The Conundrum of Restoring Soft-Deleted Groups: A Deep Dive

When it comes to managing groups within an organization, there is often a need to delete or remove certain groups that are no longer needed. However, there may be instances where a group is deleted by mistake or a decision is made to restore the group later on. This is where the concept of “soft delete” comes into play.

A “soft delete” refers to a method of deleting a group without permanently removing it from the system. Instead, the group is hidden or archived and can be restored at a later date if needed. However, despite the ability to restore a soft-deleted group, it is not always a simple task.

One major issue is that restoring a soft-deleted group often requires the assistance of an administrator or someone with access to the appropriate permissions. This can be a problem if the person who deleted the group no longer has access to the system or if the administrator is unavailable. Additionally, restoring a soft-deleted group may not always result in the group being fully restored to its original state. This is because the group may have been modified or deleted by other users since it was originally soft-deleted.

Another issue is that restoring a soft-deleted group may not be possible at all, depending on the system or platform being used. For example, some systems do not allow for the restoration of soft-deleted groups, and the group must be recreated from scratch.

Investigation

1. Check with customer current values on group property EmailAddresses using EXO PowerShell Module

Get-UnifiedGroup “groupname” -IncludeSoftDeletedGroups|fl Identity, EmailAddresses
Identity       : Soft Deleted Objects\groupname_6fedbf86-1111-1111-1111-11111111
EmailAddresses : {smtp:alias1@contoso.com, SMTP:alias1@contoso.onmicrosoft.com}

1. Check if any contact contains the same values
   Get-Contact -Filter {WindowsEmailAddress -like “*alias1@contoso.com” -or WindowsEmailAddress -like “*alias1@contoso.onmicrosoft.com”}|fl Identity,WindowsEmailAddress
2. Check if any mailbox contains the same values
   Get-Mailbox -Filter {EmailAddresses -like “*alias1@contoso.com” -or EmailAddresses -like “*alias1@contoso.onmicrosoft.com”}|fl Identity, EmailAddresses
3. Check if any group contains the same values
   Get-UnifiedGroup -Filter {EmailAddresses -like “*alias1@contoso.com” -or EmailAddresses -like “*alias1@contoso.onmicrosoft.com”}|fl Identity, EmailAddresses

Alternatively you can use the command bellow

$GName = Read-Host -Prompt “Provide affected Group Name”
$aliases = @()
$aliases = (Get-UnifiedGroup “$GName” -IncludeSoftDeletedGroups).EmailAddresses<br>
if(!$aliases) {Write-Host “Not found group with name $($GName)” -ForegroundColor Red}else{
ForEach ($alias in $aliases) {
$alias = (($alias) -split ‘:’,2)[1]
$filter1 = ‘{EmailAddresses -like “*’+$alias+'”}’
$filter2 = ‘{WindowsEmailAddress -like “*’+$alias+'”}’
Write-Host “Checking Contact for $($alias)” -ForegroundColor Green
Get-Contact -Filter $filter2|select Identity,WindowsEmailAddress
Write-Host “Checking Mailbox for $($alias)” -ForegroundColor Green
Get-Mailbox -Filter $filter1|select Identity, EmailAddresses
Write-Host “UnifiedGroup Contact for $($alias)” -ForegroundColor Green
Get-UnifiedGroup -Filter $filter1|select Identity, EmailAddresses
}
}

Resolution

After finding the object that contains the same alias, ask to customer to check if this object is on AAD or AD, remove this value and restore the group

Conclusion

while the ability to restore a soft-deleted group may seem like a useful feature, it is not always a simple task and may not be possible in all cases. It is important for organizations to understand the limitations of restoring soft-deleted groups and to have a plan in place for dealing with accidental deletions.

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