The dreaded App@SharePoint user name problem

MVP

AppAtSharePointReappears.jpg

The ***blinking*** problem that causes "app@sharepoint" to show up in Delve as the author of documents appeared in November, went away in early December, and has now reappeared. What's going on?

17 Replies

Yeah, I already posted a message about this "problem". According to @Mark Kashman the team is aware of the issue and working on a fix

I've also been talking to Mark. We discussed the issue after it first appeared, then I was told that all was well and a fix was in hand. Cue for sigh of relief... especially when the fix apparently appeared in production and Delve showed what it supposed to show. Then yesterday everything went wrong again... hence the commentary.

 

I like Delve a lot but problems like this make me think that the development team doesn't use their own code for real work. If they did, they would surely have noticed and fixed the issue a long time ago...

The same problem at our site.. Started appearing in Desember

 

 

Regrads

Yngvar

Adding @Nick Robinson for visability. 

We're having the same issues.

I've created a (regular) ticket in Office 365, and this is the response I got:

 

The Account app@sharepoint is related to the SharePoint Applications (Auditing logs/Virus), it is a system account, belongs to the SharePoint Farms infrastructure, it was created to run on all Site Collections/Personal sites to collect auditing information. When the user provides some changes for his own Site Collection, or enables features or activates the site Auditing logs, his own account does not have the write permissions on the SharePoint Farm and this account it will be used to run and collect all the necessary information to be provided to the customer. Microsoft has set up a few security accounts to run in all Farms, in order for our customer to do some tasks, and get the required information. Also it is necessary for user security, for these accounts to always track the Site Collection searching for viruses that can be uploaded into SharePoint. Microsoft will not change that, all Farms have the same configuration and this same system account, and all Site Collections will use this account if they need to do it.

What Activities Should the customer expect from this account?
From the Customer side nothing will be expected, everything will be running normal, as should be, this account will not affect the Site Collection functionality or personal site, all the information on the Site Collection will be secure, and only the Site Owners and all people who have permissions to the site can see the information inside and share the same. This account can be visible if we create an auditing for our Site Collection or personal site. All private information is safe and, nothing will be collected, as we said before this account only gets information for auditing and looks for possible virus attack.

 

Not in the slightest a helpful response *sigh* :(

Well, it is an answer, albeit a poor one. The problem is not that Microsoft has created accounts to take care of some background activity, which is perfectly acceptable and useful. The issue is that the Delve feels compelled to surface the existence of the dreaded app@sharepoint account. I have got to believe that it is within the wits of man and software engineering to filter out this activity...  Come on Microsoft, let's fix this lingering irritation!

I've tried to convey the issue again to Microsoft. 

I hope the engineer properly understood the issue, and also the working scenario when searching in delve for the affected documents.

no feedback yet from Microsoft Support.

Depressingly the norm for this issue...

Well, fun fact, I just got a response, without asking for an update ;) Or maybe they've tread this thread, I don't know ;)

Here's the response:

 

I am sending this e-mail as I would like to reinforce that we are still investigating the issue that you’re currently experiencing with the Delve system account and working on finding a solution for it. We have engaged the Production Group and still waiting for an answer from them.

I would like to take the time to thank you for your patience and flexibility and assure you that I will revert back to you as soon as possible with a resolution.

 

TL;DR: still looking

Hey @Tony Redmond,

 

Here's another juicy bit information, though I'd take with a grain of salt, as I've gathered some additional information on how this error is related to the new and old Delve entry points, see this thread: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Delve/Anyone-also-seeing-app-sharepoint-com-in-Delve/m-p/3468...

 

Here's the latest support response: 

Please know that I received updates from the Production Group, that specify the following:

“This is one System account, that normally is used when the customer sets up, one App, and provides that App a high level permission to run on the SharePoint Site. In this particular case, an App was probably created, or set up, or even for example a workflow and was given an Elevated Permission, on the SharePoint Site, and because of that, the account is shown as the last one that modified the documents. So the customer needs to look for all Apps he has on SharePoint, and see which one has this high level permission. This can be the reason that this account is showing up.”

 

In my case I don't have any additional apps allowed for the documents affected on that site, so I'm sure the statement is inaccurate. 

Funny thing of this answer is that according to support, many people is doing tha :-)....Sincerely, this response seems to be not right

This is getting pretty silly as the quality of the answers from support is now dubious at least and possibly misleading at worst.

 

It would be nice if someone like Dan Holme could throw light into this dark corner of Delve...

yep, at this point I've already given up on a sensible answer. 

And there goes my confidence in the Office 365 support down the drain:

 

I would like to follow-up on this case. As I mentioned in my previous email, his issue was analyzed by the Production Team. Upon further checking the description of your case and the error message received, we concluded this is about an Office Client usability issue.

I am kindly informing you that your request should be redirected to the Office team, being out of Support boundary for O365.

In order to get help from the Office team, a Professional support Paid incident should be opened.

Please follow the link: https://support.microsoft.com/oas. Here, you can choose the product and category of the issue and submit the request and the Office team will further investigate the causes of this issue.

Again, I am deeply sorry for this inconvenience! Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.

 

To be honest, the only qualitative feedback I'm getting is from this forum where at least some official statements are being made. In this case @Mark Kashman was helpful enough in providing the necessary feedback in another thread (see https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Delve/Anyone-also-seeing-app-sharepoint-com-in-Delve/m-p/3421...) but those support answers are really out of this world. Thats the second time in a month where I've been blown off by "out of scope / not supported" for something that clearly worked before and now doesn't.

 

Ufff...I guess you are not having very good experience (and good luck) with the support guys you are working with. These kind of answers are absolutely no professional and not expected coming from someone that is under Microsoft's umbrella