Office 365 Midsize Business, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Education & Office 365 GovernmentAdvanced Privacy Options for Administrators

Office 365 Midsize Business, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Education & Office 365 Government

Advanced Privacy Options for Administrators

 

Introduction

 

Microsoft recognizes that privacy and security are major concerns for cloud customers. That’s why we’ve built Office 365 Midsize Business, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Education, and Office 365 Government with extensive data protection settings and capabilities. As an administrator, you can control how your organization’s data is shared externally, between users, and how it is used within the service. This document provides a straightforward guide to configuring various privacy settings found in the Office 365 admin center.

 

Please note that features described in the document may not be available in all service plans or in all geographies.

 

This document contains information about the following Office 365 privacy features:

 

1.0    Customer Experience for Office 365    

1.1    Office 365 Community    

1.2    Partner Administrators

 

2.0     Exchange for Office 365    

2.1    Mobile Access

2.2    Facebook Contact Sync

2.3    LinkedIn Contact Sync

2.4    Offline Access

2.5    Bing Maps App    

2.6    Calendar and Contact Sharing

• Federated Organizations
• Individuals

2.7     Exchange Online Mobile Push

3.0    SharePoint for Office 365    

3.1    User Profile and Privacy    

3.2    My Site Creation    

3.2.1    My Site Visibility Settings    

3.3    Public Websites

3.4    Team Sites    

3.5    External Sharing    

3.6    My Site Newsfeed    

3.7    Social Tagging and Notes    

3.8    Apps for SharePoint Online    

3.9    Result Sources

    

4.0    Lync for Office 365    

4.1    Online Presence    

4.2    External Access

      

 

 

 

1. Customer Experience for Office 365

    

2.     Office 365 Community

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  The Office 365 Community program allows users to communicate with and get help from others in the Office 365 community using their organization credentials.

 

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > Office 365.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Service settings > Community.

   

  6. Move the Office 365 Community participation toggle from ON to OFF and click Save.

 

 

1.     Partner Administrators

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  You can authorize a partner to serve as a delegated administrator to perform administration tasks on your behalf.

   

• How do I add a delegated administrator?

   

  1. Contact your partner and request an offer for delegated administration. Partners can find instructions on how to send delegated administrator invitations here.

   

  2. Click the URL in the email invitation and authorize the partner as a delegated administrator.

   

  

• How do I remove a delegated administrator?

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > Office 365.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Users and groups > Delegated admins.

   

  6. Select a delegated admin and on the right side of the screen click Delete .

  In the Confirm the deletion of a delegated administrator display box, click yes.

   

  

.0     Exchange for Office 365

 

1.     Mobile Access

    

• What does this feature do?    

   

  Users can configure their mobile phones and tablets to send and receive Office 365 email, as well as access calendar and contacts information.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  Before your users can set up email and other services on their mobile devices, you must configure Exchange Online to enable Exchange ActiveSync.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > Exchange.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Mobile > Mobile device access.

   

  6. To the right of Exchange ActiveSync Access Settings click edit.

 

 

 

 

 

7. In the display box, under Connection Settings select Allow access and click Save.

 

1.     Facebook Contact Sync

 

• What does this feature do?    

   

  This feature shares information in your Outlook Contacts folder with Facebook, and imports your Facebook friends’ contact information into your Outlook Contacts folder. Once contacts are transferred to Facebook, they cannot be deleted from Facebook’s systems except by Facebook, even after the Contacts sharing feature is turned off by a user.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  This feature may be turned on by default. Administrators can turn this feature off by following the steps provided below or by using a powershell cmdlet.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > Exchange.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Permissions > Outlook Web App policies.

   

  6. Select OwaMailboxPolicy-Default or other existing policy and click Edit .

 

 

7. On the left side of the display box, select features.

8. From the list of features, clear the Facebook contact sync check box and click Save.

 

• Powershell cmdlet to disable feature:

   

  1. Set-OWAMailboxPolicy< mailbox policy name> FacebookEnabled=False

   

1.     LinkedIn Contact Sync

 

• What does this feature do?    

   

  This feature allows users to add their LinkedIn connections to their mailbox as contacts. When a user’s connection updates their information in LinkedIn, the contact will be automatically updated.

 

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  Administrators can turn this feature off by following the steps provided below.

 

1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

 

2. Sign in to your Admin account.

 

3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

 

4. Click the menu heading Admin > Exchange.

 

5. On the left side of the screen, click Permissions > Outlook Web App policies.

 

6. Select OwaMailboxPolicy-Default or other existing policy and click Edit .

 

 

7. On the left side of the display box, select features.

8. From the list of features, clear the LinkedIn contact sync check box and click Save.

 

 

1.     Offline Access

 

• What does this feature do?    

   

  The Offline Access feature stores contacts, calendar and email information on users’ machines so that it is accessible without a network connection.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

  Administrators can specify how and when users can enable Offline Access to their contacts, calendar and email information.

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > Exchange.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Permissions > Outlook Web App policies.

   

  6. Select OwaMailboxPolicy-Default or other existing policy and click Edit .

  

  7. On the left side of the display box, select offline access.

8. Select your offline access preference and click Save.

1.     Bing Maps App

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  The Bing Maps app maps addresses found in users’ emails when using the Outlook Web App.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  This app is installed and turned on by default. It cannot be uninstalled. Administrators have the option of turning the feature off upon configuration of Exchange Online for the entire organization.

 

1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

 

2. Sign in to your Admin account.

 

3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

 

4. Click the menu heading Admin > Exchange.

 

5. On the left side of the screen, click Organization > Apps.

 

6. Select Bing Maps and click Edit .

 

 

7. In the display box, clear the Make this app available to users in your organization check box and click Save.

 

1.     Calendar and Contact Sharing

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  This feature enables individual users to share calendar information and contacts with external organizations and users, such as family members and friends. This feature also enables organizations to share certain calendar information with external, federated organizations.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off? (Federated organizations)

   

  To add a new organization relationship or to turn off calendar sharing with federated organizations, follow the steps provided below.

 

1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

 

2. Sign in to your Admin account.

 

3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

 

4. Click the menu heading Admin > Exchange.

 

5. On the left side of the screen, click Organization > Sharing.

 

6. Click New to add a new organization relationship or select an existing policy and click Edit .

 

7. In the display box, clear the Enable calendar free/busy information sharing check box and click Save.

 

• How do I turn this feature on/off? (Individuals)

   

  To add a new sharing policy or to turn off individual user calendar and contact sharing, follow the steps provided below.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > Exchange.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Organization > Sharing.

   

  6. Click New to add a new individual sharing policy or select an existing sharing policy and click Edit .

   

  

   

  7. To turn off user calendar information and contact sharing with all or specific domains, select a policy and click edit, as directed above.

   

  8. In the sharing policy display box, click New to add new sharing rule or select an existing sharing rule and click Edit .

  

  9. In the sharing rule display box, select which domains you want individuals to share with.

   

  

   

  10. In the sharing rule display box, clear the Share your calendar folder and Share your contacts folder checkboxes. Click Save.

   

2.7     Exchange Online Mobile Push

   

• What does this feature do?          

   

  This feature enables Exchange to push update notifications to mobile devices. This allows delivery of notifications about reception or changes to meeting schedules, or reception of new voice mail, or mail, so users can find out about updates to their account even when the OWA for Devices app isn’t running in the foreground.

 

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  This feature is turned on by default. Administrators can turn this feature off by following the steps provided below. For more help with this feature, visit the Help site.

 

1. Open a PowerShell window and connect to Office 365 using your administrator credentials. 

   

2.  The command for administrators to disable Apple Push Notifications is the following:

 

Get-MobileDeviceMailboxPolicy | Set-MobileDeviceMailboxPolicy -AllowApplePushNotifications:$false

 

3.0     SharePoint for Office 365

1.     User Profile and Privacy

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  This feature enables administrators to specify the privacy settings associated with various user profile properties. These settings will affect user profiles and My Sites.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  The Office 365 SharePoint default policy and privacy settings work for many organizations, but you can edit the default settings to fit the specific needs of your organization.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click User Profiles.

   

  6. Under People, click Manage Policies. Your organization’s user profile policies are displayed.

   

 

7. To change the policy for a particular privacy setting, click the drop-down arrow next to the privacy setting and click Edit Policy.

 

 

8. Select the privacy policy, default privacy setting, and whether or not the user can change the privacy setting for this item. When you are finished editing, click OK.

1.     My Site Creation

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  My Sites are personal sites that provide social networking and collaboration features to each member of your organization.

   

• How do I turn this setting on/off?

   

  By default, users can create their own My Sites. Admins can disable specific users or groups from creating personal My Sites by following the steps provided below.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click User Profiles.

   

  6. Under People, click Manage User Permissions.

   

 

7. To add an account or group, type or select it in the top dialog box and click Add.

 

8. In the Permissions for Everyone except external users dialog box, clear the Create Personal Site check box and click OK.

 

3.2.1     My Site Visibility Settings

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  My Sites are personal sites that provide social networking and collaboration features to each member of your organization.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off this feature?

   

  Users’ My Sites are private by default. You can choose to make all users’ My Sites public by default. This option will override the policies set within People and Privacy in the Manage Policies page.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click User Profiles.

   

  6. Under My Site Settings click Setup My Sites.

   

 

7. Under Privacy Settings, select or clear the Make My Sites Public check box and click OK.

 

 

1.     Public Websites

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  As an administrator you can create a public-facing website that can be accessed by users outside of your organization.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  SharePoint Online sites are set to private by default. Administrators can create public websites through the SharePoint Online Administrator Center.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Site Collections > New.

   

  6. Under the New dropdown menu, click Public Website. If the “Public Website” control is disabled, your public website is already created.

 

1.     Team Sites

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  This feature enables users to create their own team sites. Team sites help users manage their team-specific projects and related documents.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  End user team site creation is turned on by default. Administrators can control whether users can create their own team sites.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Settings.

   

  6. To the right of Start a Site, select Hide the link to disable the default permissions which allow site creation for users in your organization, and to hide the New Sites link on the Sites page. Click OK.

1.     External Sharing

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  Users can invite people outside of your organization to view, share and work with content on your organization’s SharePoint sites. Administrators can control how users invite people outside your organization to access this content.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  SharePoint Online does not allow external sharing by default. To enable site collection sharing with external users, follow the steps provided below.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Settings.

   

  6. Under External sharing, select your external sharing preferences and click OK.

1.     My Site Newsfeed

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  The My Site Newsfeed displays a feed of recent activities related to a user’s specified colleagues and interests. Users can post to the public newsfeed, post to the newsfeed on sites they are following, start a new conversation on a team site, or see updates about other users’ activities.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  The My Site Newsfeed feature is turned on by default in SharePoint Online. You can turn this feature off by following the steps provided below.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin Center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click User Profiles.

   

  6. Under the My Site Settings section, click Setup My Sites.

   

 

7. Under Newsfeed, select or clear the Enable activities in My Site newsfeeds check box and click OK.

1.     Social Tagging and Notes

• What does this feature do?

   

  Social Tagging allows users apply tags to documents and pages that they want to easily track. Notes enable informal dialog between users. Tags and notes appear as activities on a user’s My Profile page and the activities appear in the other users’ Newsfeed pages.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  Admins can turn social tagging for specific users or groups off by following the steps provided below.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click User Profiles.

   

  6. Under People click Manage User Permissions.

7. To add an account or group, type or select it in the top dialog box and click Add.

 

8. In the Permissions for Everyone except external users box, clear the Use Tags and Notes check box and click OK.

 

1.     Apps for SharePoint Online

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  This feature enables users to download, install, manage and use apps in the Office 365 environment.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  Administrators can disable user access to the SharePoint Store by following the steps provided below.

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Apps > Configure Store Settings.

 

 

6. Under App Purchases, select No and click OK.

 

1.     Result Sources

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  SharePoint Result Sources enables administrators to customize the search experience for users. Through these settings, you can create and modify sources that can be queried for results.

 

• How do I configure this feature?

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > SharePoint.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Search > Manage Result Sources.

 

 

 

6. To change the settings of an existing Result Source, select a source from the list provided by SharePoint. To add a result source, click New Result Source near the top of the screen.

 

 

7. Define the result source, then configure the search web parts and query rule actions to use it

4.0    Lync for Office 365

 

4.1     Online Presence

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  Lync Presence displays users’ availability status (such as Available or Away), a color-coded presence indicator, users’ schedules, locations, and personal or out-of-office notes.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  By default, anyone who can communicate with one of your users can also see that user’s presence information. You can make presence information for all users available only to their contacts by following the steps provided below.

 

1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

 

2. Sign in to your Admin account.

 

3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

 

4. Click the menu heading Admin > Lync.

 

5. On the left side of the screen, click Organization > General.

 

6. Under the presence privacy mode, select Display presence information only to a user’s contacts and click Save.

 

4.2     External Access

 

• What does this feature do?

   

  This feature enables users to talk and chat with everyone in your organization, as well as outside contacts who use Lync Online.

   

• How do I turn this feature on/off?

   

  1. Go to the Office 365 Portal at https://login.microsoftonline.com/

   

  2. Sign in to your Admin account.

   

  3. Go to the Office 365 Admin center.

   

  4. Click the menu heading Admin > Lync.

   

  5. On the left side of the screen, click Organization > External communications.

   

  6. Under external access, select an option that controls users’ access to other organization using Lync and click Save.

   

 

7. Under Blocked or allowed domains, you can Add , Edit , Remove , or Search the list of domains as necessary.