How to disable "optional connected experiences" globally?

Question

Environment: Office 365 Business Premium on standalone Windows 10 Pro desktops

We just started getting this pop-up when opening Office apps:

I am "my organization's admin" and I'm not aware that I have given this choice. And I cannot find the setting in the Admin panel. How can I disable "optional connected experiences" for the whole tenant? We work on many different locations and I don't want to go on the road for a week to do this on all desktops.

If this has been announced in the Admin panel Message Center, I must have missed it. My users, including the management, are worried about it. We work with sensitive information from customers and partners. We stay away from data-surveillance services like Google, Bing, Facebook and Linked-in and we want to minimize telemetry.

Answer 1

Hi Alex,

Thank you for explaining. But my question remains: how can I control the setting for Optional diagnostic data for my tenant? This is not something we want to leave to the individual user. Where can I find this setting in the admin panel?

regards,

Willem

Answer 2

Hello Alex,

The pop-up we're getting (see screenshot above) says: "Your organization's admin has given you the choice (...)". This suggests that I can select/deselect this option somewhere.

The article you are referring to describes two ways to implement "policy settings":

1. Office cloud policy service This seems to be something specific for ProPlus. I cannot find that in our Azure Active Directory.
2. "Administrative Template files". Apart from the fact that I have no idea what to do with those files, the System requirements say:

The Administrative Template files (ADMX/ADML) in this download work with the following Office programs:

• Office 365 ProPlus, Visio Pro for Office 365, and Project Online Desktop Client.
• Volume licensed versions of Office 2019, Project 2019, and Visio 2019. For example, Office Standard 2019 and Visio Professional 2019.
• Volume licensed versions of Office 2016, Project 2016, and Visio 2016. For example, Office Professional Plus 2016 and Project Standard 2016.

So this does also not include Office 365 Business Premium?

regards,

Willem

Answer 3

I can confirm this message also appears for users on Office 365 Enterprise Plans. We are on E3 and users received the popup shown below:

Mobile users also received the following in Teams:

Answer 4

Hi Willem,

To address your concern, please check the Manage privacy controls with policy settings section in the following article.

Use policy settings to manage privacy controls for Office 365 ProPlus

According to the article, you could use the group policy to control the privacy policy settings.

 

Since, this new optional privacy settings are on Office 365 ProPlus, I'm not sure if this could be disabled in the tenant admin center. I will consult the related resources on this and if there is such an optional and post back to you.

Regards,

Alex Chen

Answer 5

Hi Willem,

Thanks for your query in this community.

Microsoft announced new privacy settings would be available for Office data through the Microsoft 365 Roadmap and most recently through a Message Center post (MC176396). The following article provides an overview of the new privacy settings.

Overview of privacy controls for Office 365 ProPlus

These new privacy settings provide customers with more control over the data that is collected and sent to Microsoft when they're using Office.  It also allows them to control what cloud-based services they want to use.

You will learn more information in the following blog:

Microsoft Office brings you new privacy controls

Regards,

Alex Chen