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Deleting/Managing SharePoint sites that have been automatically created from MS Teams?

Iron Contributor

One of the things we've found tricky to manage is the feature where when you create a new team in MS Teams, a SharePoint site is automatically created and attached to it.

 

Back when we first started using Office 365, staff were allowed to create their own Teams and SharePoint sites. As you can imagine, this has caused many sites to be created over time that are simply empty and making the environment messy.

 

I've been tasked with identifying SharePoint sites that can be deleted, in other words they are inactive. However, I have a few questions around this.

 

1. In the SharePoint Admin Center, how do I tell if a site is linked with a Teams channel? I want to know if the sites listed have been created in SharePoint, or whether they're just a byproduct of someone creating a new Teams channel.

 

2. If I delete a site that is connected with a Teams channel, would the Teams channel be deleted also?

 

3. Is there any way of disabling the connection between Teams and SharePoint. We want staff to use SharePoint for document management, not Teams. This way we can better control metadata, otherwise people use Teams too informally for document storage and it becomes messy.

 

Would be great if anyone can lend some advice. 

 

 

5 Replies
best response confirmed by Toby McDaid (Iron Contributor)
Solution

@Toby McDaid 

 

1.) in O365 in the New SharePoint Admin Center you can filter the sites. In the Filter Select "Office 365 group Sites" and it will give you the team sites. All Teams Site is associated with a TEAMS.
2019-07-18 20_44_07-SharePoint admin center - Opera.png

 

2.) If you delete the Site which belongs to a Team, then it will delete the group and all its resources, including the Outlook mailbox and calendar, and any Teams channels. You will have 30 days to restore the group.

 

3.) By default when you create a New Team, here's what gets created: A new O365 group, a SharePoint Online Site and document library to store teams files, an Exchange Online Shared Mailbox and Calendar, a OneNote notebook. Sadly, I have not come across any article or resource about disabling the link between the Team and SharePoint site. Any document which is shared in that Team or Channels in that team, gets stored in the Document Library and for each channel a folder is created in the document library. You can manage the contents of that Site by enabling the custom scripting options in the TeamSite also If you want to disable FileShare in Teams I am not sure if that is an option for now. 

 

I hope it helps.

Hey @Toby McDaid,

 

I know the integration between Teams and SharePoint can get  a bit messy sometimes. I'll give you my 2 cents.

 

  1. Not sure you can check that in the Admin Center. Maybe you can use PowerShell or Graph to check if a Sharepoint site has a Team connected to it
  2. I have tested it and, to my surprise, it doesn't. Although your team will continue to exist, the Files section seems to no longer display anything, but I could still send messages.
  3. Your users can go to "<tenant>.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/sharepoint.aspx" and create a Comunication Site, which should create a site not connected to a Team. Keep in mind that all the documents stored in the Teams is still in SharePoint. So it may become messy to manage in Teams but you can always go to the respective site and manage the files.

Hope it helps,

Regards,

Hi @Toby McDaid,

 

1. In the SharePoint Admin Center, how do I tell if a site is linked with a Teams channel? I want to know if the sites listed have been created in SharePoint, or whether they're just a byproduct of someone creating a new Teams channel.

Instead of using the SharePoint Admin Center use the Groups Admin Center. It lists what O365 Groups are Teams connected. See "Teams status" in the image below.

capture.png

 

2. If I delete a site that is connected with a Teams channel, would the Teams channel be deleted also?

I believe the Team would be corrupted by this action.

 

3. Is there any way of disabling the connection between Teams and SharePoint. We want staff to use SharePoint for document management, not Teams. This way we can better control metadata, otherwise people use Teams too informally for document storage and it becomes messy.

You could restrict Teams create to certain security groups but that may not achieve what you are going after. I think guidance and user education are better suited to the task of what document management should look like.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Norm

 

@Toby McDaid the best way to do this is by setting Group Expiration Policies, they are currently based on time periods, but soon they will be based on activity also, see https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/User-Activity-based-Expiration-Policy-for-Off... 

 

1. the connection between a SPO Site and a Team is not currently visible in the SPO Admin center

2. Teams channels are connected to folders in spo sites (unless you are using Box, or another 3rd party fil system) therefore if you delete the spo site, the Channel Files will be disconnected -and you will only be able to use the 3rd party. - I would NOT recommend doing this.

3. the UX from SPO Doc libraries will soon be visible in Teams so the metadata issues will go away.

@VasimShah 

 

Really helpful reply, thanks. Looks like the link between Teams and SharePoint is just something we'll have to unfortunately live with. Hopefully Microsoft has plans to let you disable things like this in the future.

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Toby McDaid (Iron Contributor)
Solution

@Toby McDaid 

 

1.) in O365 in the New SharePoint Admin Center you can filter the sites. In the Filter Select "Office 365 group Sites" and it will give you the team sites. All Teams Site is associated with a TEAMS.
2019-07-18 20_44_07-SharePoint admin center - Opera.png

 

2.) If you delete the Site which belongs to a Team, then it will delete the group and all its resources, including the Outlook mailbox and calendar, and any Teams channels. You will have 30 days to restore the group.

 

3.) By default when you create a New Team, here's what gets created: A new O365 group, a SharePoint Online Site and document library to store teams files, an Exchange Online Shared Mailbox and Calendar, a OneNote notebook. Sadly, I have not come across any article or resource about disabling the link between the Team and SharePoint site. Any document which is shared in that Team or Channels in that team, gets stored in the Document Library and for each channel a folder is created in the document library. You can manage the contents of that Site by enabling the custom scripting options in the TeamSite also If you want to disable FileShare in Teams I am not sure if that is an option for now. 

 

I hope it helps.

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