Unable to decline pending access request from deleted user

I recently took over as an admin of our Office365 SharePoint site.  I was clearing out old Access Requests and came across one from an employee who is no longer with the company.  I'm not able to decline the request ("Failed to decline request" is the only response I get) and I don't see another way to remove this request.

Is there some way to clear out this old data?

Thanks in advance.

Jeff

February 27th, 2014 5:07pm

Hi,

According to your post, my understanding is that you failed to decline pending access request from deleted user.

Please check whether you have added the admin into the Owners group.

In SharePoint online, only site owners have permission to approve or decline the request. Site users have the opportunity to invite other people to collaborate on sites, while site owners have the ultimate authority over who has access to these sites and what level of permissions users are assigned.

Here is a similar thread for your reference:

http://community.office365.com/en-us/forums/154/t/192556.aspx

If still no help, for quick and accurate answers to your questions, it is recommended that you initial a new thread in Office 365 forum.

Office 365 forum http://community.office365.com/en-us/forums/default.aspx

Best Regards,

Linda Li

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 28th, 2014 5:06am

Thanks Linda.

I am in the site owners group and am able to approve/deny access requests from other users, just not this one deleted user.

I've reposted my question in the Office 365 forum as you suggested here:
http://community.office365.com/en-us/forums/154/p/226368/700148.aspx

March 4th, 2014 6:02pm

Hi,

Glad to hear that you solve this issue, thanks for your sharing.

I know that if the user is deleted from the company, the pending access request couldnt be declined even if you have the highest authority. Presently the only thing you could do is just leave it alone.

Best Regards,

Linda Li

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 5th, 2014 1:23am

That is microsofts response? just leave it alone? are you kidding me? thats not a SOLUTION!!! its barely even a work around!!!

users leave all the time. Come on MS!

BTW this has nothing to do with office365. Normal sharepoint foundation does this as well, so probably all sharepoints.

I will let you know if i find a real solution to get these old users out of there. I have a case where a user went on mat leave, was deleted, and when they cam back were created with the exact same username and it still fails to delete the request. So i have two requests permanently suck and prompting me till the end of time? COME ON

EDIT: OK i fixed it here we go for solution. First off, use this microsoft article to figure out the GUID of the list:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2911390/en-us

I will spare you reading that, because it of course has inaccurate information in it (request body instead of RESPONSE body) and i find alot of microsoft docs make small errors like that.. anyways i reproduced the good parts below.

  1. Load up Internet Explorer. Press F12 to open the F12 Developer Tools window.
  2. Click the Network tab, and then press F5 to enable network traffic capturing.
  3. Refresh the Access Requests page in Internet Explorer. After the page has loaded, press Shift+F5 to stop capturing network traffic.
  4. In the Developer Tools window, double-click the first result in the URL list. This URL ends in "pendingreq.aspx."
  5. In the Developer Tools window, click DETAILS -> RESPONSE body.
  6. In the search box, type pagelistid:, and then press Enter.
  7. You will then find the GUID. Copy it to a text document.
  8. Using the GUID of the access request list, create a URL to edit the list: https://SHAREPOINT_LIST/_layouts/15/ListEdit.aspx?List={GUID_GOES_HERE}
  9. Now open that URL in a web browser. if it works, great! double check your permissions on the list, however for me, the permissions were of course correct, that wasn't the problem. the problem was the users were deleted. So now we need to get creative to delete those items!!
  10. Make a VIEW for the list. Name it what you want but be sure to include "EDIT link to edit item" "ID" and "Person"
  11. Then simply view the view and use the edit button to delete the problematic entry

problem SOLVED. no more prompting, no users stuck till the end of time, with just a little bit of sharepoint-fu used.



June 19th, 2015 8:08pm

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