Stop stale workspaces from becoming permanent clutter.
nBold automatically detects inactive Microsoft Teams and SharePoint workspaces, notifies owners, then archives or deletes on schedule — stale workspaces retire themselves.
Without lifecycle rules, the workspace stays forever.
In most tenants, workspaces multiply faster than anyone can review them. Doing the cleanup by hand never scales — so it never happens, and the cost compounds quietly in storage, search quality, security exposure, and IT overhead.
Search quality degrades
Users wade through stale, inactive workspaces to find the ones they actually need.
Storage costs inflate
Inactive workspaces keep accumulating SharePoint file version history with no one cleaning it up.
Security exposure grows
Abandoned workspaces can still hold active guest access to sensitive documents long after the work ends.
IT spends time firefighting
Reviewing and cleaning up workspaces one by one becomes a recurring tax on the team's time.
Attach lifecycle rules once — then let them run.
Attach lifecycle rules to templates once, and every workspace provisioned from that template runs the same policy automatically. Owners stay in control — IT only steps in when it actually needs to.
Inactivity detection
nBold monitors workspace activity across the tenant. When a workspace crosses its configured threshold without activity, it enters the lifecycle motion — automatically, with no IT review.
Owner notification
The workspace owner is notified with a direct link, asked to confirm whether the workspace is still in use. The decision sits with the people closest to the work, not with IT making calls about workspaces they don’t own. Respond, and the inactivity clock resets.
Grace period
After the first notification, nBold waits a configurable grace period before acting. A reminder goes out partway through, and a final notice before any irreversible step. Owners can keep the workspace active at any point in this window.
Automatic action
If no owner responds, nBold runs the action set for that template — flag for review, archive, or delete. The estate stays clean on its own, and every step is recorded.
Three outcomes — configured per template.
When the grace period ends with no response, nBold runs the action you configured for that template type. Not every workspace deserves the same ending — a renewal workspace, a project space, and a regulated client workspace each carry different expectations.
Flag for review
nBold marks the workspace as inactive in the admin view but takes no automatic action. IT acts manually via bulk operations when ready. Use this where a human should look before anything irreversible happens.
Archive
The workspace is set to read-only. Content stays accessible and searchable; members can view but not post or edit. Use this when the workspace may be referenced later, or when records must be retained.
Delete
The workspace is permanently removed — reclaiming storage and clearing stale workspaces out of user search. Appropriate for short-lived operational workspaces where retention is not required.
Different thresholds for different workspace types — not one policy for all.
Lifecycle policies apply at the template level. A deal room, a project workspace, and a standing department team each carry different expectations — and different inactivity thresholds, grace periods, and actions.
| Template type | Inactivity threshold | Grace period | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Event coordination workspace | 7 days | 7 days | Delete |
| Sprint / ceremony workspace | 14 days | 7 days | Archive |
| Project workspace | 30 days | 30 days | Archive |
| Deal room | 30 days | 14 days | Archive |
| Account workspace | 90 days | 30 days | Flag for review |
| Department standing team | 90 days | 30 days | Notify only |
All thresholds and actions are configurable per template. These are illustrative examples, not defaults.
No owner is ever surprised.
Workspaces do not vanish without warning. nBold notifies the owner at every stage of the lifecycle motion, and each notification is recorded — a clean trail for change management and compliance reviews.
nBold acts on your Microsoft 365 tenant through the Microsoft Graph API, under a service account you control. ISO 27001 certified and SOC 2 Type II certified.
Works alongside the rest of the platform.
Lifecycle management retires workspaces automatically on a schedule. Bulk operations give admins immediate, targeted control for one-time cleanups, exceptions, and proactive governance changes on existing workspaces. Analytics surfaces the inactivity signals that feed both.
Bulk operations
Filter and act across the whole estate in one pass — for one-time cleanups, proactive governance changes, and restoring or attaching lifecycle to existing workspaces.
Explore Bulk operationsGovernance
Naming, labels, membership, approvals, and lifecycle — applied per template from the moment a workspace is created.
Explore GovernanceSecurity
Runs through the Microsoft Graph API under a service account you control. ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certified.
Explore SecurityFrequently asked questions
Can lifecycle rules vary by workspace type?
Yes. Lifecycle policies are configured per nBold template, not globally. A deal room template can run a 30-day inactivity threshold with auto-archive, while a project template runs a 90-day threshold with a 30-day grace period before delete. Each workspace follows the policy of the template it was built from.
Are owners notified before archival or deletion?
Yes. nBold notifies the workspace owner when inactivity is first detected, again during the grace period, and once more before any action is taken. Owners can respond at any stage to keep the workspace active, which resets the inactivity clock.
Can completed projects be archived automatically?
Yes. Inactive or completed workspaces can be archived or deleted based on the configured lifecycle policy — no IT review needed for each one. The workspace retires itself, and the full sequence is recorded in the audit trail.
Can lifecycle policies be applied to workspaces that already exist?
Yes. Use bulk operations to attach an nBold governance template — including its lifecycle policy — to a filtered selection of existing workspaces. Once attached, the lifecycle policy begins monitoring those workspaces, even ones created before governance was in place.
Can we recover a workspace that was automatically archived?
Yes. Archived workspaces can be restored to active status at any time — by an admin using nBold bulk operations, or through Microsoft’s standard Teams admin tools. If a project restarts or a deal re-opens, restoring takes seconds.
Stale workspaces that retire themselves.
See how nBold lifecycle policies detect inactivity, notify owners, and archive or delete on schedule — without IT reviewing each workspace one by one.