Dynamics Community Forum Thread Details

Team member removed might automatically be back sometimes

Hi Community,

I'm looking for some help with an issue we're experiencing.

In our environment, we have several teams set up, and for testing purposes, we occasionally need to switch users between teams. Our teams are synced with Azure AD groups, with the Azure groups serving as the source of truth.

To switch a user from Team A to Team B, I remove them from Azure Group A and from Team A in Dynamics, then add them to Azure Group B and Team B. I’ve confirmed with the user that the changes are reflected correctly.

However, after a few minutes, the user is sometimes mysteriously re-added to Team A—despite not being re-added to Azure Group A. This doesn't happen every time, but it's occurring frequently enough to be a concern.

Has anyone encountered this before or know what might be causing it?

Thanks in advance!

Categories:

Dynamics 365 general

Good morning, afternoon, or evening—depending on where you are in the world!
Hope you're doing well.

Root Cause: Dynamics Group Team Sync Behavior
The behavior described—where a user is removed from an Azure AD group and from a Dynamics team, but later reappears in the team—is consistent with how Dynamics 365 handles group team membership:

Group Teams in Dynamics 365 are not statically synced with Azure AD groups. Instead, membership is updated dynamically at runtime—specifically when a user logs into the environment or is impersonated by a process.
If a user was previously part of a group team and accesses the environment again, they may be re-added to the team, even if they’ve been removed from the Azure AD group. This is because the system checks access rights at runtime and may rehydrate previous associations.

This behavior is documented in Microsoft’s guidance on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/manage-group-teams#edit-a-group-team, and echoed in community discussions where users observed that:
“The list of team members listed in each group team only displays the user members who have accessed the environment. When an Azure AD group member accesses the environment, the group member is added to the group team.”

Recommendations
To mitigate this issue:

Avoid manual removal from Dynamics teams if the team is Azure AD group-based. Let Azure AD group membership drive access.
Ensure the user is fully removed from all relevant Azure AD groups, including nested or inherited groups.
Wait for the user to log in again to trigger the runtime update that may finalize their removal—or use PowerShell or admin tools to force a refresh.
Audit background processes or plugins that might impersonate the user and inadvertently trigger re-addition.