Use Entra access reviews to remove access that no longer has an owner

Source fact: what Microsoft documents

Microsoft Entra access reviews let organizations recertify access to security groups, Microsoft 365 groups, enterprise applications, Microsoft Entra roles, Azure resource roles, and access packages. Depending on the resource, reviewers can be specified individuals, group owners, managers, group members, or users reviewing their own access. Reviews are created in Access reviews, enterprise applications, Privileged Identity Management, or entitlement management according to the assignment being reviewed.

Microsoft identifies several useful scenarios: excessive privileged access, guest access that no longer has a sponsor, policy-exception lists, critical application access, groups being reused for a different purpose, and access that cannot be fully automated from an authoritative source. Reviews can recur weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. Reviewers can approve or deny continued access and can use available decision recommendations.

Licensing and applicability

Microsoft states that access reviews require Microsoft Entra ID Governance or Microsoft Entra Suite subscriptions for the organization’s users, while some capabilities may operate with Entra ID P2. Reviews that use inactive-user or user-to-group-affiliation recommendations, and some multi-resource capabilities, require Governance licensing; preview status must be checked before production use. Licensing and reviewer behavior vary by the resource and feature.

DSE recommendation: production-safe operational steps

1. Select one sensitive group or application with a named business owner, accurate membership, and a clear reason for access.
2. Define review scope, cadence, reviewer and backup reviewer, evidence standard, decision reason, response deadline, and escalation path before creating the review.
3. Tell reviewers what approval means. A familiar name or recent sign-in is not sufficient evidence of a continuing business need.
4. Run the first review without automatically applying denials. Investigate unknown identities, service accounts, guests, nested groups, and disputed assignments.
5. Validate proposed removals with the resource owner and application operator, then apply results in a controlled window with a support and restoration path.
6. Export the review result, unresolved exceptions, reviewer response, and applied changes. Record any retained exception with an owner and expiration.
7. After the process is reliable, consider automatic result application only for scopes where removal behavior and restoration have been tested.

DSE recommends separating reviewer accountability from technical administration: the business owner decides whether access remains justified, while an administrator verifies that the result can be safely applied. Nonresponse should not silently become permanent approval. Define the treatment of nonresponders in advance and escalate critical resources.

An access review is a periodic control, not a substitute for timely onboarding, transfer, and termination processes. Urgent access removal should not wait for the next campaign. Review recurrence and scope should be reassessed when ownership, application purpose, guest relationships, or regulatory requirements change.

Official reference

What are access reviews? — supported review resources, reviewer models, scenarios, recurrence, and licensing boundaries.