Microsoft 365 - How is FERPA status managed in Microsoft 365?
If the account in question is an Office 365 service account, please contact your email domain administrator to manage visibility within Office 365 Global Address List (GAL).
Students (active/current) have the ability to set privacy flags in the Student Center to restrict the release of a variety of information. Active/current students who are also UW employees may still set FERPA privacy flags in the Student Center. When an active/current student enables any of the FERPA privacy flags to restrict data, that student will no longer be visible/searchable in the Office 365 Global Address List (GAL). See the following document for more information about setting/releasing FERPA privacy flags: Student Center - Updating your Privacy (FERPA) settings.
Important: It can take up to 48 hours after removing all FERPA flags for the customer to become visible in the GAL.
Faculty/Staff who are not also active/current students cannot use FERPA to control their visibility status within the GAL. However, there may be circumstances in which a faculty/staff account is incorrectly hidden in the GAL. For example, if you are a faculty/staff member and were previously a student with FERPA restrictions enabled, your account may still be hidden in the GAL. See the following document for more information about setting/releasing FERPA privacy flags: Student Center - Updating your Privacy (FERPA) settings. If you cannot modify your FERPA privacy flags, please contact the DoIT Help Desk to modify these settings.
Important: The UW-Madison Microsoft 365 team does not manage visibility for NetID@wisc.edu accounts and can only guarantee that a hidden account will be hidden within Outlook on the web and latest versions of Outlook desktop clients.
Microsoft 365 Features/clients affected by GAL visibility
- Outlook clients (sending as another account/opening another mailbox/calendar subscription)
- Groups/Teams
Internal Notes
DoIT Help Desk Staff
If a user contacts you to manage their visibility within Microsoft 365 Global Address List (GAL) for their NetID@wisc.edu account due to one or more FERPA flags being in place, please do not escalate this case to the Microsoft 365 team. Please direct the customer to manage their FERPA settings and GAL visibility via the instructions above. If the account is still hidden in the GAL, please find out the user's affiliation with the university, alumni, spec auth, etc., and escalate the case to Microsoft 365 team.
In the case of a former student (who had a FERPA flag enabled) but is now a faculty/staff, please direct these users to Registrars Office.
PCS support staff
If a case gets escalated to our team for a user who is faculty/staff (not a student), then review internal process.