Microsoft is again trying to give managers a tool to measure user productivity with a new tool called “Adoption Score” that replaces its controversial Productivity Score dashboard. This time, the company promises to guarantee “user-level privacy”.
It’s been two years since privacy advocates called Microsoft’s Productivity Score dashboard a ‘full-fledged workplace monitoring tool’ because it allowed admins to monitor individual app usage. Microsoft 365 by employees, such as knowing who opened an app like Outlook or Teams, when it was active, etc.
The outcry over the feature came six months into the Covid-19 pandemic, when some employers, lacking in office monitoring before the pandemic, started using intrusive employee monitoring software. Since then, studies have shown that employees can be just as productive, if not more so, when working from home.
The controversy forced Microsoft to deny that Productivity Score was a job monitoring tool, but rather a way to “discover new ways of working, giving your employees great collaboration and technology experiences.” »
User-Level Privacy
Last year, Microsoft made changes to M365 usage analytics to pseudonymize user information by default. But global admins can revert to reports with more personally identifiable information.
Microsoft is now promising “user-level privacy” with Productivity Score’s replacement, Adoption Score. Microsoft points out that “no one in a customer’s organization can use Adoption Score to access data about how an individual user uses Microsoft 365 apps and services.”
Adoption Score is rolling out today in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Global admins must approve its use so other Office admins can see the time-trend data it provides in the dashboard.
Microsoft says in a blog post that the Adoption Score dashboard provides M365 admins and IT managers with “a set of metrics and tools…to improve their people’s day-to-day experiences and help organizations get the most out of it.” from their investment in Microsoft 365. The tool is supposed to help administrators drive adoption after the company has invested in Microsoft’s professional software.
Time Trends
The main current feature of Adoption Score is Time Trends, which helps admins understand “historical insight information aggregated across the organization.” She tries to measure “human experiences” and “tech experiences” and gives a score out of 700. The score for human experiences is out of 500, while the score for tech experiences is out of 200.
For human experiences, Adoption Score offers time-trend metrics for the following categories: Content Collaboration, Meetings, Teamwork, Mobility, and Communication in Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Yammer and Skype.
Technology experiences include device analytics, network connectivity, and Microsoft 365 Apps health.
The organizational trend data available in the dashboard is also increased from 28 days to 180 days. Admins will be able to see, for example, the response rate to new emails with @mentions and how it has changed over the past 30, 90, or 180 days.
Microsoft plans to add a new feature to Adoption Score. It doesn’t say what it is, but it aims to change how admins and customers can “get the most out of Microsoft 365, while maintaining our commitment to user privacy.”
The Adoption Score is only available to IT Pros with a Global Admin role, as well as Exchange, SharePoint, Skype for Business, and Teams admins.
Source: ZDNet.com