Forum Discussion
Sam Cosby
Microsoft
MicrosoftAccidental Teams Free deletion email sent out - explanation and FAQs
Hi folks - My name is Sam Cosby and I help run the Customer Experience & Obsession side for Teams Free Organizations within the Teams Engineering Team at Microsoft. Thanks for feedback from some Teams Free users on the following thread, as this has helped convey a clear problem that we needed to address. The following post is to explain that particular problem in further detail, with some additional FAQs that should help us understand further for anyone who may have seen this. I'll follow up on this thread once the bug is fully resolved.
I received an email stating my trial is ending for Microsoft Teams (Free), but I didn’t sign up for a trial, why did I receive this?
Back in January of 2021, there was an implementation of a new method to help reduce the number of Teams Free organizations that go unused over a 90-day period of inactivity by deleting them. Only organizations that did not have any sign-ins during this period and/or the grace period after the 90 days (120 days in total), would eventually become deleted. Unfortunately, there was a bug that sent out notification emails to Teams Free Admins even if their organization was in use during the past 90 days. We’ve since fixed this bug and expect that we shouldn’t see any additional emails be sent out to organizations that have been recently used.
Figure 1: Example of accidental email sent out.
Will Teams Free still delete in the next few weeks?
No, as long as Teams has been in use in the past 90 days. While there are articles out there that have shown Teams Free Admins how to view their license ‘duration’, it’s been confirmed that once the fix goes live that any Teams Free orgs impacted with the above email will be ‘extended’ automatically and won’t have to worry about any data loss.
Why does Teams Free have a deleted state?
There was a new organization deletion method created back in January of 2021 to help reduce organization clutter by implementing a new deletion policy on organizations that go unused over a 90-day period of inactivity by deleting them. Only Teams Free organizations that did not have any sign-ins during this period and during the 30-day grace period after the 90 days (120 days in total), would eventually become deleted.
Will documentation be updated?
Yes. We realized that while this new method to help reduce organization clutter was released, the documentation unfortunately did not get updated as expected. We’ll be making changes to this as soon as we can to address the new deletion policies for Teams Free orgs moving forward.
What does deleted mean for Teams Free?
When the subscription is deleted, customer data is deleted and Azure Active Directory is removed, if not in use by other services. Users can’t access Teams, files/apps/services in this state.
- Hello there - we uncovered another bug in the system that needs to still be fixed - you should still be fine to use Teams without any hitch while we fix this for you! Can you please DM me your TenantID? Here's how: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/fundamentals/active-directory-how-to-find-tenant
6 Replies
- Hi, I received the "sign in to keep using teams -
we noticed you haven’t used Microsoft Teams lately" email yesterday (June 6, 2021). My organization uses teams frequently, so it appears that we are suffering the issue described in this thread. However it seems that you indicated this should have been fixed after the beginning of May, so I'm wondering if there's any danger that it's something else and if I have to do anything. Thank you very much!- Sam CosbyHello there - we uncovered another bug in the system that needs to still be fixed - you should still be fine to use Teams without any hitch while we fix this for you! Can you please DM me your TenantID? Here's how: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/fundamentals/active-directory-how-to-find-tenant
- Thanks Sam. that explains the message. But what is still outstanding is why team members I have added recently can not actually see the team site. They are added to the organization, but evertime they try to see the team is says it is "Deleted" when clearly it is not. Someone please help, I'm not sure what else could be going on. We only have one team within the organization and the one team is open to everyone in the organization so they should be added by default. The MS team site is active, but team members added after this false "deletion date" receive "This team has been deleted Message"
