SharePoint Storage Suddenly Lower than Expected? Be on the Lookout for This!

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about many changes in the professional world. One such change was an increased focus on remote work and collaboration. Microsoft responded to this change by accelerating their rollout of Microsoft Teams – the Modern Workplace successor of Skype. As remote work became a necessity, the reality was that many companies were not equipped to handle such a transition. Bringing people together when offices were closed and people were spread out was a problem! Many companies that had previously not practiced the concept of Modern Work were compelled overnight to invest in now necessary solutions. Again, Microsoft responded to this need by allowing Teams to be deployed swiftly through trial licenses. This strategy drove adoption by giving companies the option to do test deployments in their own environments - a great way to help ease into what was an abrupt transition due to necessity.

In creating these test deployments, the product was differentiated from the rest of the stack by introducing it as ‘Teams Exploratory’ licenses. These licenses not only gave companies the chance to deploy and rollout the new working normal, but it also helped accelerate cloud adoption by imparting OneDrive and SharePoint storage. Proving extremely valuable during the 12-month trial period, many upgraded their Microsoft 365 subscriptions to plans inclusive of Teams, thus negating the need for the Exploratory licenses. However, these licenses do not just go away once they are no longer used; they expire after 12 months (part of the T&C’s of the trial) at which time they will go away if not converted properly to paid licenses.

So what’s the challenge?

Recently, I assisted a client who lost 1 TB of SharePoint storage space seemingly overnight. Upon further review and confirmation from Microsoft support, we determined that the space “disappearing” was by design, as the SharePoint storage was removed as part of the Team Exploratory licensing expiration. This caused a bit of concern for the client, as they were utilizing this storage space as though they truly had it to use, when in fact it was a byproduct of provisioned and forgotten trial licenses. Through a team effort, we provisioned extra storage space to cover what was removed and resolved this challenge to satisfaction.

These challenges can be avoided by planning, auditing, and monitoring expiration dates of trial licenses. Often, due to the lack of cost associated with them, trial licenses can fly under the radar until they are noticed in issues such as this. Need a hand getting ahead of these issues as well as getting licensing tuned up for optimal cost-savings and functionality for YOUR organization? FMT Consultants can help! WE DO THIS EVERY DAY!

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