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Jan 09, 2019 Office Telemetry Dashboard is an on-premises tool that collects inventory, usage, and health data about the Office documents and solutions, such as add-ins, used in your organization. The data is primarily designed to help your organization with application compatibility testing.
Windows 10 telemetry secrets
If you're concerned about private documents accidentally leaving your network, you might want to turn the telemetry setting down.
Earlier this week I noted a pair of mysterious (and inactive) links in the Privacy settings of recent preview releases of Windows 10, apparently offering the ability to view and delete telemetry data.
Today, Microsoft officially confirmed that the next public release of Windows 10 will include a Windows Diagnostic Data Viewer utility. The app will allow anyone with an administrator account to inspect the telemetry data being collected from a device and sent to Microsoft through the Connected User Experience and Telemetry component, also known as the Universal Telemetry Client.
(For more details on how this data collection works, see 'Windows 10 telemetry secrets: Where, when, and why Microsoft collects your data.')
Microsoft's enterprise customers have had this capability for some time, using a bare-bones tool available to IT professionals. The new viewer is considerably more polished and intended for use by nontechnical Windows 10 users.
Members of the Windows Insider Program will have access to the Windows Diagnostic Data Viewer app in a new build scheduled to be delivered later today. Although the app will be delivered through the Microsoft Store, users won't be required to sign in with a Microsoft account to download and install it.
In a blog post published today, Marisa Rogers, Privacy Officer in Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group, positioned the new tool as a way to be 'fully transparent' about what data is collected from a device.
I haven't been able to use the tool yet, but a pair of screenshots Microsoft released confirm that most of this data is intended to give Microsoft details about the type of hardware and apps in use by the 600 million-plus Windows 10 devices.
As this screenshot shows, the viewer might be easy to navigate, but the data itself is typically binary.
In addition to the search box on that page, the Diagnostic Data Viewer will offer capabilities to filter diagnostic data using a broad set of categories.
A switch at the top of the Filters dialog box will allow you to see which diagnostic data will be dropped if you configure a Windows 10 PC to use the Basic Diagnostic Data setting instead of using the Full option under Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics and feedback.
In an interview, Rogers described the viewer app as a 'secondary mechanism,' a companion to the diagnostic data documentation Microsoft released last year with Windows 10 version 1703.
even More Windows 10 tips
Those pages, which have been updated to include changes in version 1709, describe the basic diagnostic events and fields and the diagnostic data for the Full telemetry level. The viewer is organized using the same core categories.
Most diagnostic data falls into one of five categories:
Two additional categories are mostly associated with the Full Diagnostic Data setting. Browsing History data is from the Microsoft Edge browser, while Inking, Typing, and Speech Utterance data are typically associated with the Cortana service.
A separate update to the privacy dashboard, at https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/, allows anyone signed in with a Microsoft account to view and clear browsing history, search history, saved location data, voice data, and health activity. It also offers the ability to view and edit preferences saved in the Cortana notebook.
Windows 10 Tips
The Diagnostic Data Viewer utility adds a capability that privacy advocates have been requesting since the release of Windows 10. In theory, it should confirm Microsoft's contention that telemetry data is used for product improvement and not for tracking its users' activity.
So far, at least, Microsoft has not acceded to a separate demand from some privacy advocates that it provide an on-off switch for telemetry data collection on retail editions of Windows 10. The company argues that its own controls ensure that personal data isn't mixed with data collected at the Basic level and that the benefits for the Windows ecosystem outweigh what it insists are minimal privacy risks.
For customers running Windows 10 Enterprise edition, a separate setting, available via Group Policy, reduces telemetry collection to a bare minimum but also disables Windows Update. IT pros that choose this option must use an alternate mechanism to manage updates in an organization.
Related Topics:Enterprise Software Microsoft Windows PCs Reviews
Applies to:Office 365 ProPlus, Office 2019, and Office 2016
The Office Telemetry Dashboard uses an agent to collect several types of inventory, usage, and health data for installations of Office, such as the following:
The agent collects different kinds of information for different applications as applicable. For example, for Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word, the agent collects data that allows you to determine:
The agent doesn't collect any of the following kinds of information:
Important
Office applications from which the agent collects data
The agent collects inventory-related data, hardware and software data, and user data in Office 2019, Office 2016, Office 2013, Office 2010, Office 2007, and Office 2003 for the following applications:
For Office 2019, Office 2016, and Office 2013 only, the agent collects data for the following applications:
Data that is collected by the agent for all computers that it monitors
The agent collects the following data for all computers that it monitors. This data includes inventory data, user data, and hardware and software data. You can find the list of Office versions and operating systems that the agent supports in Office Telemetry Dashboard agent.
Data about recently opened Office documents and templates
The agent collects the following data about recently opened Office documents and templates. This data is sorted by the worksheet where it appears in Office Telemetry Dashboard.
Documents worksheet:
Document details worksheet:
Exceptions to data collected about recently opened Office documents and templates
Data about recently loaded add-ins and apps for Office
The agent collects the following data about recently loaded add-ins and apps for Office. This data is sorted by the worksheet where it appears in Office Telemetry Dashboard.
Solutions worksheet:
Solution details worksheet:
User data
The agent collects the following user data. This data appears in the Agents worksheet.
Data about hardware and software
The agent collects the following data about hardware and software. This data is sorted by the worksheet where it appears in Office Telemetry Dashboard.
Telemetry Processor worksheet:
Deployments worksheet:
Data that is collected only for Office 2019, Office 2016, and Office 2013
In Office 2019, Office 2016, and Office 2013, the agent also collects the following data for Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word. This data is sorted by the worksheet where it appears in Office Telemetry Dashboard.
Data is collected during application run time. If the inventory data was collected by the agent, but the application hasn't started collecting data, then some data, such as Success (%) and Load time, won't be shown in the dashboard until the user opens documents or loads solutions during application run time.
Documents worksheet:
Document details worksheet: The transformers full episodes.
VBA, OLE, external data connection, ActiveX control, and assembly reference information are logged starting from the second time that the user opens the document. This information won't be collected if the user opens the document only one time.
Document sessions worksheet:
Solutions worksheet:
Solution issues worksheet:
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