feature roll-out is expected to be completed by end of October.
Microsoft has delayed roll-out of this feature. Timeline is now:
Rollout to targeted release tenants will start before end of September 2020. Standard release tenants will start to see the rollout mid-October 2020. Complete rollout is expected before end of November 2020
The new feature will allow administrators to create policy that automatically revokes access to external guests to SharePoint online sites and individual OneDrives after a defined period of time. Such a policy will provide a failsafe limit of guest user access, for example guests who only need temporary access will not retain indefinite access to files and documents.
There are a few things that Microsoft notes about the new feature:
- The policy will not be retroactive and will not apply to guests who have access to files and documents prior to the feature being launched and a policy setup.
- The policy will apply to a user’s access to a specific SharePoint site or individual OneDrive. The user will automatically lose access to all content on that site when the policy threshold is reached.
- Once a guest loses access to a site or OneDrive, any user with the ability to share content externally can re-invite the guest to each document or item as needed.
SharePoint site administrators can extend access at any time up to the limit of the tenant policy, e.g. if the policy has a limit of 10 days, then guest access can be extended by a further 10 days based on current date. Site administrators can extend access multiple times. SharePoint site administrators will also be emailed notifications advising of upcoming guest user access expirations.
The new policy, once available, will need to be enabled and configured in the SharePoint admin centre under the Sharing settings.