How to Manage Ownerless Teams in Microsoft 365: Tips And Tricks
Summary: In this article, you will learn how to manage ownerless Teams in Microsoft 365. And also discovered why every team needs an owner, how to identify ownerless teams, and how to add an owner so that the team runs smoothly and there are no management issues.
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No matter how prepared you are, there are always things that are out of your control. One such example is employees switching roles, whether it’s for a new job, leaving their current role for a new one, or moving between internal projects. Managing resource accountability is important in Microsoft 365, especially when it comes to Microsoft Teams and their related workloads.
So, what can you do to make sure that someone always has responsibility for user-created resources and also manages the team smoothly?
Microsoft 365 productivity suite consists of Team which is used everywhere, be it a small or a large organization. However, the Team owner is also an important thing for Team management. But sometimes the owners of the team leave or the team becomes ownerless due to some reason. So it is important to handle such situations so that the team runs smoothly and there are no management issues.
What is an Ownerless Microsoft Teams?
In Microsoft Teams, users can be in one of two roles: owner or member. The Owner role is very important because it comes with special permissions such as managing Team settings, adding or removing members, and deleting the Team. However, when the main owner of a Team leaves the organization, the team becomes ownerless or orphaned. It will create challenges in managing access and maintaining the functionality of the team and the members.
Why Does Every Team Need an Owner?
The team owner is a person who handles all the responsibilities of the team and assures that the team’s work remains organized and efficient. Some key responsibilities of the team owner are:
- Issue Resolution: The owner will resolve any possible problems or issues that might affect the operations of the team so that the team can operate smoothly.
- Deleting a Team: When the need for a team has reached its end, then the owner can delete that Microsoft Team channel. This option completely removes the team, along with deleting all its data and conversations.
- Team Settings & Permissions: The owner manages the MS Team’s settings and permissions, which maintains the team’s overall structure and access control.
- Add or Remove Member: The owner adding or removing members along with their roles within the team, makes things clear and actions accountable for better functioning of the team.
- Content Management: The owner maintains the team’s documents and keeps them updated from time to time so that the data is always up-to-date and relevant.
Note: If you want to learn more about how to move the Microsoft Team channel to another channel, read this write-up.
How to Manage Ownerless Teams in Microsoft 365?
Managing Ownerless teams is important to make sure that the organizational goals remain continuous. For this, you need to add a backup owner for each team who will activate when the primary owner leaves or becomes unavailable. Secondly, monitor Team ownership with regular audits and updates. However, you can set up automated alerts that notify you when a team becomes ownerless so that you can assign owners to the team.
Additionally, some other options are used to manage the ownerless Microsoft Teams. Let’s discuss each of the ways one by one.
Jump to :
Way#1: Using Microsoft Teams Admin Center for Managing Orphaned Teams
Way#2: Manage Ownerless Teams Using PowerShell
Way#3: Simplify Microsoft Teams Management with Automated Tool
Way#1: Using Microsoft Teams Admin Center for Managing Orphaned Teams
Microsoft has provided some measures to prevent ownerless teams from forming; if you already have such teams, tools are available to identify them.
Avoiding Ownerless Teams
Microsoft Teams has some safety measures that help prevent ownerless teams from forming.
For example, if a team consists of only one owner, then the owner will not be allowed to leave the team until another user or member becomes the owner of the team. However, this rule also applies if you are an IT admin and try to remove the sole owner from the team through the Microsoft Teams admin center and the remove option will not be visible to you.
You will be blocked from removing the only owner from the Teams admin center. Similarly, you will also be blocked from adding the sole owner as a member. This is the same place in the UI where you can promote a current team member as a team owner. Just click on the drop-down menu to the right of their current role and select Owner.
How to Identify Ownerless Teams?
It is important to identify the ownerless Teams for their proper management and functionality. You can follow the following steps that will help you to identify the orphaned Teams
Step 1. Log in to the Microsoft Teams Admin Center with an Admin credential.
Step 2. Navigate to the “Teams” section.
Step 3. There will be a list that will show whether the Team has owners or not.
Note: From here you can recognize the ownerless Teams.
However, You can check the settings for each team individually. It helps you to know whether there is an ‘owner’ role assigned for each of these Teams. If the ‘owner’ role is absent in any of the Teams’ settings, therefore, the Team has no owner. Additionally, you can check or review Microsoft 365 audit logs for tracking ownerless Teams.
Also See: How to Migrate MS Teams from One Tenant to Another?
Way#2: Manage Ownerless Teams Using PowerShell
For users who are comfortable in IT professionals can make use of scripting, PowerShell provides a more reliable solution to manage ownerless teams. Through the Microsoft Teams PowerShell module, admins can perform many actions such as identifying ownerless teams and assigning new owners.
An example of a basic PowerShell script used to identify ownerless teams
$teams = Get-Team
$ownerlessTeams = $teams | Where-Object { (Get-TeamUser -GroupId $_.GroupId | Where-Object {$_.Role -eq ‘Owner’}).Count -eq 0 }
$ownerlessTeams | ForEach-Object { Write-Host “Ownerless team found: $($_.DisplayName)”
}
After identifying ownerless teams, admins can assign new owners using the Add-TeamUser cmdlet. But, this process is a bit manual, because you have to run regular scripts to keep the teams up-to-date.
Way#3: Simplify Microsoft Teams Management with Automated Tool
The management of Microsoft Teams is essential and requires a solution that can perform more than manual methods in cases involving ownerless teams. However, controlling ownerless teams is as important as simplifying your overall Team environment. That’s why SysTools Microsoft Teams Migration Tool comes out of the boxes. This tool helps users to migrate the teams and the channel data from one tenant to another or the Teams having an owner within it.
Some of the highlighted features of the tool are as follows:
- It easily migrates teams, channels, conversations, and files across Microsoft Teams environments.
- The tool is designed to make migrations easier as it is easy to use and every second IT admins who are not as technically smart can use it.
- It reduces the time and effort needed to manage complex environments.
- After migration, it provides comprehensive reports that help in solving any problem quickly.
Steps to Migrate MS Team Using Professional Solution
Step 1: First of all, download and run the tool on your PC and select Office 365 for source and destination accounts.
Step 2: Select the checkboxes for the Teams to migrate.
Step 3: Go to the Source tab and enter the details of your Office 365 account. After validating the details, click on Next if everything looks correct.
Step 4: Now go to the Destination tab and input the credentials of the destination Office 365 account. After validating the details, click on Next to continue the process.
Step 5: After that import Users, you can use the Fetch Users, Import Users, or Download Template options.
Step 6: To fetch Teams, too, use the Fetch Teams, Import Teams, or Download Template options.
Step 7: When everything is ready, now click on the Start Migration button and move your data.
Wrapping Up
In this context, we will discuss How to manage ownerless Teams in Microsoft 365. However, it is important to manage an ownerless Microsoft Teams workspace and keep it organized and functional. You make use of manual management using the Teams Admin Center or PowerShell scripts. Also, make use of professional tools to automate the process. Moreover, by applying these strategies, you will be able to handle ownerless teams efficiently. Therefore, all resources can be managed easily, and productivity increases.
Frequently Asked Queries
Q- What issues arise if ownerless teams are not managed?
A- If ownerless teams are not managed timely, some issues can arise, such as team inactivity, security risk, and communication breakdown.
Q- What are the best practices to avoid ownerless teams?
A- If you want to avoid ownerless teams you need to make multiple owners, regular reviews of the team, and make different policies for the same.
Q- How do I know if a team in my organization is orphaned?
A- You have to check the Microsoft 365 admin center or the Microsoft Teams admin center.
Q- Why is the issue of ownerless teams important to resolve?
A- The owner of the team plays a vital role therefore, it is important to manage ownerless Teams in Microsoft 365.
