How badly has Denmark been affected by the Microsoft outage?

What's happened? 

A major disruption affecting Microsoft products has seen individuals and workplaces around the world cut off from email and Microsoft 365 cloud-based services, with Denmark no exception.

The outage, which started on November 12th and has still not been fully resolved at the time of writing on November 13th, has affected Microsoft services such as Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Copilot, and Exchange Online. Reports confirm impacts in 74 countries.

On Friday morning, Microsoft reported that its services were slowly returning to normal. 

Which organisations have been affected in Denmark?

According to the Confederation of Danish Industry, the majority of companies and public sector workplaces have been hit.

"I think we can safely say that the majority of Danish organisations are affected by this," the confederation's chief consultant, Joen Magieres, told DR. "There are a lot of us who use this technology."

Up to 90 municipalities in Denmark have reported issues with receiving emails, according to Henrik Brix, IT chief in Favrskov, and the chair of the association of municipal IT chiefs. They include Odense, Silkeborg, Furesø, Vejle, and Favrskov. 

"It is quite extensive and very disruptive. It is business-critical, but not socially critical, as it is primarily the municipal administration that is affected," he said. 

Anders Lønbæk, IT chief for the city of Odense, said the outage had had "quite a big impact" on how employees can work, with none of the city's 12,000 employees able to send or receive emails. He advised citizens to phone the municipality instead.  

The Danish parliament, or Folketing, has also reported problems, with the parliament's email systems not functioning, although the other IT systems are still working. 

Several of the Danish regions responsible for healthcare are affected, but the Region of Southern Denmark stressed that none of its "operationally critical systems" affecting clinical care were affected, with the outage only affecting emails, and video meetings. 

The ferry companies Samsø Rederi and Molslinjen are also having problems handling emails, although their booking systems are still functioning. 

Aalborg and Aarhus Universities have both reported problems, posting on their web pages that staff were struggling to send, receive and access their emails. 

Which organisations say they are unaffected? 

The Danish police have reported that they are unaffected, although they warn that if citizens use Outlook to contact them then the emails may not get sent, advising such people to use the telephone instead or go to a police station in person. 

The Danish Courts Authority has also reported that courts are also unaffected by the outage. 

Denmark's national train operator, DSB, has also said that it has received no reports of issues from customers and that the companies employees also appear to be unaffected.