🎯 SharePoint Course · Module 2 of 7
Site Management — Create, Configure & Delete
MS-102 Exam Alignment
MS-102
Manage SharePoint site collections: Create, configure, and delete site collections. Manage storage quotas, site status, site owners and admins, and control who can create Microsoft 365 Groups and sites.
- Know site creation methods: SharePoint admin center (admin-created), user self-service via SharePoint home or Teams (if allowed), and PowerShell
- Know the four site lock states: Unlocked (normal), NoAddAndDeleteFiles (read-only + can’t add/delete), ReadOnly (read-only), NoAccess (completely blocked)
- Know that sites deleted from the admin center go to the Deleted sites recycle bin for 93 days before permanent deletion
- Know that when site creation is restricted to admins, users cannot create M365 Groups directly in Entra ID either — this is a single, unified control point
Exam Tip: The storage quota for SharePoint Online is tenant-wide by default (not per-site). Microsoft allocates 1 TB base storage plus 10 GB per licenced user. You can set maximum storage limits per site to prevent any single site from consuming all available storage — but by default, all sites share from the same pool.
Site collection management is the core operational task of a SharePoint administrator. Every SharePoint site lives within a site collection — a container that holds the site and its sub-sites, content, permissions, and configuration. As an admin, you create site collections, manage their storage and status, assign owners, and delete or restore them as business needs change.
🌐 Creating Site Collections
Site collections can be created in the SharePoint admin center or via PowerShell. Each creation requires a URL, a template/type, an owner, and a preferred data location.
SharePoint admin center › Sites › Active sites › + Create
🌐 Sites
Active sites
Deleted sites
Site creation
Create a site — Choose type
👥
Team site
Collaborate with your team. Creates a Microsoft 365 Group.
📢
Communication site
Broadcast info to a wide audience. No M365 Group.
⚙️
Other options
Classic sites, document centres, publishing portals.
Site name
Site address
/sites/project-phoenix
Primary owner
alex@contoso.com
📊 Site Status & Lock States
Each site collection has a status that controls what users can do. Admins can change site status in the SharePoint admin center or via PowerShell.
| Status / Lock State | User Experience | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Unlocked (Active) | Normal access — users can read, add, and delete content based on their permissions | Default state for all active sites |
| Read-only | Users can view content but cannot add, edit, or delete anything. A read-only banner is displayed | Site under review, legal hold, or pending decommission |
| No access | All users (except site collection administrators) receive an “access denied” error | Security incident, compliance investigation, or site being rebuilt/migrated |
| Deleted | Site moves to Deleted sites recycle bin. Retained for 93 days | Site no longer needed. Restorable for 93 days. Permanently deletes after 93 days |
💾 Storage Management
| Concept | Detail |
|---|---|
| Tenant storage pool | Total available storage = 1 TB + (10 GB × number of licenced users) + any additional purchased storage. All sites share from this pool |
| Automatic storage management | Default setting — SharePoint automatically expands site storage as needed up to the tenant pool limit. No per-site limits set |
| Manual storage limits | Admin sets a maximum storage limit per site (in GB). The site cannot exceed this limit. Users get a warning when approaching the limit |
| Storage used | Visible in Active sites table for each site. Includes all document library content, version history, recycle bin content |
| OneDrive storage | Each user’s OneDrive also draws from the tenant pool. Default per-user OneDrive is 1 TB (configurable up to 5 TB or unlimited in some plans) |
👥 Site Owners & Admins
| Role | Set Where | Capability |
|---|---|---|
| Site collection administrator | SharePoint admin center → Active sites → [site] → Membership → Site admins (or via PowerShell Set-SPOUser -IsSiteCollectionAdmin) | Full control over the entire site collection — all settings, all content, all sub-sites. Cannot be overridden by site-level permissions |
| Site Owner (M365 Group-connected) | Microsoft 365 Groups owners (managed in Entra ID or M365 admin center). Auto-synced to the SharePoint Owners group | Full control over the site. For Team sites, the M365 Group owner IS the site owner |
| Site Owner (Communication sites) | Set during site creation. Managed in SharePoint site settings → Site permissions → Owners group | Full control over the Communication site. Not connected to an M365 Group |
PowerShell — Site Collection Management (SPO Module)
Connect-SPOService -Url https://your-tenant-admin.sharepoint.com # Create a new Communication site New-SPOSite -Url https://your-tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/ProjectPhoenix -Title 'Project Phoenix' -Owner admin@contoso.com -StorageQuota 5120 -Template SITEPAGEPUBLISHING#0 # List all sites with lock state and storage Get-SPOSite -Limit All | Select-Object Title,Url,StorageUsageCurrent,SharingCapability,LockState # Set a site to read-only (lock it) Set-SPOSite -Identity https://your-tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/OldSite -LockState ReadOnly # Add a site collection administrator Set-SPOUser -Site https://your-tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/ProjectPhoenix -LoginName user@contoso.com -IsSiteCollectionAdmin $true
💡 Best Practices
- Restrict Microsoft 365 Group creation (via Entra ID) to a specific security group — this prevents every user from creating a new Team (and backing SharePoint site) on demand, avoiding ungoverned site sprawl
- Set manual storage limits on large department sites where runaway versioning or large media files could cause issues — a 50 GB limit on most team sites prevents any one site from consuming a disproportionate share of tenant storage
- Configure version history limits globally (SharePoint admin center → Settings → SharePoint) to control how many versions of each file are retained — unlimited versioning can multiply storage consumption by 10x or more
- Always assign at least two site collection administrators per site — if the single admin leaves the organisation, the site becomes effectively orphaned until a SharePoint Administrator adds themselves
🎓 Interview Q&A
Q: An organisation has 200 employees and a SharePoint Online tenant. A department creates a team with 50,000 files and 100 versions each — the storage usage has exploded. What administrative controls could have prevented this?
Two controls address this. First, setting a per-site storage limit (e.g., 50 GB maximum for the department’s site) in the SharePoint admin center → Active sites → [site] → Storage limit would have capped storage consumption before it grew uncontrollably. Second, configuring version history limits (Settings → SharePoint → Version history limits) to a maximum of 100 or 500 versions per file (instead of unlimited) would have dramatically reduced version storage accumulation. Together, these two controls protect against storage explosion from both file count and version count growth.
🎯 MS-102 Mock Test
Module 2 — Site Management
5 questions · Scenario-based · Pass mark: 70%
Q1 of 5
A SharePoint site was accidentally deleted by a site owner 30 days ago. A SharePoint Administrator needs to restore it. Where can they find and restore it?
AIt cannot be recovered — sites are permanently deleted after 30 days
BSharePoint admin center → Sites → Active sites → Filter by “Deleted” status
CSharePoint admin center → Sites → Deleted sites — sites are retained for 93 days and can be restored
DMicrosoft 365 admin center → Resources → Sites → Deleted sites
✅ C. Deleted site collections are held in the SharePoint admin center → Sites → Deleted sites recycle bin for 93 days before permanent deletion. At 30 days post-deletion, the site is still fully restorable. The admin clicks the site in Deleted sites and selects Restore. The site URL, content, permissions, and configuration are all restored.
Q2 of 5
Legal has requested that a SharePoint site be placed in a state where all content is preserved and readable by investigators but no new content can be added or existing content changed. Which lock state achieves this?
ARead-only — users can view all content but cannot add, edit, or delete anything
BNo access — site is completely blocked from all users
CDelete the site — this preserves it in the recycle bin
DUnlocked with a compliance hold — users can still edit but eDiscovery preserves content
✅ A. Read-only lock state is the correct answer. It allows all users with existing site permissions to view content normally, but prevents any additions, edits, or deletions. A read-only banner is shown to users. “No access” (B) would block investigators from viewing content too — not appropriate here.
Q3 of 5
An organisation wants to give a helpdesk engineer temporary access to a specific SharePoint site to troubleshoot a permissions issue, without adding them to the site’s member group. What is the most appropriate approach?
AGive the engineer the SharePoint Administrator role temporarily
BAdd the engineer as a site collection administrator for that specific site — they get full access to the site only, without any tenant-wide admin privileges. Remove when done
CAdd them to the site’s Owners group permanently
DThe SharePoint Administrator role already gives them access to all sites by default
✅ B. Adding the engineer as a site collection administrator for that specific site gives them full control over just that site — all content, settings, and sub-sites. It is scoped to that site only (not tenant-wide), can be easily removed after troubleshooting, and follows least-privilege. The SharePoint Administrator role (A) gives tenant-wide admin rights to ALL sites — far too broad for a single troubleshooting task.
Q4 of 5
A tenant has 500 licenced Microsoft 365 E3 users. What is the baseline SharePoint Online storage quota included in the subscription?
A500 GB (1 GB per user)
B5 TB (10 GB per user)
C6 TB (1 TB base + 500 GB per user)
D6 TB (1 TB base + 10 GB × 500 users = 5 TB + 1 TB)
✅ D. Microsoft 365 SharePoint Online storage is calculated as: 1 TB base + 10 GB per licenced user. For 500 E3 users: 1 TB + (10 GB × 500) = 1 TB + 5 TB = 6 TB total. This is a shared pool across all SharePoint sites and OneDrive accounts in the tenant.
Q5 of 5
An administrator sets a Communication site’s lock state to “No Access.” Who can still access the site?
ASite collection administrators — they retain access even when the site is set to No Access
BNo one — No Access blocks all users including admins
CSite owners retain access since they have Full Control permission level
DGlobal Administrators can access all sites regardless of lock state
✅ A. When a site is set to No Access, all regular users (including site owners and members) receive an “access denied” error. However, site collection administrators retain access — this is by design so that IT can still manage or remediate the site even when it is locked down. Global Administrators (D) are not automatically site collection administrators and must explicitly add themselves.
🔒
Locked — Complete Module 1 first.