Finding Inactive Microsoft Teams – A Detailed Overview

How to find Inactive Microsoft Teams?

Here are the different ways in which you can find inactive Microsoft Teams: 

The chart will show a summary of usage in a specific time period. You will be able to view: 

1. Total number of active users.
2. Number of users in Teams and Channels.
3. Channels that are active.
4. Messages.

Viewing usage for the last 7 or 28 days is limiting and does not fit the retention policies of the various companies which can go as far as 180 days and similarly, data retention of event-based teams could be a problem. There can be a situation where a project in your organisation has been put on hold for a while to continue later. The usage report does not show the accurate state of which teams are obsolete. 

One of the problems with finding unused Microsoft teams usage report is that it only shows data for the active Teams and channels. The report does not include any inactive team.

Automatic Expiration of Microsoft 365 Groups

Every Team is connected to a Microsoft 365 group and it uses Microsoft 365’s mailbox and SPO site to store its content So when the Microsoft 365 group, so does the Team and all the content it has. 

Microsoft 365 has the ability to automatically expire and then delete Microsoft 365 groups after a period of inactivity. This option is available in the Azure Active Directory admin portal. You can go to Groups > Settings > General. This includes the option to get renewal notifications and allows the selection of specific groups. 

Setting Expiration Policy in Azure AD.

Admins can set up policies that will automatically renew a group if it detects any user activity. Actively being used groups automatically renew so that admins don’t have to manually renew them. So, there’s no need to receive email notifications.

This is a simple way to clean up inactive groups and the teams linked to these groups. This is effective for general Teams that have not been in use frequently. If you miss the expiry notification, you can restore Microsoft 365 groups for up to 30 days. After 30 days, the Microsoft 365 groups will get permanently deleted along with all the contents. 

Until recently, group owners have received an automatic email asking them if they want to renew or delete their group in a time frame of 90 days. Now admins can set their expiration policy that automatically renews a group if any user activity is detected. Groups that are actively being used are automatically renewed. There is no need for group owners to get emails. 

Setting up expiration policies has the same drawbacks as they used to. Some of them are: 

1. The only options available are to renew or delete.
2. Only the group owners receive email notifications. 
3. You can configure one expiration policy for all Microsoft 365 groups.

Managing Unused Teams and Groups in Microsoft 365

It is inevitable that you end up with inactive teams that are not in use anymore despite of whatever governance plans you put in place. When you start a project, and when it ends, the group or team that you made for it will become obsolete. 

Luckily there are some ways as discussed in this article with which you can delete these groups to minimise the clutter. 

First, these Teams are just “soft deleted” which means that you can restore these groups from the recycle bin or permanently delete them. You cannot restore these groups once you permanently delete them. 

On the other hand, there is also an archive option that will hide the group from collaborators, reducing clutter for the users. Users can make use of this option when they don’t want to get rid of the group permanently. 

Importance of Separating your Inactive Microsoft Teams to the Regularly Used Ones

Below are the listed benefits of why you should find inactive Microsoft Teams and remove them: 

• Security and Compliance

Any accidental sending of files and edits to an inactive group and can become a risk to security. Therefore, it is important that you put up governance plans in order to keep important content secure. Setting up a Microsoft Teams retention policy should be a must. 

• Better collaboration

Any organisation will end up with unused groups of completed projects over time. Without proper cleanup, there is going to be a clutter complicating everyday tasks which will affect the productivity of the users. 

• Makes relevant activity easier to find

Having a tidy workspace improves the productivity of a user. If you are a member of various Teams, you will find it harder to find relevant activity which will impact your productivity negatively and you will end up abandoning the tool altogether and using an alternative. 

Conclusion

Microsoft Teams has become very popular over the past few years and it has become essential to have Teams governance. Finding unused Microsoft Teams is an important part of Teams governance. Having a tidy workspace improves the productivity of a user. Luckily there are some ways as discussed in this article with which you can find and delete these groups to minimise the clutter easily.