Microsoft 365 Protected Users

In Cove Data Protection (Cove)'s Microsoft 365 protection, a protected user is a user who has at least one of the Microsoft 365 data sources (services) protected via the Cove backup:

  • Exchange protected user - a Microsoft 365 user whose Exchange mailbox was backed up at least once (user was added to Exchange backup selection either explicitly or via Auto-inclusion option)
    • Users with regular and shared mailboxes are considered as protected
    • Empty mailboxes are considered as protected if they were backed up
    • Users removed from Microsoft 365 or who have had the Exchange license removed are still considered as protected if they have old backups available for restore in the backup history
    • Users removed from backup selection are still considered as protected if they have old backups available for restore in the backup history
  • OneDrive protected user - a Microsoft 365 user whose OneDrive was backed up at least once (user was added to OneDrive backup selection either explicitly or via Auto-inclusion option)
    • Users with empty drives are considered as protected if they were backed up
    • Users removed from Microsoft 365 or who have had the OneDrive license removed are still considered as protected if they have old backups available for restore in the backup history
    • Users removed from backup selection are still considered as protected if they have old backups available for restore in the backup history
  • SharePoint protected user - a Microsoft 365 user who is a site user of at least one of protected site collections (site collections that were backed up at least once and has backup history) and has a valid SharePoint license
    • Cove treats all licensed users returned by the following call to Microsoft API as billable:

      _api/web/siteUsers?$select=UserPrincipalName&$filter=UserPrincipalName ne null

    • Check site collection site users, by following the instructions below
  • Teams protected user - a Microsoft 365 user who is a team owner of at least one protected team (teams that were backed up at least once and have backup history) and has a valid Teams license
    • Teams owners are the users returned with role owner from Graph API GET {team}/members

Check SharePoint Site Collection Site Users

To check site collection site users:

  1. Login to the Sharepoint Admin Centre
  2. Navigate to Active Sites
  3. Go to the URL of the site to check by clicking the URL link
  4. Add the following text to the end of the URL in the address bar and browse to this newly extended address:

    /_layouts/15/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0

  5. A list of users and groups will be displayed for the site

    6. Only the single users are protected not the groups.

When are Protected Users Calculated

At the end of Cove's Microsoft 365 backup session of each data source:

  1. Protected users for every data source are collected:
    1. Exchange protected users from last Exchange backup session without any changes
    2. OneDrive protected users from last OneDrive backup session without any changes
    3. SharePoint protected users from last SharePoint backup session, additionally checking SharePoint licenses for every user and if a user lost their SharePoint license, the user is filtered out from SharePoint protected user for this session
    4. Teams protected users from last Teams backup session, additionally checking Teams licenses for every user and if a user lost their Teams license, the user is filtered out from Teams protected user for this session
  2. Protected users for every data source are combined per user and the total protected users for all data sources are counted
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