M365 Changelog: Microsoft 365 admin center: Reports in the Admin Center – user information pseudonymized by default

MC275344 – Updated August 31, 2021: Microsoft has updated the content below for clarity. Thank you for your feedback.

Microsoft is making some changes to Microsoft 365 Reports in the admin center. Reports found in the ‎Microsoft 365‎ admin center provide information about your organization’s usage data. By default, reports currently display information with identifiable names for users, groups, and sites. beginning next month, user information will now be hidden by default for all reports as part of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to help companies support their local Privacy laws.

NOTE: This change is specific to administrative and report reader roles.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 81959

When will this happen:

This change will go into affect as of September 1, 2021.

How this will affect your organization:

You are receiving this message because Microsoft’s reporting indicates one or more users in your organization are use or have access to Microsoft 365 reports in the admin center. When this change is implemented, administrative and report reader roles will not be able to see user identifiable information in the reports.

This change also affects Microsoft 365 usage reports in Microsoft Graph, Microsoft Teams analytics and reporting in the Teams Admin Center, and the reportRoot: getSharePointSiteUsageDetail API (1.0 and beta) for SharePoint site detail.

Global administrators can revert this change for their tenant and show identifiable user information if their organizations privacy practices allow. This can be achieved in the admin center by going to the Settings > Org Settings > Services page and selecting ‘Reports’. Under ‘choose how to show user information’, select ‘Show identifiable user information in reports’. Showing identifiable user information is a logged event in the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center Audit log.

When user identification is enabled, administrative roles and the report reader role will be able to see identifiable user level information. Global reader and Usage Summary Reports Reader roles will not have access to identifiable user information, regardless of the setting chosen.

What you need to do to prepare:

There is no specific action required. You may want to update your documentation as needed.

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