When you click on the configure privacy options link, you will land on Privacy Options. This page will allow you to configure privacy options (Customer experience improvement program, Error Reporting and Help options) for SharePoint Farm.
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Direct Browsing Link - Privacy Options (direct Link http://centraladmin-url/_admin/Privacy.aspx)
Using this page, we can configure the option, whether we want to report any error directly to MSFT or participate in the customer experience program. Most of the time, a customer opts out of this option when configuring SharePoint production Farm, but sometimes when participating in the product testing directly involving with the product team, then this may be a good option to select for submitting the feedback. You will also get the option to enabled the help from the external websites.
Another thing keep in mind, enabling these options may put some overhead on the Servers, mostly related to performance, as this program collects the error data and generate a report, followed by sending to the vendor.
Following options will be available on the page.
Customer Experience Improvement program
Microsoft has designed this program almost all of its products, so they did for SharePoint. Enabling this option allow Microsoft to collect the data from the client computer/ Server anonymously and automatically. Microsoft collects the data related to the Server and the performance related to its installed products, collects the error from the event log, overall health of the software and much more but this is only, if you enable it. You can read about this program in detail on the link Privacy Statement for the Microsoft® Customer Experience Improvement Program. Microsoft recommends to participate in CEIP. Here are the two options under this heading.
- Yes, I am willing to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (Recommended).
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- No, I don't wish to participate.
Microsoft Error Reporting
In this option, if enabled, we are allowing Microsoft & its partner to collect the data every time; an error occurred in the farm. Data report to Microsoft include OS version, health of the Server, hardware of the Servers, IP address of the Server as well as client information, errors from the event log etc. Microsoft strictly uses this information to use to fix the issue with the product and also for improvement but no use for the marketing purpose. Microsoft also ensures that the data sent to him, using an encrypted format and stored in secured place. For complete terms & condition about the program, please read this - Privacy Statement for the Microsoft Error Reporting Service. Following are the options to configure the error reporting.
- Collect Server error reports.
- Also, collect error reports from client machines running scripts from your SharePoint Server.
- Change your SharePoint Server's error collection policy to silently send all the reports related to SharePoint. This changes the SharePoint Server's error reporting behavior, which automatically sends the reports to Microsoft without prompting the users, when they log on.
- Ignore the errors and don't collect the information
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External Web Based Help
This options will allow you to decide, whether you want to access the help from the external sources or just relying on the internal help. It is highly recommended to use external Web-based help. This way, you will get the updated help from your external sources, as we believe they will be updating the help topics on the regular intervals. For this option, you have to make sure that the internet connection is available on the Server to access the external sources. Here are the options given below.
Display Help from the external Websites, as specified by each Help collection?
- Yes (Recommended)
- No
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After selecting the appropriate options, click OK.