Microsoft Family Safety

What is the Microsoft Family Safety?

It is a free service offered by Microsoft that allows you to manage your family's devices and share information.  Much like the google family link service, but is for use with all of Microsoft's services such as office, xbox game services, screen time tracking, and reporting.

What do you need to use this?  All you need is an email address, it can be from any service.  My wife and I both have Microsoft accounts we are using with the service and the kids have an associated Gmail account (because Chromebooks).

You will send an invite to an already active email; or you will have to create an account.

When you set them up, they will have the option of being setup as a managed user or as a family organizer.  The organizer is an "administrator" and settings for restrictions are not applied to them.  If there is more then one family organizer the only options another organizer has is to remove them from the family group.

Adding a family member as a standard account you have many more features that you can control.

Overview

The overview for the accounts is where you modify a number of the account settings, which is specific to each managed family member.  You can also modify setting though the manage consent settings.

Connecting A Device

The PC Account needs to be a standard user.  XBox, Android and iOS devices are also supported.  If want to setup limits you have to do so for each child there isn't a global setting you can apply to the family users.  Settings have to be applied individually.

You can specify scheduled times, to limit screen time and what games are playable on the devices.

Content Filters

Content filters come in two sections Web and Search then Apps and Games.  You can specifiy specific website to be allowed only or block specific websites.  You can set age limits for games and any apps you don't want your kids to have access to.

The real power in Family Safety is the calendar and one note features for family.  Being able to automatically add everyone to add items for Grocery lists; or having the shared calendars for family to automatically show up for everyone is fantastic.

If you haven't set it up I highly recommend setting this up for your family; keep in mind that all family members will get a basic Microsoft account; which gives them 5GB of one drive space and access to the online versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel.  The free service is quite comprehensive, and helps me keep an eye on my family.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/family-safety