Ask owners about external sharing links and guest access

Collaborate with team and group owners to keep your Microsoft environment organized and secure.

The Ask owner(s) feature lets you manually send a ShareGate Teams chatbot notification or email to multiple team or group owners simultaneously.

You can send a notification asking owners to review external sharing links and guest access in their teams or groups.

Note: Depending on your Microsoft settings, a review may include external sharing links and/or guest access. For more information, see Microsoft doesn't allow sharing links or guests.

Index

• How-to ask owners
• Notifications
  • Frequency
  • No response
  • Do not disturb list
• Collaboration status
• Update your policy
• Use cases

How-to ask owners

1. Select Manage from the sidebar.
2. Choose between your tenant's Teams or All Groups.
3. Select the Teams/Groups with guests or shared links to review tile.
4. Check the box beside the team or group names.
5. Click  in the bulk action menu.
6. If you have not yet:
   
   • Selected a communication method for your owners - Choose Microsoft Teams chatbot or email in the pop-up.
   • Activated the ShareGate Teams chatbot - If you choose our Teams chatbot, follow the prompts to activate it now. 
7. In the pop-up, click Ask owner(s).
8. The owner(s) will be notified via email or our chatbot to perform the review.

Note: The pop-up shows a list of the teams or groups included in your Ask owner(s) request. Since notifications can't be sent to owners already asked to take action (i.e., within the 14-day timeframe), you'll also be informed of any teams or groups in your selection who won't be receiving a notification.

Note: Only owners of teams or groups with guests or external sharing links can be asked to perform a review through the Ask owner(s) feature.

Notifications

To see what notifications look like to owners, check out Take action on external sharing and guest access. Share the article with team and group owners so they know what to expect.

Frequency

• The notification is sent as soon as possible.
• A notification is sent to all owners of the team or group.

No response

• An owner has 14 days total to respond to the notification. If an owner does not respond to the first notification, a reminder is sent after 7 days.
• For security, review notifications expire after 7 days. 
• When a notification is sent, a team or group owner cannot be asked again until the 14 days have passed. 
• If an owner does not answer, the links and guests remain until you manually take action, until the next External sharing review cycle, or until you send another request.
• External sharing links and guests will not be removed unless that action is explicitly taken.

Do not disturb list

It's possible to add specific users to the Do not disturb list to prevent them from being sent notifications.

Tip: It's best practice to have at least 2 owners for each team and group. That way there's always someone available to receive notifications and take action on your policies.

Collaboration status

Use the collaboration status to monitor your Ask owner(s) notifications from the Manage page. The tile shows the number of requests pending, while the team or group list gives updates  specific to each request.

For more information, see Collaboration status.

Update your policy

Click the gear  located on the tile to go directly to the Settings, where you can update your policies as needed.

Use cases

When you ask owners to review, you're keeping your Microsoft environment clutter-free and secure. Use Ask owner(s) to take action on teams and groups:

• Created before you activated ShareGate.
• Created before you automated the External sharing review policy.
• That you think need to be revisited.
• To practice your collaboration flow with owners before automating policies with ShareGate.

Training video: For more info, watch End-Users Communication Settings.