When selecting resources for an Access Review, you can configure which resources are included and specify whether the included resource set is determined manually by the tenant admin or automatically using configured criteria.
Resource selection: manual vs dynamic
When creating an Access Review, choose whether resources (such as groups or mailboxes) are added to the review manually or dynamically based on attribute filters. Selecting the review scope in this way defines exactly which resources will be assessed during each review cycle.
Manual selection
Use manual selection when you, as the administrator, want to explicitly determine which specific resources are included in a non-recurring (one-time) Access Review. In this case, only the items you select will be evaluated.
To configure manual resource selection:
- Select “Manual selection” in the resource selection interface.
- In the displayed list, mark the checkboxes next to each resource to include it in the Access Review. To select all displayed resources, use the uppermost checkbox.
If you need to include additional resources in a future review, start a new review cycle and choose the required resources during setup. Resources chosen in the original configuration remain fixed for that particular review instance.
Dynamic selection
Dynamic selection is used for periodic (scheduled recurring) Access Reviews where all available resources are included. With this option, the resource list is determined dynamically for each review cycle.
To configure dynamic resource selection:
- Select “Dynamic selection” in the resource selection interface.
- When using this selection, resource checkboxes are not available because resources for review are determined by the system according to the configured filters.
Each recurring review will include all resources that match the specified criteria at the time of review execution. Resources added to the environment after the review was initially created will be picked up in the next scheduled review cycle if they meet filter requirements.
For example, suppose a recurring review is configured for all Teams groups (selected dynamically) on August 25th. The first review is scheduled to begin on September 1st and will recur every 90 days. If 10 new Teams groups are created on August 30th, these groups will not be included in the review that begins on September 1st. However, they will be included in the next review cycle, which starts 90 days later, on November 29th.
If you do not use the dynamic selection, only the resource set chosen during the initial manual setup is included in future review cycles. To review resources that are newly added after the review was created, you will have to initiate a new review.
For specific steps on scheduling and configuration, refer to “Configure and schedule Access Reviews”.