This release helps administrators secure and structure workspaces more consistently from the moment they are provisioned. Templates can now preserve access and content discovery controls, standardize site addresses and managed paths, and assign site administrators automatically. Imagine provisioning a confidential project site from a template. Its access and content discovery controls are already configured, its URL follows your organization's standards, and the required site administrators are assigned automatically. Instead of completing these tasks after creation, administrators define the rules once and apply them consistently to every new workspace.
Apply access and content discovery controls consistently
Organizations can now apply access and content discovery controls consistently whenever a workspace is provisioned. Templates support two Microsoft controls, Restricted Site Access and Restrict Content Discovery, shown in the installation wizard as "Restrict workspace access" and "Restrict content discovery". Both require SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM). When a template is created from an existing site, Automate365 now collects both settings from that site. Template creators can then decide whether installers may change these settings during workspace creation, or keep them fixed to enforce the organization's standard.
During installation, these settings follow the same rules as other template settings: enforced values remain locked, while editable values can be changed by the installer. On tenants without the required licensing, the settings are shown as unavailable together with the reason.
Sites with Restrict Content Discovery enabled are hidden by Microsoft and can't be selected when creating a template. The "Choose a SharePoint site" step and its empty search state now explain this, so users know why a site is missing from the list.
Keep site URLs aligned with your naming standards
Organizations can now keep friendly workspace names while site URLs follow their own naming standards. Building on the naming conventions introduced in September, template creators can apply a naming convention to the site URL, independently from the site or Team name, by adding a prefix, a suffix or both. The URL convention applies to SharePoint-only templates. For Team templates, the URL of the connected site is controlled by Microsoft, and an info message explains that the convention will not be applied. Naming convention policies created during template creation can be saved to Policies and reused in other templates. When creating a policy, the name field also adapts to the template type and shows "Site name" or "Team name".
Control where communication sites are created
Organizations can now keep site addresses consistent by choosing where communication sites are created. A new "Create sites under" option in the "Structure and Content" step of template creation lets template creators choose between /sites/ and /teams/. They can also lock this choice or allow installers to change it during installation. Team sites connected to a Microsoft 365 group continue to follow the managed path defined in the SharePoint admin center.
Assign default site administrators automatically
Organizations can now make sure every new site has the right administrators from the moment it is created. Templates can define one or more default site administrators in the "Membership" settings, and Automate365 assigns them automatically to every site provisioned from the template. This option is available for SharePoint-based templates, including Team Site and Communication Site templates, but not for Teams-based templates. Template creators can also define the number of administrators required for provisioning and decide whether installers may change the default administrators. Changes to the default administrators apply to future provisioning only and do not modify sites that already exist.
Keep the content types defined in your template
Sites provisioned from a template now honor the content type configuration of the site the template was created from. Default content types that were removed from that site are no longer added back during provisioning, both at site level and in each document library.
Export requests for reporting and offline tracking
Administrators can now export requests from "All Requests" to a CSV file for reporting and offline tracking. The export respects the filters and search currently applied, so the file reflects exactly the requests being reviewed.
Reduced application-level permissions through delegated access
Automate365 now needs less persistent access to customer tenants. Its Microsoft 365 consent model has been updated so that Exchange Online operations use delegated permissions instead of application permissions, and run within the signed-in user's context. As part of this change, an application permission previously required for directory role management is no longer needed. Customers who granted it should remove the legacy "BindTuning Provisioning (Compliance Administration)" role assignment from Microsoft Entra ID:
Microsoft Entra admin center > Roles & admins > Assignments > Active assignments > BindTuning Provisioning (Compliance Administration) > Remove
Together, these updates move more of the setup that administrators used to complete manually into the template itself. Access controls, URL structure and site administrators are now defined once and applied consistently every time a workspace is provisioned, which means fewer manual steps after creation and more predictable results for administrators.