Manage Versioning in SharePoint to Reduce Space with Orchestry

They say the best things in life are free, but unfortunately, this does not include SharePoint storage.

In fact, as the Director of Success at Orchestry, when I am on boarding new partners and customers one of the things most are looking to do is initiate proper lifecycle management so that they can free up SharePoint storage space.  

One of the usual suspects for eating up SharePoint space is document drafts and even old major versions. While the version is a vital piece of document management, it’s good to be aware of the amount of space versions consume.  

In the Microsoft Learn article on  Versioning in SharePoint we are given the details: 

“All versions count against your SharePoint storage usage, as do files in the recycle bins and files preserved due to retention policies. In calculating the SharePoint storage usage, the full file size of each version counts towards the total usage. For example, if only metadata changes were made to a 10 MB file with no change to its file size, the total storage usage will be 10 MB (original version) + 10 MB (updated version) = 20 MB.” 

Ok… so how do we ensure versioning is enabled as needed but doesn’t overrun our site storage quota?

Great question! You’ve come to the right place. 😉  

Versioning in SharePoint

By default, SharePoint document libraries are created with versioning set to 500 major versions and no drafts. This can be adjusted in the Library Settings of each library.  

With Orchestry you can configure the libraries in your Live Templates to ensure the appropriate number of versions are set for all sites (including Teams connected team sites and communication site) at the time of provisioning.    

I tested Orchestry’s version settings capabilities by changing my live template’s Shared Documents versions to be 300 major/100 minor.

Fun fact: You can’t have fewer than 100 versions. I tried. #NotReallyFun 

Image: Testing Orchestry's version capabilities by changing the live template’s Shared Documents versions to 300 major/100 minor.

I then created a secondary library called Reference Content and set its versioning to 100 major versions and no drafts. 

 Image: Testing Orchestry's version capabilities by changing the live template’s Shared Documents versions to 100 major and no drafts. 

I then provisioned  a Team based on this template and the custom versioning settings were respected. 🎉 

Department Reference Content: 

Image of cloned site settings. 

It really is as simple as that! Once you know what your organization’s content owners, editors, and compliance team need (and what’s nice to have) versioning settings can be managed at provisioning, to reduce the impact of versions on your SharePoint storage.  

A couple tips on document versioning: 

1. Make sure versioning is configured to meet the content creator’s needs and is in line with any compliance/governance policies. 

1. Even if a specific number of document versions are not required from a compliance stance it can still be a helpful safety net for content creators and editors.  

And remember, Orchestry’s handling of versioning isn’t limited to workspace templates and provisioning. When lifecycle management policies are in place, and it’s time to archive, we got you covered!