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How to Find and Manage Ownerless Microsoft Teams in Microsoft 365

Are you increasing the risk of data breaches and security threats without assigning the owner to the orphaned Microsoft Teams? Look no further! Here are the ultimate findings to efficiently get your teams without owner report. Choose the better one!

Native Solution

Microsoft 365 Permission Required

High

Global Admin or Teams Admin.

Option 1 Using Teams Admin Center

  • Navigate to the Teams admin center.
  • Under Teams, click ‘Manage teams’ which will show all the teams that have been created in your organization.
  • If a specific team has no owner in it, you will see the warning icon placed near the owner's count in the respective team row.
Using Teams Admin Center

Option 2 Using Windows PowerShell

  • As we all know, the M365 group will be created at the time of team creation. Thus, we can get the teams without owners by simply running the following cmdlet.
  • But make sure to run the ‘Connect-ExchangeOnline’ cmdlet before running the below one.
  • Windows PowerShell Windows PowerShell 
     Get-UnifiedGroup -Filter {ResourceProvisioningOptions -eq 'Team'} | Where-Object {-Not $_.ManagedBy}
  • The above cmdlet lists all the Teams-enabled Microsoft 365 groups that have no owners assigned to them.

Option 3 Using PowerShell Script

  • Since there is no way to get complete orphaned teams report with a single cmdlet, we have prepared a PowerShell script to find teams without owner details efficiently.
  • Download and run the following script in the Administrator PowerShell by navigating to the script path.
FindOrphanedTeams.ps1
Using PowerShell Script
AdminDroid Solution
More than 150 reports are under the free edition.

AdminDroid Permission Required

Delegated

Any user with report access delegated by the Super Admin.

StepsUsing AdminDroid

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  • Open the AdminDroid Office 365 Reporter.
  • Navigate to 'Teams Without Owners' report under Reports»Teams»Teams Membership section.
Using AdminDroid

Get the entire list of ownerless teams and details such as team name, total channels & their type, archive status, etc.

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  • Also, an inbuilt bird’s eye view and charts are available for the report - making it easier to analyze and get teams without owners.
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Simple yet the best! Isn't it?

Don't let the orphaned Teams go unnoticed again – Streamline your Teams ownership management with AdminDroid effectively!

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Important Tips

Each team should have at least two active team owners for proper Microsoft Teams governance.

Ensure timely management of ownerless Microsoft 365 teams. Check the teams’ ownership works efficiently to enhance your organization’s productivity.

Enforce archive a team instead of deleting the orphaned teams if an appropriate team owner cannot be identified.

Microsoft TeamsFind Teams Without Owners to Avoid Unmanaged Teams in Microsoft 365

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What happens if a team has no owner? When will the team become ownerless? Can ownerless teams pose a risk in Microsoft 365? How to monitor orphaned teams in Microsoft Teams? What to do when you find ownerless teams? How to manage orphaned teams with group ownership governance policy?

What happens if a team has no owner?

Every admin should know about the issues or problems they face if one of their teams in Microsoft Teams does not have an owner. Below are a few essential parameters that the admin should consider rectifying the situation.

  • No way to manage the team settings: Without an owner, members can’t add or remove members, edit team settings, or manage channels. This can confuse and decrease productivity within the team.
  • No members can delete the team: In case the team is no longer needed, and there is no owner to delete it, the team will continue to exist, which can’t be deleted by any of the team members.
  • No one can add external guests: Without an owner, no one can invite external guests to the team, limiting collaboration and communication with external stakeholders.
  • No restrictions to share files: Members can share any type of file in the team channels, resulting in significant data loss and organizational damage.
  • No owner to manage the storage quota: Team members can’t manage the storage quota if there is no owner in the team. Team groups will automatically get into read-only mode and lock the members inside it.
  • No members can join public Teams: Users are unable to join desired public teams if there are no owners in a respective team.

When will the team become ownerless?

Microsoft Teams can become ownerless if

  • Teams' owner left the company.
  • The owner's account is deleted or disabled in Microsoft 365.
  • Inactive owner account resulting in the removal of owner permissions.
  • Last team owner losing access to their account.
  • Any technical issues resulting in the loss of Teams ownership permissions and more.

Can ownerless teams pose a risk in Microsoft 365?

Even though the owner was removed from the team, members can still be able to collaborate via chats, calls or sharing files. However, they pose severe security threats which can lead to drastic data leaks, unauthorized access, or other Office 365 security breaches. In addition to this, there may be high risks when the team has guests or external users as members of it.

The greater the crowd, the larger the uncertainty; Every guest may pose a potential threat!

Using AdminDroid, you can easily encounter a number of guests in ownerless teams and predict the team’s health.

  • To find any guest user present in the orphaned Office 365 teams groups, you can check the ‘Guest Count’ column present in the Microsoft Teams Without Owner report.

How to monitor orphaned teams in Microsoft Teams?

Having an owner in a team is crucial for effective Microsoft Teams management, security, and collaboration. You can get the orphaned teams list from Microsoft 365 in the below ways:

  • Teams Admin Center To get the ownerless teams in the Teams admin center, navigate to ‘Manage Teams’ under Teams section.
  • Microsoft PowerShellRun the PowerShell script provided and get the detailed ownerless teams report.

However, the Teams admin center requires manual searching of teams, and PowerShell does not offer an easy way to find and manage the ownerless teams.

With AdminDroid, you can instantly monitor the orphaned teams without looking any further.

  • We recommend you to 'Quick Schedule' the report periodically to your email by following the below steps.
  • You can also check whether the particular schedule has been created by navigating to the 'Schedule Reports' page in your AdminDroid portal.
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What to do when you find ownerless teams?

If you identify teams without owners, you can perform the following steps to efficiently manage them before posing any severe issues inside your organization.

  • Know the purpose of the team and its active members to decide adding the new owner.
  • If the team is active, it is better to discuss with the team members who they would prefer as the new team owner.
  • Once you have finalized the new owner, communicate the change to all the members of the team. So that they can directly ask any team-related queries to the right person.
  • Last but not least, regularly review teams to make sure that they have at least one owner to take control.

Steps to Assign a New Owner to Orphaned Teams:

  • Navigate to Teams admin center as Global admin or Teams admin.
  • Click ‘Manage Teams’ under ‘Teams’ and then select the team that has no owner.
  • Now, add the desired user as a member by hitting the ‘+Add’ option in the ‘Members’ tab.
  • Once the user has been successfully added, you can change the Member role to the Owner in the ‘Role’ column.

Note : However, if you wish to promote a team member to the owner, you can just change the role of the member.

How to manage orphaned teams with group ownership governance policy?

You can automate the orphaned teams’ management by configuring the ‘Ownerless teams policy’. It can be achieved by enabling an ‘ownerless group governance policy’. Once configured, this policy sends an invite notification weekly to the most active members of a team to take control of team ownership.

Navigate to the Microsoft 365 admin center and follow the below steps to enable the ownerless groups policy:

  • Go to Settings»Org settings»Microsoft 365 Groups.
  • Select the check box, “When there is no owner, email and ask active group members to become an owner”.
  • You can keep the default policy or configure your policy. To create the custom policy, specify the members to whom you want to send ownerhsip notifications.
  • Select the sender on the ‘Who is this email coming from page’ and click Next.
  • You can also include a message and a policy guideline URL on the ‘Subject and message page’. Then, specify the groups or teams that you want to include in this policy.
  • Finally, click Finish once you have confirmed all the configured settings for the policy.

To ease your orphaned teams' management, AdminDroid’s management crew is already working on providing end-to-end Teams governance to regularly check your Microsoft Teams environment.

  • AdminDroid allows you to directly access the teams without owners' report in different formats without much effort.
  • You can directly click on the 'Email this report now' option to email the report along with the details to the desired recipient.
  • Also, you can save the report in your local system by hitting the ‘Download’ button.
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AdminDroid Teams ReporterMaking the hunt for ownerless Microsoft Teams a breeze!

Being a one-stop solution for all Microsoft 365 admins, AdminDroid Teams reporting and auditing tool lets you identify and manage ownerless teams without running any difficult PS scripts.

Out-of-the-box capabilities that AdminDroid offers you to manage Microsoft Teams orphaned groups:

Teams Without Owners report under Reports»Teams»Teams Membership will provide you with detailed information on teams without owners that includes total channels, standard channels, private channels, archive status, etc.

A Quick Summary

Centralized Overview of Ownerless Teams

Effortlessly locate all teams without owners and related, Microsoft Teams reports, accumulated in a single and accessible location.

Efficient Owner Assignment

Monitor orphaned teams, swiftly assign a new team owner and ensure that it is acknowledged and understood by the respective team members.

Detailed Information Access

Gain more than just insight into ownerless teams. Acquire detailed, Teams membership insights and settings for a more in-depth analysis.

Automated Report Generation

Schedule teams without owners report and have it delivered straight to your email, keeping you constantly informed about the status of ownerless teams.

Customizable Report Export

Adapt and, export ownerless teams report to suit your specific needs. You can email these Microsoft Teams reports in various formats, tailored to your use case.

Hassle-Free Auto Syncing

Eliminate the need for manual syncing, ensuring you always have the most recent information on ownerless teams at your fingertips.

Overall, AdminDroid empowers you to effectively get the ownerless teams and their details without any interruptions. You can also track ownership changes' activities in teams and private channels, ensuring that you have complete control over all the teams in your Microsoft Teams.

Kickstart Your Journey with AdminDroid

Your Microsoft 365 Companion with Enormous Reporting Capabilities!

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Common Errors and Resolution Steps for Ownerless Teams Management

The following are possible errors and troubleshooting hints while dealing with ownerless teams in Microsoft Teams.

Error: The team does not have an owner.

When the user tries to click ‘Join’ to get added to the desired ‘Public’ team that has no owner, they won’t be able to join instead they get the error message.

Troubleshooting hint :Assign a new owner to the team. 

Add-TeamUser –GroupId <TeamId> - User <UserIdentity> -Role Owner

Error: We're having trouble creating your channel. Please try again later.

Team members can’t add any type of channel to the ownerless team in Microsoft Teams.

Troubleshooting hint :You can promote a member to an owner of a team. 

Set-TeamUser –GroupId <TeamId> - User <UserIdentity> -Role Owner

Error: Get-UnifiedGroup : The term ‘Get-UnifiedGroup’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

This error will occur while you are running the ‘Get-UnifiedGroup’ cmdlet without connecting to the Exchange Online PowerShell.

Troubleshooting hint :Install and connect to Exchange Online before using this cmdlet. 

Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement

Connect-ExchangeOnline

Error: You cannot run this script on the current system. For more information about running scripts and setting execution policy, see about_Execution_Policies at https:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170

If you have set the execution policy settings to ‘RemoteSigned’, the above error will occur while running the PowerShell script.

Troubleshooting hint :Change the execution policy settings by running the below cmdlet. 

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process -ExecutionPolicy Bypass