Migrate user input data from “Windows Analytics: Upgrade Readiness” to Desktop Analytics

[Albert Cabello Serrano]

Important:  The guidance in this blog post is no longer relevant. Desktop Analytics is deprecated and will be retired on November 30, 2022. To prepare for a Windows feature update, see App and driver compatibility reports for Windows Updates.

In early July, we announced the public preview of Desktop Analytics, a cloud service designed to help you make informed decisions when upgrading or updating Windows. In the weeks since, we’ve seen incredible adoption – as of today, Desktop Analytics is being used by hundreds of customers to keep nearly two million Windows devices up-to-date. We’ve also been thrilled by the volume of feedback you’re sharing, and we encourage you to continue letting us know what’s working and where we can improve.

Since announcing Desktop Analytics, we’ve received lots of questions about the future of Windows Analytics. As a reminder, Windows Analytics is a suite of cloud services, comprised of three solutions: “Upgrade Readiness”, “Update Compliance”, and “Device Health”. We think of Desktop Analytics as the evolution of Windows Analytics.

We plan to retire Windows Analytics in favor of Desktop Analytics on January 31^st, 2020.

If you’re not currently a Windows Analytics customer, we encourage you to evaluate Desktop Analytics today. New customers will no longer be able to onboard to the “Upgrade Readiness” and “Device Health” solutions  once Desktop Analytics becomes generally available in the coming weeks.

If you are using “Update Compliance” in the Azure portal today you can continue to do so now and beyond January 2020.

As of today, eligible customers can simply select an existing Windows Analytics workspace during the Desktop Analytics onboarding process and choose the option to migrate existing administrator data. Once you complete the onboarding steps in the portal and finish the device enrollment wizard in Configuration Manager, your existing data will be automatically moved to your new Desktop Analytics workspace. This process typically completes within about 24 hours.

We encourage existing Windows Analytics customers who qualify to take advantage of our new data migration option and onboard to Desktop Analytics as soon as possible to benefit from new features such as intelligent pilot recommendations and deep integration with Configuration Manager.

For more information about the future of Windows Analytics, check out our frequently asked questions page on Microsoft Docs.

As always, we look forward to hearing your feedback!

[Kirk Watts]

Windows Analytics provided data and insights for the pure Intune-only managed fleet you couldn’t get anywhere else. At the moment a Desktop Analytics pre-req is ConfigMgr. Will you support Intune before you retire WA? If not, this is a bit of a burn on those who have gone all in on Intune as it was the future. 

[Scott Ladewig]

It is disappointing to hear that Windows Analytics is going away, but I am not surprised. I have been fearing this news ever since Desktop Analytics was first announced.

Windows Analytics was covered by our existing licensing. Upgrade Readiness was included at no cost as part of Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education. Same with Update Compliance. Device Health only required Windows 10 Enterprise/Education with active Software Assurance.

Desktop Analytics requires A3 or A5, however, so that puts it out of reach unless my organization can finally be convinced to move up from A1.

[Albert Cabello Serrano]

@Kirk Watts We know Intune customers love the additional insights from Analytics data, and we're working on ways to share insights with them as well. Stay tuned at this space for news. 

[GerritEllmer]

Do I understand correctly that new customers can no longer onboard to Windows Anslytics once Desktop Analytics is GA?

What about customers who don't use SCCM but want to continue using Windows Telemetry? Or plan to use them in the future?

[Albert Cabello Serrano]

@GerritEllmer , when Desktop Analytics reaches General Availability, you will no longer be able to sign up for Windows Analytics:Upgrade Readiness. Until then, we encourage you to evaluate Windows and Desktop Analytics side by side. Existing Windows Analytics users have until January 2020 to migrate to Desktop Analytics. We will continue delivering insights to Windows Analytics customers until it's retirement date. 

[Balasubramanian Murugesan]

Hi,

Whether Desktop Analytics supports integrates with Update Management Monitoring Solution?

Is there any deadline when DA supports for Integrating With Intune?

Thanks & Regards,

Balasubramanian Murugesan

[Albert Cabello Serrano]

@Balasubramanian Murugesan no timelines we can share at the moment on Intune support, but i can say we are actively thinking about the best way to provide Intune customers with Analytics insights and is high on our list after we GA the service

[Santosh Seth]

Thank you for sharing this information. How about the Business who do not use SCCM, can they not use Desktop Analytics?

[Albert Cabello Serrano]

@Santosh Seth ConfigMgr is a requirement to enroll devices into Desktop Analytics at this time.

[Santosh Seth]

Thank you Albert, is it the requirement of migrating the existing data (User changes) in Windows Analytics to Desktop Analytics also?

[Balasubramanian Murugesan]

Thanks Albert for responding. Is there a chance of integrating Desktop Analytics with Update Management Monitoring Solution? Any plan or Roadmap for Desktop Analytics from Microsoft end.

Thanks & Regards,

Balasubramanian Murugesan

[Balasubramanian Murugesan]

Hi,

To migrate inputs from Windows Analytics workplace to Desktop Analytics, I can see an new enhancement in portal under connected services  i.e, "Do you want to see inputs from Windows Analytics?" In order to migrate the data, We need to switch the setting from No to Yes. But I cannot switch the setting now. Its in disabled state in the portal currently.

Note: I have enabled DA last month and this new enhancement is released this month.

Is there a way to enable "Do you want to see inputs from Windows Analytics?" in DA now?

Thanks & Regards,

Balasubramanian Murugesan

[Thomas Gudmundsen]

Dear Microsoft I can see that @Albert Cabello Serrano has already answered this several times, but please reconsider waiting with the Intune integration. This is something that should be available at the same time as SCCM integration. Is there any way that the community can influence this? E.g. UserVoice?

[Albert Cabello Serrano]

@Thomas Gudmundsen We totally empathize, and this is not about us wanting to pull value or not believing in a cloud only solution. If you could help me understand the scenarios that you are using Analytics today that you'll be blocked when the retirement occurs in January, this could help us prioritize a solution. Is it the health information? The App Inventory? You can do that through our UserVoice at https://configurationmanager.uservoice.com/forums/300492-ideas?category_id=366805 or reach out to me directly.

[Albert Cabello Serrano]

@Balasubramanian Murugesan at the moment the migration is only available at the time of signing up for Desktop Analytics. We are working on enabling that button after onboarding, and it should be available soon. If you can't wait, the workaround is to 'reset' your workspace and start again.

[Balasubramanian Murugesan]

Hi,

Beyond the cost of license subscriptions, If I have a dedicated Azure subscription only for Azure Log Analytics for using Desktop Analytics service. Where I have selected Per GB pricing tier in Azure LA and sending only DA data  in Azure Log Analytics Workplace.

Based on above scenario, How the cost is been charged and calculated for Desktop Analytics and Azure Log Analytics?

I am guessing, there will not be any cost incurred only for DA data stored in Azure LA repository. Can you please suggest my understanding is correct & pls give some more clarity on pricing part of Microsoft Desktop Analytics as said below.

Just took below points from DA document:

1) If you use a paid tier that charges per GB of data collected, you're not charged for the Desktop Analytics data. You can collect all the Desktop Analytics data from your devices and not incur any costs.

2) If you use the free tier, which has a cap on the amount of data collected per day, the Desktop Analytics data doesn't count towards this cap. You can collect all the Desktop Analytics data from your devices and still have the full cap available for collecting additional data from other sources.

3) No additional cost for using Desktop Analytics. Within Azure Log Analytics, Desktop Analytics is "zero-rated." This rating means it's excluded from data limits and costs, regardless of the Azure Log Analytics pricing tier you chose

Thanks & Regards,

Balasubramanian Murugesan

[Compunate]

Can you please clarify if Device Heath and App Health are going away since that is not part of Desktop Analytics? I found those more valuable than anything in Desktop Analytics.

[Fabian Niesen]

I have several customers witch using something else the Microsoft SCCM or Intune for software management. They export the "ready" device out of the Upgrade readiness console and perform the upgrade on those machines. 

If SCCM or Intune will be a Requirement, this will increase the effort for the IT departments for software lifecycle. And because migrate to SCCM or Intune is not always possible, this will also reduce customer satisfaction with Microsoft. It was very often hard to convince them to an MS Cloud Solution with telemetry, but this step will not help. Even if there are A3/A5 licenses necessary. Most of these customers are located in Germany.

This will kill the IT evergreen approach from some customers. I am pretty sure they will fall back into LTSC considerations (Yes, I now that this is not an option) or think about to skip as many releases as possible (Yes I know that this will increase problems).

Please think about a way to open this solution for 3rd party. Please also consider a cost-free solution. It is in some countries a rough fight to implement Windows as a Service. this decision did not help.

[BDorsey]

I second what @Compunate asked.  The health features currently included in Desktop Analytics appear focused on the application health.  Are there plans to include the device health data as well?  We need the ability to identify PCs that are unstable due to reasons besides the application such as the hardware or OS itself.

[Albert Cabello Serrano]

@Compunate , @BDorsey we've listed the WA features that are currently not available in Desktop Analytics in our FAQ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sccm/desktop-analytics/faq#existing-windows-analytics-customers . Desktop Analytics integrates app health in the context of a deployment plan. We are thinking about ways to enable similar insights for drivers, as well as problematic devices

[Scott Ladewig]

@Albert Cabello Serrano The feature list you refer to in the FAQ says they will either be retired or are not yet in DA. Can additional detail be provided to indicate which are being retired?

[Albert Cabello Serrano]

@Scott Ladewig when we are ready to provide more detail, you'll see it here and in the docs first. The detail you see is all we can communicate at this point.

[SeMeDe]

@Albert Cabello Serrano are there any news on this?

On last ignite there was a public preview announced for Q1 2020.