Group Expiration Notification Email Not working

[EaR1984]

Hi,

Question regarding The "365 Group Expiration" and it's "Notification Emails"
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/solutions/microsoft-365-groups-expiration-policy

"If the group was created via Planner, SharePoint, or any other app, the expiration notifications will always come via email. If the group was created via Teams, the group owner will receive an email and a notification to renew through the activity section."

We're looking to implement this solution and as an admin I'm responsible to do so.
Therefore I found some inactive groups to start testing with.
I sat the Custom lifetime to 30 days and "Email contact for groups with no owners" to my own email.
I have four test groups and they all got an "ExpirationDateTime" (from PS MgGraphBeta export) sat to 2024-02-28.

Today I got two notifictions In Teams regarding expired groups, however I got no emails, and I expected four notifcations and four emails(?)
For us, the emails are more important than Teams notifications.

- I checked my spam and did a Message Trace in Exchange Online, no emails.
- I have a MS 365 E3 License.
- All Groups have an email address and SharePoint Site and all but one have Teams.

- Some are created through Teams, some through SharePoint.
- I am the Owner of all groups.

GroupA - SharePoint created - Got Teams Notification
GroupB - SharePoint created - (No Teams) - No notifications
GroupC - Teams created - Got Teams Notification

GroupD - Teams created - No notifications

Am I missing something here? Thank you!

[#2]

HEy EaR,

Thanks for your question! Are you able to share the creation dates of the groups?

Are you also able to create some Testing groups? As this may help to rule out some settings that may have changed over time.

Hope to hear from you soon!

[#3]

Hi @TimBosch,

Thanks for answering! I've added the groups creation dates:

GroupA - SharePoint created - Got Teams Notification - 2023-06-19
GroupB - SharePoint created - (No Teams) - No notifications - 2023-11-01
GroupC - Teams created - Got Teams Notification - 2021-11-11

GroupD - Teams created - Got Teams notificatio* - 2021-11-10 
*I got a new notification today for GroupD. So at least the Teams notifications seems to be working for 3 out of 4.

I am indeed able to create some testing groups, however that means I need to wait 30 days until I know if this is working or not...(?)

Or are the Email Notifications confirmed to be working only for Groups created after a specific date? I will try to find a group older that 30 days but newer than 6 months. However, we would like to test this feature as soon as possible or find some reliable documentation confirming that it's working, before communcating this to the whole organisation (: .

Thanks! 

[#4]

Hmm that shouldn't be an issue then on the creation dates.

I find it particular special that the sharepoint created group has received a teams notification, also the reason that you only got an teams notification makes me suggest that there is a problem on the end of the receiver of emails. As you just got a notification from groupD it enhances the fact that there looks like to be an error on the email sending part of it.

I do have seen in the past that teams creation troubles the whole emailing bit of the group expiration and only sends a teams message(which is not the way it should function according to docs).

what you could do is creating a group with a expiration date 2 days from now, the system should send an notification on 30, 15, 1, and 1 hour before deletion.

Let me know!

[#5]

Hi @TimBosch 

Thanks for your answer!

I don't know the technical magic behind this so it's all an equal mystery to me  (Group C & D are more or less the same kind of groups.)

If Teams notifications was the only option I would just have adapted to that but I like the idea of getting these email notifications since the feature (at least on paper ) is there... Or if we for a fact know when they are sent and not.

So I can create a new Group and set a specific Expiration date 2 days from now? That would be nice of course, how do I do that?

Edit: Great! I did a deeper search and found the -ExpirationDateTime for Update-MgGroup, I will try that! 

Maybe there other prerequisites that most take for granted but still need to be checked... hmmm

[#6]

Great to see the deep dive!

I think one thing that is worth mentioning but is like stating the obvious, you need to have a expiration policy enforced at the moment.

This should enable you to check this better.

Please keep me posted! Would love to hear if and how you managed to do it!