Create SharePoint Site policies
Today’s blog post will be about creating site policies in SharePoint. Site policies are a great way to manage site collections without the admin overhead part!
This applies to SharePoint on-prem as well as SharePoint Online (in Office 365) – For this post, we’ll use SharePoint Online.
Create a site policy
First step is to create a site policy for a given Site Collection. In order to achieve that, log into your Site Collection with admin rights –> click on the “gear icon” on the top right corner –> choose Site settings.
Under “Site Collection Administration” » click on Site Policies.
When you are on the Site Policies page, click on on “Create” to create a new policy. Give your policy a Name and a Description (recommended!)
Under “Site Closure and Deletion“, we are now presented with 3 choices:
Do not close or delete automatically (default) In this case, everything will need to be done manually.
Delete sites automatically In this case, you choose a date when the site will be deleted from the moment the site owner has closed the site (manually – this will be the trigger). Site owners can postpone the deletion if you ticked the box “Owners can postpone imminent deletion for….“
Close and delete sites automatically In this case, you choose everything from the start. When to close the site, and when to delete it – This is the most automated way to manage Site Collections. Again, site owners have the possibility to postpone the deletion if you ticked the box “Owners can postpone imminent deletion for….“
Make the site Read-Only – Note that you can change the site into a rad-only mode by ticking the checkbox.
Once finished, click on OK.
Apply the new policy
To apply a site policy, click on the “gear icon” –> Site settings –> Site closure and deletion (under Site Administration) and Select the site policy from the drop-down menu, then click on OK.
If you go back to “Site closure and deletion“, you have now (rough) dates as to when the site is to be closed, and deleted (in our example).
If you look closely, you can see that the “close site now” button is available. That’s because I’m logged in with an Site Collection Admin account… 😏
From an account that is in the Owners group (full control), this is slightly different!
Now start reducing the admin overhead, and avoid keeping site collections not in use anymore!