That’s a very common problem in SharePoint world. You are looking for a site owner but there is no tool available for regular user to find who owns the site.
Scenarios.
You get a link to some SharePoint site, but you do not have access to it. You requested access but nobody has responded. You need to find who is the site owner.
Manage result layouts for SharePoint results in Microsoft Search
We’re making changes to Microsoft Search. This update will allow Microsoft Search administrators to change result layouts for select SharePoint content using adaptive cards with Result Type feature in Microsoft Search administration.
The default result layouts for SharePoint sites, pages, list items and Portable document format (PDF) results can now be replaced with layouts built using adaptive cards. The changes can be made for Organization level search applicable to Office.com and SharePoint home as well as site level search on SharePoint sites. Changes for Microsoft Search in Bing will be rolled out soon. Note that the feature does not support changing of Office file search results.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 81952
Before the change, when you add a new result type under “Search and intelligence” Customizations – it looked like this:
So there was no built-in “SharePoint” content source as an option – only custom “external” data sources.
But with the new feature implemented list of content sources for the result type will look like this:
If you choose “SharePoint and OneDrive” content source – the next option would be to select type of content:
You also can create different result types for different types of content based on properties-based rules (e.g. one result type for all sites – and a separate result type for a specific site or hub) with optional “Set rules for this type of content”:
Default site result experience would look like
Search results with modified SharePoint result type might look like:
When you modify template via Layout Designer – it is essential to know available object properties.
You can get properties from the “Available properties” below – there is also search through properties feature.
Or you can use SharePoint Search Query Tool to get metadata on search results.
It might take hours and even days for your search to start showing new layouts, but “&cacheClear=true” should help.
Bert Jansen (Microsoft) revealed some details on throttling when you access Microsoft 365 programmatically – via Microsoft Graph or CSOM and guided developers on how to regulate request traffic for optimized throughput using RateLimit headers (Here).
Demystifying SharePoint throttling
Throttling is necessary to ensure that no single user or application consumes too many resources compromising the stability of the entire system, which is used by many clients.
Throttling happens at
User (there are user request limits. Microsoft counts all requests linked to user
Application (Delegated or Application permissions)
Resource units per app per minute
Resource units per app per day
Farm – Spike protection
Very common reason for throttling – when an Application (Delegated or Application permissions) reaches “Resource units per app per minute” threshold.
Usually you catch HTTP errors 429 or 503, wait for some time (respect Retry-after header) and try again.
SharePoint provides various APIs. Different APIs have different costs depending on the complexity of the API, but Microsoft favor Graph API over SharePoint REST/CSOM. The cost of APIs is normalized by SharePoint and expressed by resource units. Application’s limits are also defined using resource units.
Quota depends on tenant size.
Resource unit limits for an application in a tenant (please refer to the Microsoft article)
Predefined costs for Microsoft Graph calls:
Assuming 2 resource units per request is a safe bet.
What is the Microsoft Search KQL query field limits for a verticals? Is there limited number of characters or lines?
You know what is Microsoft 365 Search Vertical and what is KQL query in vertical configuration, right?
Under Microsoft 365 admin center Search and intelligence you can configure search verticals. There are some out-of-the-box verticals – like All, Files, Sites, People and you can configure custom one.
As a part of vertical configuration – you can specify KQL query – if you want e.g. limit search with some sites or content types etc.
The question is – how many sites I can specify in this query field? E.g. can I specify 1000 sites? 10k sites?
And the answer is: It does not matter, because the limit is not in number of characters or lines.
In my dev environment I was able to save 50,000 lines (~3M characters). But attempt to save 100K lines (6M symbols) has failed (due to timeout, I believe:
Again, as I said the problem is not here.
The problem is time required for search to apply query. I.e. when you ask search to bring you something – after it gets results from index and before display results to you it applies KQL query configured for the vertical. And this time is the bottleneck.
Here is what I got measuring search response time depending on query size:
Search
response time, seconds
KQL query # of lines
KQL query size, # of symbols
works
1
500
28,000
works
5
1000
59,000
works
9
2000
120,000
works
25
3000
180,000
works/fails
30
3500
208,000
fails
35
3600
214,000
fails
35
50,000
3,000,000
n/a
n/a
100,000 (can’t save KQL query
6,000,000 (can’t save KQL query)
Which means that after ~ 1000 lines (50,000 characters) KQL query size – query becomes too slow, and after ~3000 lines (180k chars) – can fail (due to timeout I’d say).
Every team in Microsoft Teams or a Microsoft 365 group or a SharePoint site must have an owner/owners. Otherwise to whom we communicate on any question – site/group permissions, membership, site/group/team retention policy, content classification etc. Who will be responsible for team/site/group content and configuration and who will provide access to this site for other users.
MS: A team in Microsoft Teams or a Microsoft 365 group and its related services can become ownerless if an owner’s account is deleted or disabled in Microsoft 365. Groups and teams require an owner to add or remove members and change group settings.
Recently Microsoft implemented a new feature: a policy that automatically asks the most active members of an ownerless group or team if they’ll accept ownership. Very important feature. TY Microsoft!
The configuration via wizard is straightforward and intuitive.
But still we have some questions regarding the policy.
Q: Why it is important? A: Because many other “governance” activities (e.g. permissions attestation, retention policies) rely on site/team ownership. I.e., before we notify site owner that the site is going to be deleted due to inactivity – we want an owner present.
Q: Is it about groups ownership or sites ownership? A: Group ownership and group-based sites ownership (teams, yammer etc.). Non-group based aka Standalone sites (e.g. communication) are not in scope of this feature/policy.
Q: Who can configure this policy? What kind of permissions required to create/update policy? A: Microsoft says “Manage Microsoft 365 groups” permissions required – e.g. admins with Global admin or Groups Admin roles required. “Teams administrator” or “SharePoint Administrator” cannot configure the policy.
Q: How about group with no members? What if somebody created a group but did not add any members? A: Assuming somebody created a group and left company. In this the policy will not work – as there is nobody who can be a new owner. This kind of groups must be handled manually, as no owners no members does not mean nobody uses related SharePoint site.
Q: How do we know the group is ownerless? Only if owner has been deleted from AAD? What if an owner is just blocked or unlicensed? A: blocked or unlicensed users are still users; so the policy will be triggered if the group owners list is empty.
Q: We have implemented Azure AD Settings “EnableGroupCreation” and “GroupCreationAllowedGroupId” (as per Microsoft: Manage who can create Microsoft 365 Groups), so not everyone can create m365 groups. Would this impact ownerless groups policy? In other words – if a user cannot create group – would this keep user from being assigned as a group owners? A: No. Microsofts’ Manage who can create Microsoft 365 Groups trick regulates groups creation only. Later – when a group is created – nothing prevents such user to be added as a group owner.
Q: I support a large Microsoft 365 environment and we already have hundreds of ownerless groups. I’m concerned how users might react and whether our helpdesk support teams are ready for new type of tickets etc. Implementing the policy in test/stage environment does not make much sense, since there are no really active users etc. So, can I test this policy in production – on real users, but pilot it within a small number of users or ownerless groups before applying to all groups in the environment. A: Yes, you can do a test or pilot implementation in production limiting the impacted users or groups. – if you need to limit users who will be getting notifications a “pilot team” – during Step 1 “Notification Options” under “Specify who can receive ownership notifications” you can select “Allow only certain active members” and under “Specify security groups to allow members” you can select a security group – so only members from the specified security group will be sent ownership request. Microsoft 365 groups do not work here.
NB: But there is a bug (I believe): When you specify this option (Allow only certain active members and a security group) – the policy just does not work.
another option – you can test the policy on a several selected m365 groups:
Q: I know the policy is applied to Microsoft 365 groups only. But I have many standalone sites with no owners (no site collection administrators). How do I deal with ownerless SharePoint sites? A: How about converting standalone sites to Microsoft 365 group-based sites (TBC)?
Q: What happens to group that become ownerless after the policy is created? A: The policy will be triggered against this group – so next day the most active group members will receive invitation.
Q: What happens if several of the notified members accepts the ownership request? A: Two first served basis. As per Microsoft, only two members can be assigned to group owners via the policy. When a group got two owners – invitation message actionable item for the rest will be converted from “Would you like to be a group owner?” to “MemberName1 and MemberName2 have already agreed to become group owners.” with no “Yes” and “No” buttons.
Track the ownerless group policy in action via Audit Log
How do I, as an Microsoft 365 administrator, know if the policy works or not, are the emails sent or not and how many (if any) users are accepted “Would you like to be a group owner?” invitation?
Microsoft 365 Audit Search under Microsoft Purview (Compliance center) should help.
OwnerlessGroupNotificationResponse – “Responded to ownerless group notification”
UserId: OwnerlessGroupComplianceAssistant
Record Type (AuditLogRecordType): 126
It seems like event is not added to the Audit log when a policy is created or updated.
Some more findings:
If a public group does not have an owner – all requests to joint the team will be declined with “The team does not have an owner” message: (that means no new members, i.e. no new contributors, but read-only visitors access is sill available for everyone, as group is public):
Users can go to My Groups to see groups (Teams, Yammer communities and SharePoint Sites) they are members or owners of.
Proposal to be a group owner lasts forever. So if a user after some time finds an email that asks him “Would you like to be a group owner?” and clicks Yes – he/she will be a group owner, even if the policy is already updated or removed.
As per Microsoft, only first two members can accept the ownership of an ownerless group. No additional members are allowed to accept ownership. If either one or two members accept ownership, other members won’t receive further notifications.
Q: Can I customize an ownership notification? A: Yes, but – E-mail message body is limited to ~1040 character – Policy does not provide any WYSIWYG rich text format, but you still can format it – headers, bold/italic, links, bullets/lists: more on email template format.
A member can forward invitation message, but recipient will not see actionable “Yes” “No” buttons.
Who can create Microsoft 365 Groups
It is possible to limit users – who can create Microsoft 365 Groups (please refer to Microsoft: Manage who can create Microsoft 365 Groups – there is a guide and PowerShell code sample). This might help to keep the environment under control – let say, “only managers can create groups”, or “contractor should not be able to create teams”.
It would be good if the configuration would be consistent in terms “if a user cannot create a group – user cannot be a group owner”. Unfortunately, with current configuration options (Aug 2022), this is not the case. Azure AD Directory Setting “GroupCreationAllowedGroupId” works only for creation. Later, when the group is create – it is possible to add to group as a group owner those who is not able to create group.
Issues
“Ownerless group policy configuration failed” error message. And “Failure in configuring ownerless groups policy” and “Please try again.” – seems like a permission issue. SharePoint admin, Teams admin or Group admin roles: cannot configure Ownerless Groups Policy. Global admin: yes, can configure Ownerless Microsoft 365 Groups Policy. What is the minimum role required? According to a recent update of the Microsoft’s article – “A Global administrator can create a policy…”
If I get token with (Graph, MSAL, PnP) and use this token for (Graph API, SharePoint CSOM API, SharePoint REST API) matrix.
An App used in this tests has Sites.FullControl.All MS Graph API and SharePoint API permissions, as well as FullControl ACS based permissions to SharePoint (AppInv.aspx).
What if you want specific users do not appear in Microsoft 365 SharePoint, Teams or Delve search results?
Solution
Set “ShowInAddressList” Azure AD User object property to false
Details
In many cases we do not need some accounts appear in Microsoft 365 Search. Examples of are:
a) secondary/admin accounts e.g. a person have several roles and several accounts under the same name, e.g. regular user: John Smith John.Smith@contoso.com administrative account: John Smith John.Smith.2@contoso.com
b) role or service accounts like SharePoint_Support@contoso.com
c) non-mail-enabled objects
d) disabled accounts
Getting multiple results for the same one person might confuse users and even lead to miscommunication and broken processes.
Set the profiles AD property msExchHideFromAddressLists to True or Yes,
Sync/wait, so finally SharePoint UPA service SPS-HideFromAddressLists property will be set (msExchHideFromAddressLists AD property is mapped to the UPA SPS-HideFromAddressLists)
Under SharePoint classic search – update query: {searchboxquery} to {searchboxquery} -“SPS-HideFromAddressLists”:1
It works perfect for classic search. The problem is it does not work as expected in modern Microsoft Search.
“People” vertical is not customizable so far. So we cannot change query to do the same trick. But… it seems like Microsoft is working on it so finally it should be done by ootb means.
Here is the current situation on how different services or search entry points respect SPS-HideFromAddressLists property:
So only “People” vertical in Microsoft search does not respect SPS-HideFromAddressLists (msExchHideFromAddressLists).
What about cloud-based accounts (not synchronized from local AD)?
There is a configuration setting “Show in global address list” that does the same job. It’s under Microsoft 365 admin center -> Active Users -> User – Edit -> Mail -> Show in global address list:
And another configuration settings “Hide from global address list (GAL)” under Exchange Admin Center:
(WIP)
User Account
1
2
3
4
5
Enabled
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Licensed (E5)
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
m365 Admin Center: Show in Global Address List
n/a
No
No
Yes
No
Exchange Admin Center: Hide from global address list (GAL)
* – some users can see changes after hours, for some it takes days
Doesn’t it seem confusing we have properties:
“Show in Global Address List” under m365 Admin Center
“Hide from global address list (GAL)” under Exchange Admin Center
“ShowInAddressList” Azure AD User object property
“SPS-HideFromAddressLists” SharePoint User Profile property
Are these properties related to each other?
(WIP) Let’s test it:
Action-Consequences (immediate reaction – minutes if not other mentioned)
“Show in Global Address List” under m365 Admin Center
“Hide from global address list (GAL)” under Exchange Admin Center
“ShowInAddressList” Azure AD User object property
“SPS-HideFromAddressLists” SharePoint User Profile property
New user created, license assigned
Yes
Off
null
False
Uncheck “Show in my organization address list” under Microsoft 365 admin center
No
On
after one minute: null after 24 hours: null
after one minute: False after 24 hours: False
Set “ShowInAddressList” Azure AD User object property to “True”
Yes
Off
True
False
Set “ShowInAddressList” Azure AD User object property to “False”
No
On
False
True
Some findings:
“Show in Global Address List” under m365 Admin Center and “Hide from global address list (GAL)” under Exchange Admin Center – same, i.e. if you change one – another will be updated momentarily But both does not affect “ShowInAddressList” Azure AD User object property and “SPS-HideFromAddressLists” SharePoint User Profile property and vise versa (???)
“SPS-HideFromAddressLists” SharePoint User Profile property is not changeable. If you try to change the property value you’ll get an error message: Set-PnPUserProfileProperty : Property Not Editable: This property can not be modified.
“ShowInAddressList” Azure AD User object property is editable and synchronized to “SPS-HideFromAddressLists” SharePoint User Profile property (takes minutes) but then search crawler must pick this change up (takes hours) to hide/show the user
here Microsoft says: regarding showInAddressList – Do not use in Microsoft Graph. Manage this property through the Microsoft 365 admin center instead. Represents whether the user should be included in the Outlook global address list. See Known issue.
Known issue (Microsoft): showInAddressList property is out of sync with Microsoft Exchange. When querying users through Microsoft Graph, the showInAddressList property may not indicate the same status shown in Microsoft Exchange. We recommend you manage this functionality directly with Microsoft Exchange through the Microsoft 365 admin center and not to use this property in Microsoft Graph.
Results are inconsistent 🙁
Note: Az module works fine too. I.e. Get-AzADUser instead of Get-AzureADUser and Set-AzADUser instead of Set-AzureADUser.
Sites.Selected MS Graph API permissions were introduced by Microsoft in March 2021. One year later, in 2022 they added SharePoint Sites.Selected API permissions.
Why is this so important? Because MS Graph API for SharePoint is still limited and cannot cover all possible needs. I’d estimate: 90% of applications use SharePoint CSOM, so developers have to use AppInv.aspx to provide permissions for their applications to SharePoint API.
But from this moment – having SharePoint API permissions in MS Graph – in theory – we can fully rely on permissions provided in Azure and – in theory – this should allow us disable SharePoint-Apps only principal:
Meantime I’ll test providing SharePoint Sites.Selected API permissions via Graph API call.
(wip) Test set #1: Certificate vs Secret
DisableCustomAppAuthentication: $false (SP-app-only spns are enabled). All applications have “write” access provided to a specific site only. Connecting with Connect-PnPOnline and then test access with Get-PnPSite
App / Get-PnPSite
Secret
Certificate
ACS based (Azure+AppInv)
OK
The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.
MS Graph API Sites.Selected
The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.
The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.
SharePoint API Sites.Selected
OK
OK
MS Graph API + SharePoint API Sites.Selected
Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))
OK
App with no permissions
The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden
The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized
(wip) Test set #2: Sites.Selected SharePoint vs MS Graph (secret)
DisableCustomAppAuthentication = $false (SP-app-only spns are enabled).
All applications have “write” access provided to a specific site only.
Using Client Secret (not a certificate)
Using PnP.PowerShell
Action/Via
SharePoint + MS Graph Sites.Selected “secret”
SharePoint Sites.Selected “secret”
MS Graph Sites.Selected “secret”
Connect-PnPOnline
WARNING: Connecting with Client Secret uses legacy authentication and provides limited functionality. We can for instance not execute requests towards the Microsoft Graph, which limits cmdlets related to Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Flow and Microsoft 365 Groups.
WARNING: Connecting with Client Secret uses legacy authentication and provides limited functionality. We can for instance not execute requests towards the Microsoft Graph, which limits cmdlets related to Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Flow and Microsoft 365 Groups.
WARNING: Connecting with Client Secret uses legacy authentication and provides limited functionality. We can for instance not execute requests towards the Microsoft Graph, which limits cmdlets related to Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Flow and Microsoft 365 Groups.
Get-PnPSite
OK
OK
The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.
Get-PnPList
OK
OK
Get-PnPListItem
OK
OK
Set-PnPSite
Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation.
Set-PnPList
Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation.
Set-PnPListItem
OK
OK
New-PnPList
Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))
Add-PnPListItem
OK
(wip) Test set #3: Read vs Write vs FullControl
DisableCustomAppAuthentication = $false (SP-app-only spns are enabled). All applications have Sites.Selected SharePoint and MS Graph API permissions. Using Client Secret (not a certificate) Using PnP.PowerShell
Read
Write
FullControl
Connect-PnPOnline
WARNING: Connecting with Client Secret uses legacy authentication and provides limited functionality. We can for instance not execute requests towards the Microsoft Graph, which limits cmdlets related to Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Flow and Microsoft 365 Groups.
WARNING: Connecting with Client Secret uses legacy authentication and provides limited functionality. We can for instance not execute requests towards the Microsoft Graph, which limits cmdlets related to Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Flow and Microsoft 365 Groups.
WARNING: Connecting with Client Secret uses legacy authentication and provides limited functionality. We can for instance not execute requests towards the Microsoft Graph, which limits cmdlets related to Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Flow and Microsoft 365 Groups.
Get-PnPSite
Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))
Get-PnPList
Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))
Get-PnPListItem
Set-PnPSite
Set-PnPList
Set-PnPListItem
New-PnPList
Add-PnPListItem
(wip) Test set #5: Certificate vs Secret
C#, SharePoint CSOM, PnP.Framework
Findings
PnP.PowerShell Get-, Grant-, Set- and Revoke-PnPAzureADAppSitePermission cmdlets require Azure App with MS Graph Sites.FullControl.All app permissions (otherwise it says “Access denied”) and authentication via certificate (otherwise it says “This cmdlet does not work with a ACS based connection towards SharePoint.”)
The same actions – managing permissions for the client app to the specific site collections – could be done via Microsoft Graph Sites Permissions API using just secret-based authentication.
If an azure app does not have Sites.Selected API permissions configured – “Grant-PnPAzureADAppSitePermission” works as expected – no error messages – the output is normal – as if Sites.Selected API permissions were configured in the app. The same for Get-, -Set and Revoke-. Permissions provided for the app to the site are not effective though: Connect-PnPOnline works well, but all other commands – starting from Get-PnPSite – returns “The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.”
If an app have no permissions to SharePoint – “Connect-PnPOnline” works ok, but “Get-PnPSite” return an error: “The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.”
Set-PnPAzureADAppSitePermission gives an error message “code”:”generalException”,”message”:”General exception while processing” if the site is not specified.
AppInv is not working?
Error: Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))