Microsoft 365 Provisioning: How to Stop the Chaos and Start the Control

Uncontrolled Teams, SharePoint and Viva Engage sprawl are draining IT resources and frustrating users. Learn the 5 common provisioning approaches in Microsoft 365, their pitfalls, and how to cut ticket volume, prevent duplicate workspaces, and standardize governance.

The cost of flexibility in Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 powers collaboration, but its flexibility comes at a cost: chaos.

IT teams drown in duplicate sites, inconsistent naming, and user frustration. Leaders worry about compliance, security, and ballooning storage costs. One project spawns a Team, another a SharePoint site, and soon the environment is cluttered with “Pilot” or “Test” sites with no owners.

 As Orchestry’s CEO Michal Pisarek said in our recent webinar: 

“Letting people create whatever they want, wherever they want, and hoping for the best just doesn’t work anymore.”

This challenge, commonly known as “workspace sprawl,” isn’t just an IT problem. It undermines adoption, collaboration, and degrades Copilot results by feeding it poorly labeled, over-exposed content.

Our webinar, “SharePoint, Teams and Viva Engage Provisioning in M365: Stop the Chaos, Start the Control,” explored why provisioning matters more than ever and how organizations can bring order to that chaos.

Why provisioning still matters in 2025

Organizations have wrestled with governance since the early days of SharePoint. But while provisioning isn’t new, the stakes are now higher than ever.

• Findability and ownership collapse: Beyond Teams and SharePoint, users can now start Loop pages, Copilot workspaces, OneNote, and more. The choice overload can produce duplicates and users who don’t know what to use when. 
• Copilot quality drops and exposure risk rises: Tools like Microsoft Copilot require accurate, well-structured content. If workspaces launch without owners, labels, or required metadata, Copilot retrieves noisy results and widens exposure. 
• Shadow IT expands: When users can’t find information or face inconsistent experiences, they bypass governance entirely, creating workarounds outside IT’s control. 
• IT capacity erodes: IT admins spend hours fixing mistakes after the fact, instead of preventing issues at the source. 

As David Francoeur, Director of Product at Orchestry, noted:

“End users often get blank, inconsistent sites that don’t match what Microsoft demos show. That frustration drives disengagement and workarounds.”

Audience pulse: How organizations provision today

During the webinar, the hosts ran a live poll to see how participants currently manage provisioning.

• “Request & Manual IT” dominated among attendees. Users submit tickets; IT staff manually create the Team or site.  
• Native templates were rare. Few reported using Microsoft’s out-of-the-box templates, citing poor discoverability and that templates alone don’t curb sprawl. 
• No one chose the “Limited Freedom” model. This reinforced the point that bottlenecks and inconsistent gatekeepers make it an unpopular choice 

These real-world responses underscore the challenge: most organizations are still choosing between ticket queues and unchecked sprawl.

The five provisioning models in Microsoft 365

During the webinar, we walked through the five common approaches organizations take with provisioning. Think of them as archetypes: not just technical setups, but cultural mindsets.

1. Totally Free – The Wild West 

Everyone can create everything. Fast and easy, but soon your tenant looks like a ghost town of abandoned sites and duplicate Teams.

2. Limited Free – The Deputized Town

Only “power users” can create. Better than chaos, but bottlenecks form, standards vary by gatekeeper, and users still route around rules.

3. Site Templates – The Cookie-Cutter Suburb

Standard templates create uniform structures and faster onboarding, but users can still pick the wrong template or bypass the process entirely.

4. Request & Manual IT – The Bureaucratic City Hall

Users fill out a form, IT builds the site manually. This style offers maximum control, but can be painfully slow. As the queue grows, users become impatient, and shadow IT thrives.

5. Request & Automated – The Gridlocked Metropolis

Automation solves bottlenecks but creates heavy technical debt. Complex scripts need constant maintenance, and the UI is anything but user-friendly.

The takeaway?

Each model solves one problem while creating another. Native options can help, but they rarely deliver speed, consistency, enforcement, and lifecycle at the same time. 

The hidden costs of poor provisioning

Provisioning isn’t just an IT workflow, it shapes how people experience work.

• Lost time and trust. Inconsistent, duplicative sites force employees to hunt for files and recreate work they cannot find, which erodes confidence in the platform. 
• Audit and legal exposure. Missing sensitivity labels, unclear ownership, and weak metadata increase risk and create exposure. 
• Admin capacity drain. Repetitive fixes and cleanup tickets pull IT away from higher-value projects and prevention. 

As David Francoeur said,

“Users don’t hate SharePoint. They hate inconsistency.” 

What smarter provisioning looks like: Orchestry’s approach

Out-of-the-box tools get you started. Orchestry makes governance automatic for IT and simple for end users.

Deep Template Configuration

Orchestry's Workspace Templates Dashboard

Templates do the heavy lifting up front, so every workspace starts compliant and usable. 

• Live templates that evolve as your processes change, no code required. 
• Naming conventions, metadata tagging, sensitivity labels, and approvals built-in. 
• Ability to embed standard documents (like project charters or risk registers) right into templates. 

End-user-friendly experience

Workspace Request Approval 

Requesting a workspace is clear and trackable from one place, in plain language. 

• One app in Teams or SharePoint to request Teams, SharePoint sites, or Viva Engage communities. 
• Guided wizards that ask business questions, not technical ones. 
• Request tracking and approvals so status and ownership are never a mystery. 

Governance by design

End User Provisioning

Controls are enforced at creation, not during cleanup. 

• Minimum owners, consistent naming, and metadata tagging required. 
• Duplicate and sprawl prevention that blocks look-alikes like “Pilot” and near-matches. 
• Configurable policies for security, guest access, external sharing, and lifecycle. 

As Michal Pisarek, CEO of Orchestry, explained:

“Provisioning is not just about speed. It’s about starting governance at the very beginning, instead of chasing problems months later.” 

3 big takeaways for business & IT leaders

1. Chaos is a choice. Leave provisioning wide open and you get duplicate workspaces, unclear ownership, rising storage, and risky sharing. 
2. Templates ≠ governance. They help, but without naming rules, approvals, and lifecycle policies, you’re still vulnerable. 
3. Balance wins. The best provisioning strategy isn’t maximum freedom or maximum lockdown: it’s guided flexibility. Give users a simple request path with built-in rules and clear approvals so IT keeps control without slowing work.

Stop the chaos before it starts

Provisioning isn’t glamorous. It’s the plumbing of Microsoft 365. But without it, every flashy new feature (Copilot, Viva, Loop) sits on shaky foundations. 

The organizations that get this right are the ones who deliver consistent user experiences, keep security airtight, and scale collaboration without drowning in technical debt.

👉 Want to learn more? Book a demo or speak to an expert on our team to see Orchestry in action.