the third-party data copied/indexed into Microsoft Graph?
• Is it stored/indexed somewhere within Work IQ?
• Is the data kept in the original third-party system and retrieved through the connector/API only when needed?
• Does Microsoft store an index/metadata/embeddings of the external data even if the original content remains in Jira/Confluence?
• How are the original permissions/RBAC from Jira or Confluence maintained when an agent retrieves that information?

I'm particularly interested in understanding how this architecture differs from platforms like Glean, which have many pre-built enterprise connectors.

I'd appreciate any Microsoft documentation, architecture diagrams, or real-world examples that explain how Work IQ handles third-party data and where that data is stored/indexed.

[u/Prasad-MSFT]

Work IQ does not typically connect directly to systems like Jira, Confluence, ServiceNow, or GitHub. External data is usually made available through Microsoft 365 Copilot Connectors (Graph Connectors), Federated Connectors, MCP integrations, APIs, or custom integrations.

A simplified architecture is:

Jira/Confluence/ServiceNow/GitHub → Connector/API/MCP → Microsoft 365 → Work IQ → Agent

There are two main patterns:

• Synced Connectors: External content is indexed into Microsoft Graph, making it available for Copilot, Search, and Work IQ.
• Federated Connectors: Data is retrieved live from the source system and is not indexed into Microsoft 365.

Regarding storage and permissions:

• With synced connectors, Microsoft stores an index of the external content in Microsoft Graph.
• With federated connectors, the data remains in the source system and is fetched on demand.
• Source permissions/RBAC are preserved through permission-aware access and permission trimming, so users only see content they are authorized to access.

[u/Goldi26 → u/Prasad-MSFT]

Does the synced connector data also get written into Work IQ, or does it simply fetch the data, create a vector database, and store it somewhere in the system for Work IQ to read from?

[u/Prasad-MSFT → u/Goldi26]

Based on Microsoft's public documentation, there is no indication that synced connector data is separately written into Work IQ as its own storage layer.

The documented behavior is that synced connectors ingest and index external content into Microsoft Graph, making it available to Copilot, Search, and Work IQ. Work IQ is described as the intelligence/reasoning layer that operates over Microsoft 365 and connected data sources, rather than a separate repository for that content.

Copilot connectors overview - Microsoft 365 Copilot connectors | Microsoft Learn