Private channel SharePoint site URL naming appears to have changed (team name vs team URL)

[vieirak79]

📄 Question

We are creating private channels using the Microsoft Graph API:

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/teams/{team-id}/channels

With the following payload:

{
  "@odata.type": "#microsoft.graph.channel",
  "displayName": "Project-Channel-001",
  "description": "Sample private channel for testing",
  "membershipType": "private",
  "members": [
    {
      "@odata.type": "#microsoft.graph.aadUserConversationMember",
      "user@odata.bind": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/{user-id}",
      "roles": ["owner"]
    }
  ]
}

---

🔍 Observed Behavior

When the private channel is created, the associated SharePoint site is provisioned automatically (as expected).

However, the URL format appears to have changed.

Previously observed behavior:

https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/ProjectTeamUrl-Project-Channel-001

Current behavior:

https://{tenant}.sharepoint.com/sites/ProjectTeamName-Project-Channel-001

---

❗ Impact

This change introduces several issues:

• Breaks deterministic URL generation logic
• Produces longer and less predictable URLs
• Introduces dependency on display name, which is mutable and may contain unexpected characters
• Impacts existing automation and integrations relying on the previous pattern

---

❓ Questions

1. Has there been a recent change in how SharePoint site URLs are generated for private channels?
2. Is this behavior intentional and documented, or a regression?
3. Is there any way (via Graph or otherwise) to:
   • Control the generated SharePoint site URL, or
   • Retrieve the final site URL deterministically without relying on pattern assumptions?
4. Is the previous {ParentTeamUrl}-{ChannelName} format still expected in some scenarios, or has it been deprecated?

---

🧪 Additional Notes

• This behavior is observed when creating channels via Microsoft Graph (v1.0)
• The issue is reproducible across multiple test scenarios

---

🙏 Any clarification from Microsoft or others encountering this would be appreciated.

[lehrt]

Hi, thanks for reaching out. This does seem strange, but Graph Explorer is only the UI that displays results orchestrated by other Graph components. Graph Explorer app is now in maintenance mode and we are only accepting issues that deal with Graph Explorer-specific UI/functionality bugs.

Any issues/questions with content, APIs, permissions, Graph general questions, or feature requests will be closed as out of scope. Please refer to official Microsoft support channels for issues with Graph APIs: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/support