Lifecycle Management

Last updated on • 7 min read

Summary

Starting with version 3.0, you can create template level life cycle policies, so that all the workspaces created with a template will be automatically archived based on a life cycle policy. Life cycle policies are only available for Valo Teamwork Enterprise customers.

Lifecycle policies can be created based on workspace inactivity, based on workspace creation date or based on Date and Time metadata.

Renewal notifications are emailed to workspace owners 60 days, 30 days, 15 days and one day before the workspace is automatically archived. Workspace owners must have Exchange licenses to receive notification emails. During the renewal period workspace owners can extend the lifecycle policy either from the Group Info panel or from the Workspace Summary web part. If a workspace is not renewed, it is archived along with its associated content from sources such as SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.

In addition to assigning policies to templates, it is also possible to apply life cycle policy to existing workspace.

Create New Lifecycle Policy

To create a new life cycle policy, navigate to the Teamwork Admin page, for example, https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/teamworkadmin, and open the Settings tab.

Under Policies/Lifecycle, click on New Policy and fill in the policy details in the Create new Teamwork policy panel:

  • Title - name for the lifecycle policy
  • Description - optional, description for the lifecycle policy
  • Archiving in days - set a lifetime value for workspaces either using predefined values or by adding a value manually. The lifetime value must be greater than or equal to 180 days.
  • Archiving mode - choose the archiving mode
    • Archive based on creation
    • Archive based on inactivity
    • Archive based on Date and Time metadata
  • Email contact for workspaces with no owners - to witch email address notification emails are sent if workspaces has no owners

  • Logic App/Power Automate URL - optional, a POST request will be sent to that configured URL when an auto archiving is performed. The body of the request is designed with the following JSON-schema to contain 4 string values which are posted in the body of the request:

    {
    "properties": {
        "groupId": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "webUrl": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "displayName": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "archivingStatus": {
            "type": "string"
        }        
    },
    "type": "object"
}

Click on Create and Finish.

Create new Teamwork policy

Archiving modes

The auto archiving process supports three archiving modes:

  • Archive based on creation: Archives a workspace based on the creation date of the workspace.

  • Archive based on inactivity: Archives a workspace based on inactivity inside a workspace. A back-end process runs on a daily basis and collects activity information for each group-based workspace in the tenant. The calculated last activity date is used as part of the auto archiving process as well as in the Groups tab to support sorting and filtering based on this value.

    The last activity date used to calculate the time before auto archiving is based on the following formula: Last activity date from the Microsoft report + (the difference between the date when the Microsoft report was generated and today). * Archive based on Date and Time metadata: Archives a workspace based on a metadata field of the workspace. This requires the metadata field to have a valid value that can also change during the lifetime of the workspace, causing the auto archiving process to recalculate the time before archiving for the workspace.

Assign Lifecycle Policy to Template

To assign a lifecycle policy to a template, navigate to Teamwork Admin page, for example, https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/teamworkadmin, and open Templates tab.

Select Edit template behind three dots next to template you wish to edit. Expand the Policies section form the Edit template panel. Select the policy from Lifecycle Policies dropdown and click on Save

Assign lifecycle policy to template

Note

Selected life cycle policy will be applied to all workspaces created based on this template.

When users are ordering a new workspace from Teamwork dashboard there is an icon next to Template name indicating that the template has lifecycle policy associated. Users can see more information about the assigned policy by hovering the icon.

Order new workspace template listing with assigned policies

Apply Lifecycle Policy to Existing Workspaces

Administrators can assign lifecycle policies to existing workspaces from Teamwork Admin site. Lifecycle policy can be added to one or more workspaces at the same time. If workspaces already have some other lifecycle policy assigned, it will be overridden by the new one.

Apply lifecycle policy to existing workspaces

  • Navigate to Teamwork admin site, e.g https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/teamworkadmin
  • Open Groups tab
  • Select one or more groups from groups listing
  • Click on Apply lifecycle button
  • Choose the lifecycle policy to be applied from drop down

Apply lifecycle policy to existing workspaces

Customize email templates

Administrators can modify the default lifecycle email notification templates from Teamwork Admin site. Valo Teamwork has two default templates for lifecycle notifications:

  • ArchivingNotificationTemplate.html - used when notification about workspace archiving is sent
  • RenewalNotificationTemplate.html - used when notifications about renewal is sent

Modify renewal notification template

  • Navigate to Teamwork admin site, e.g https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/teamworkadmin
  • Open Site Contents to view site's content
  • Open Teamwork admin assets list
  • Open Email Templates folder
  • Open Email Templates folder
  • Edit the notification template html file either in browser or using the editor you want
    • do not change the file name
    • email content can be found from end of the template inside tags
    • there are few variables that are replaced by the code with the information about workspace to be archived
      • {teamworkWorkingplaceName} - name of the workspace to be archived
      • {teamworkSharePointAddress} - url address of the SharePoint site of the workspace to be archived
      • {teamworkDaysLeft} - how many days are left before workspace is archived
  • Save the template

Localize email templates

In case there is need to localize email notification templates, it is possible to translate the email content with the steps mentioned above and save the file using the language culture name in the end of the file name, for example:

  • archiving notification for Japan: ArchivingNotificationTemplate.JP.html
  • archiving notification for Swedish: ArchivingNotificationTemplate.SE.html
  • archiving notification for Finnish: ArchivingNotificationTemplate.FI.html
  • renewal notification for Japan: RenewalNotificationTemplate.JP.html
  • renewal notification for Swedish: RenewalNotificationTemplate.SE.html
  • renewal notification for Finnish: RenewalNotificationTemplate.FI.html

Templates can be created with Language code in form of "XX", "xx" or "xx-YY", however preferred way on to set up language specific templates is using "XX" code. This way eliminates language variant specific templates, for example German variants de-DE, de-AT, de-CH will be covered by single template with DE code.

Examples of template name patterns:

  • TemplateName.XX.html
  • TemplateName.xx.html
  • TemplateName.xx-YY.html

Both ways of setting up the templates names with specific language variant are supported because of backwards compatibility.

Notifications will be send based on user's preferred language user property, and if there isn't template for user's preferred language, the default template (without language culture name) will be used.

Modify existing lifecycle policy

To edit an existing life cycle policy navigate to Teamwork Admin page, e.g. https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/teamworkadmin, and open Policies tab.

Locate the policy you wish to edit from policies list and click on Edit Policy to open the Edit Policy panel and edit the policy information.

Click on Save after the needed changes are done.

Warning

Note that any changes made will affect the templates and workspaces that are currently using the policy

Modify life cycle policy

Delete life cycle policy

To delete an existing life cycle policy navigate to Teamwork Admin page, e.g. https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/teamworkadmin, and open Policies tab.

Locate the policy you wish to delete from policies list and click on Delete Policy. Click on Delete to confirm the deletion.

Delete life cycle policy

Life cycle information

In case workspace has life cycle policy applied the policy information is shown in following places:

  • Group info
  • Workspace summary web part
  • Groups listing in Teamwork Admin (only text)

Life cycle info in group info / workspace summary

Life cycle information in workspace summary web part with the option to expand lifecycle

Life cycle info in groups listing

Life cycle information in Teamwork Admin site Groups tab