Microsoft Purview: Adaptive scopes add lifecycle status evaluation controls for recipients and site owners

Microsoft Purview introduces lifecycle status controls for adaptive scopes, evaluating only active recipients and site owners by default. Administrators can include inactive or soft-deleted users as needed. Support for ISO 8601 durations in queries is added. Rollout begins mid-September 2026, with no immediate action required.

[What and why]

Microsoft Purview is introducing lifecycle status evaluation controls for adaptive scopes. This update gives administrators explicit control over whether active, inactive, and soft-deleted recipients and site owners are included in adaptive scope membership.

With this change, newly created adaptive scopes will evaluate only active recipients and site owners by default. Administrators can configure adaptive scopes to include inactive and/or soft-deleted recipients and site owners when needed.

This update also adds support for ISO 8601 duration values for selected date attributes in the adaptive scope advanced query builder.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 568785.

[Rollout schedule]

• Public Preview: Beginning in mid-September 2026 and expected to complete in early October 2026

• General Availability (Worldwide): Beginning in mid-October 2026 and expected to complete in mid-November 2026

[Impact on your organization]

Who is affected

• Microsoft Purview administrators who create or manage adaptive scopes.
• Organizations that use adaptive scopes for Microsoft Purview policy targeting.

Platforms and services

• Microsoft Purview
• Adaptive Scopes

What will happen

Existing adaptive scopes will continue to function as they do today and will not be automatically modified as part of this rollout.

For newly created adaptive scopes:

• Active recipients and site owners will be evaluated by default.
• Inactive and soft-deleted recipients or site owners will not be included unless explicitly configured by an administrator.

Administrators will also have the option to update existing adaptive scopes to use explicit lifecycle status evaluation criteria for recipients and site owners.

Additionally, adaptive scopes will support ISO 8601 duration values for certain date-based attributes in the advanced query builder.

[Action required and recommendations]

No action is required before rollout.

We recommend that administrators:

• Review current adaptive scope configurations and governance requirements.
• Determine whether inactive or soft-deleted recipients and site owners should be included in future adaptive scope definitions.
• Update adaptive scope creation processes and documentation, if applicable, to account for the new lifecycle status settings.

Learn more

• (to be updated closer to general availability): Adaptive scopes | Microsoft Purview | Microsoft Learn

[Compliance considerations]

No compliance considerations have been identified.