Complete Access Review Tasks
This article provides a full overview of the automated Access Review process in Syskit Point from a site owner's perspective.
Access review, in the context of the Microsoft 365 environment, is an activity where a person responsible for a Microsoft 365 workspace verifies whether permissions are given to users inside (internal) and outside (external) of the company, and comply with the organizational rules and guidelines.
Some examples of such Microsoft 365 workspaces are:
- Communication site
- Microsoft Team
- Microsoft 365 Group
- OneDrive
The Access Review task is usually performed by a site owner and includes:
- Checking if all users - internal and external - have access to the right workspaces.
- Either through being given permissions directly or through group memberships.
- Identify unwanted permissions changes by checking the audit logs.
- Checking if only necessary content is externally shared.
- Performing correcting actions to mitigate errors discovered in previous steps.
Syskit Point provides the tools the site owners need to perform these tasks.
Two different roles can view The Access Review in Syskit Point:
- Site Owner with the Syskit Point Collaborator role assigned in Syskit Point, as described in this article
When working with Access Review, Syskit Point Collaborators can perform the Access Review on workspaces where they are an owner or admin.
For a site owner or admin assigned to the Syskit Point Collaborators role, the Access Review process begins with an email.
If you receive a request to review your collaboration space, your organization has most likely started an automated Access Review policy. That means that occasionally you will be asked to review the sites, teams, and groups you're responsible for.
The importance of doing your part of the work will determine how overall exposed your organization is to potential security risks or outdated sharing practices. Syskit Point is here to help you along the way to ensure you do every step as effectively as possible.
When the Automated Access Review starts, site owners receive an email request to review permissions on their site(s). The email contains the following important data:
- Number of sites an owner needs to review (1); grouped by site type
- Due date of the Access Review (2)
- Review Now button (3)
Access Review request email
The Review Now button opens the Access Review Task screen once clicked. On this screen, you can find:
- Sites you are the owner of and need to review; displayed in the grid.
- Information regarding the Access Review task (1)
Access Review Task screen
From here, you can continue and review a site by clicking the link in the Task column (2) or selecting a row (3) and clicking the Review action (4).
This screen can also be accessed from within Syskit Point by selecting My Tasks.
Once you click to start your Access Review, the next screen is the Access Review Wizard, which guides you through the Access Review process.
The Access Review Wizard has three steps when reviewing OneDrive, and four steps when reviewing Microsoft 365 Groups, Microsoft Teams, or sites.
The following steps are available:
- Overview
- Members (for Microsoft 365 Groups and Microsoft Teams), or Users (for sites)
- This step is not available for OneDrive.
- Sharing
- Summary
These steps are explained in further detail below.
This step provides general information about the workspace that you are about to review. The following is displayed:
- List of owners, along with the Change Owners action (1)
- General workspace information (2)
- Description
- Creation date and time
- Privacy
- Sharing Policy
- Workspace URL
- Last Activity
- When the workspace was last reviewed and by whom (3)
- Who else got this task? information (4)
- This is located in the top right corner. Hover over it to see the full list of users that received the Access Review task.
- Close & Continue Later action (6)
- Clicking this will close the wizard. It can be accessed again through the My Tasks tile.
- Start Review button (7)
- Clicking this continues the process to the next step of the Access Review Wizard.
Access Review wizard - Overview step
The Close & Continue Later option is available on all steps on the left-bottom and enables you to leave the Access Review wizard.
Hint!
If you choose to leave the Access Review Wizard all performed actions take effect immediately and will be visible in the Summary step at the end of the Access Review.
The Members step is the second one that shows when reviewing Microsoft 365 Groups or Microsoft Teams.
Default members are the general users distributed into several groups that include members, visitors, and owners. All other users that are present in your workspace have access that in some way does not fit the default owner, member, or visitor group.
The following options are available:
- Top filters (1); they are helpful when viewing a specific group of users in the workspace:
- Added users - users that have now been added to the workspace
- Removed users - users that have now been removed from the workspace
- Owners - the owners of the workspace
- Members - current members of the workspace
- Guests - users that do not usually belong to your organization or team
- When a user is selected (2), several options are available:
- Actions (3); remove members or owners, promote members to owners, or change owners to members.
- User Activity report (4); see all audit logs for the selected user.
- Additional information (5); see the user's latest activity and when it happened.
- When no users are selected, the Add Owners/Members action is available.
- Click Next (6) to continue to the next step of the Access Review Wizard.
Access Review wizard - Members step
The Users step is available when reviewing sites. The following options are available here:
- Top filters (1); choose to view only a certain type of users on site:
- Administrators
- Users with permissions on the site level
- External Users
- When a principal - user, SharePoint group, or a security group - is selected (2); additional options are available:
- Actions (3); based on the type of the selected principal, various actions are available.
- Remove Access
- Edit Permissions
- Delete SharePoint Group
- Change Admins
- User Activity report (4); see all audit logs for the selected user
- Please note that administrators can limit the visibility of audit reports.
- Additional information (5); see the user's latest activity and when it happened
- The Grant Access action is available when no users are selected
- Click Next (6) to continue to the next step of the Access Review Wizard
Access Review wizard - Users step
Please note!
Members/Users step is not available when reviewing permissions for OneDrive.
The Sharing step provides a simple yet detailed overview of all shared content. Multiple filters and views enable you to find shared content that might need to be shared with guest users outside your organization and lets you review that decision.
- Top filters (1) enable you to filter content by sharing type:
- All Shared Content; shows content that has been shared via sharing links or through direct access.
- Use this when wanting to see everything that was shared.
- Shared Outside the Group; selected by default.
- Use it to find content that was shared with users that are not a part of the Microsoft 365 Group or Microsoft Team you are reviewing.
- This can help you determine who should have access to what; for example, a person from your HR shouldn't have access to financial information, or the external consultant that should only have access to a subset of files.
- Shared Externally; shows content shared with specific people outside the organization.
- Shared With Anyone; shows content shared with anyone via sharing links.
- Make sure to examine this content carefully to avoid potential security risks.
- Views (2) enables sharing from two different perspectives; it can be grouped by:
- Content
- Users
- Advanced Filters (3); by default, only the content with unique permissions is visible down to the document level. With the help of the Advanced Filters, you can choose to:
- View content without unique permissions
- View content down to a specific level
- For example, down to the document library or list level.
- When a row is selected (4), available actions are displayed in the side panel (5).
- When no rows are selected, the Permissions Changes report link is visible.
- Click Next (6) to continue to the final step of the Access Review Wizard.
Access Review wizard - Sharing step
Actions displayed in the side panel depend on the type and state of the selected object (1). A file with unique permissions is selected in the image below. The following actions (2) are available in that case:
- Grant access
- Delete Unique Permissions
If an object with permission inheritance is selected, the Stop Inheriting Permissions action is available in the side panel.
The following reports (3) can be generated regardless of the type of the selected object:
- File and Page Activities; please note that administrators can limit the visibility of audit reports.
- Permissions Changes
Access Review wizard - Sharing step - Actions and reports
By switching to the Users view, the top filters are changed accordingly and enable filtering out specific types of users.
The descriptions for all filters can be found by hovering your mouse over the filter tile (1).
Access Review wizard - Sharing step - Users view
In the example above, Microsoft Team was reviewed.
Filters will slightly differ when you review sites or OneDrive since there is no Microsoft 365 Group involved whose members would have access by default. Due to that, the Users Outside the Group filter is not applicable.
Instead, the Access on Child Objects filter is given, showing only users that don't have access on a site level but have access to a specific file or folder.
Access Review wizard - Sharing step - Site
The Summary step gives a recap of all actions performed during the Access Review.
Here, the following is displayed:
- Total number of performed actions grouped by action name (1).
- Grid with all actions (2); includes information on who performed them, when, and other details.
- Export button (3); exports the data in the grid into an XLSX file.
- Complete Review button (4) that opens the Complete Review dialog.
Access Review wizard - Summary step
When the review is completed and if you have detected no security risks to the site, Complete the Access Review.
To complete the Access Review, take the following steps:
- Click the Complete Review button (1); on the bottom of the Summary step, the Complete Review dialog opens.
- Leave a comment; the changes made to ensure the site is secure can be described here.
- The comment is visible to all site owners and Syskit Point Admins.
- Type CONFIRM (3) in the appropriate field.
- Click the Confirm button (4).
Please note! The Complete Review action cannot be undone or edited.
Complete Review dialog
After completing the Access Review for a site, the Review Completed dialog opens, confirming the completion. Click the Close Review button to leave the screen and navigate to the Access Review screen, where the sites needing review can be found.
Review Completed dialog
When the Access Reviews for all sites you are the owner of have been finalized, the Access Review task will be shown as completed.
On the My Tasks screen, under Active Access Review (1), the No Tasks (2) message is displayed.
The completed Access Review task (3) can be found in the Completed section (4), and access task details by clicking the See Task (5) button.
My Tasks - Active
My Tasks - Completed
This opens the Access Review screen for the completed Access Review, where these options are available:
- Select a site (1)
- Click the Review button (2) to open the Review Summary report
My Tasks - Completed
The Review Summary report shows a detailed log of actions performed during the Access Review process and can be exported to an XLSX file (1).
Review Summary Report
After ten days, the Access Review cycle ends.
Syskit Point automatically changes the status of all uncompleted site reviews to Expired.
They can be found on the Access Review task screen.
Access Review - Expired
After the Access Review is completed, expired tasks can no longer be finalized.
With that, the first Access Review cycle is concluded.
The Access Review cycle will repeat based on the schedule defined by the Syskit Point Admin or when manually requested.
- Watch this short video for a quick start on Access Review tasks in Syskit Point.
For information on performing Lifecycle Management tasks as a Syskit Point Collaborator, take a look at the following article:
Last modified 4mo ago