What's included in this article?
What is a Microsoft 365 group?
A Microsoft 365 group is what powers the membership of many Microsoft 365 apps and services. For example, when you request a team in MS Teams you're actually creating a Microsoft 365 group in the background.
This core group helps you manage the membership, access and collaboration between other Microsoft 365 services so you can focus on a single consistent experience with your team; rather than managing access to multiple Microsoft services.
For example, when you create a new team in MS Teams a Microsoft 365 group is created that:
- Sets the security and access rules for the initial team owner, who can then manage additional owners/members.
- Creates and coordinates the online storage space the group will use to store documents and content.
- Creates and coordinates the underlying communication space so the group can chat with each other.
- Maintains the membership to other Microsoft 365 apps the team may need (such as Planner...etc).
When does a Microsoft 365 group expire?
Unless you manually delete a team/Microsoft 365 group, it will automatically expire 2-years after the date of last activity. After a group is deleted (either due to inactivity or someone chooses to delete it) it will a go into 30-day grace period where it can be restored by IT Services upon request. However, after the grace period ends the group will be permanently deleted and any documents or content associated with the group will be lost.
How do I know if my Microsoft 365 group is about to expire?
Anyone with an ownership role (e.g. Team Owner) in the group will be notified 30, 15, and 1 day before their group is about to expire. This notification will be sent to the SFU email address of group owners. Additionally, a reminder will be sent from the activity feed on MS Teams.
Security Tip: Expiration notices will be sent from an email address that ends in microsoft.com. Be cautious of impostor emails.
How do I renew a Team (and Microsoft 365 group)?
If you are an owner of a team (Microsoft 365 group), you can renew it by following the instructions in the notification email. Additionally, see Renew a team in Microsoft Teams for information on how to renew a team in the MS Teams app directly.
What keeps a Team/Microsoft 365 group active?
While lots of Microsoft apps use groups, any of the following activity will keep a Team/Microsoft 365 group in an active state:
- SharePoint - View, edit, download, move, share, or upload files. (Viewing a SharePoint page doesn't count as an action for automatic renewal.)
- Outlook - Join or edit group, read or write group message from the group, and like a message (Outlook on the web).
- Teams - Visit a teams channel or view, edit, download, move, share, or upload files related to the team.
- Forms - View, create, or edit forms, or submit a response to a form.
Why does SFU expire Microsoft 365 groups?
As part of SFU's Data Security Standards, expiring inactive Microsoft 365 groups helps our community responsibly work with and dispose of data that is no longer in use. In addition, expiring groups helps teams focus in active collaboration spaces rather than inheriting spaces that have been abandoned.
What's the difference between a group expiring and archiving a team?
Archiving a group will put it's content into a read-only state while group expiration will delete the group overall. For more details on archiving a team, see Archive or Restore a Team in Microsoft Teams.