User-defined distribution groups are very useful for cases where want to have a group available in the Global Address List (GAL), but whose membership frequently changes.
This works as a decent replacement for ListManager lists. There are much fewer options (e.g. no sync capability, maximum 500 recipients), but you also get to see who is on the list right from Outlook. So it may work for some cases. Here are the features you need to consider:
There are two major parts to the group, the owners and the members:
Ownership - a list of individuals, or a group, who control a list, i.e. list admin.
Membership - a list of recipients. There is a 500 address limit in Office 365. We need to investigate how that works with groups, i.e. does three groups of 200 people each count as three addresses or 600 addresses?
In addition, there are four options to consider:
Membership Approval
- Join options
- Open: Anyone can join this group without being approved by the group.
- Closed: Member can be added only by the group owners. All requests to join will be rejected.
- Owner approval: All requests are approved or rejected by the group owners.
- Leave options
- Open: Anyone can leave this group without being approved by the group owners.
- Closed: Members can be removed only by the group owners. All requests to leave will be rejected automatically.
Delivery Management
- Only senders inside my organization
- Senders inside and outside of my organization
- Specify a list of users or groups who can send
Message Approval
This allows you to moderate messages. This means, when a message is sent, a moderator is notified, who must approve the message, before it is sent.
- Group moderators: A list of people who will receive moderation notifications and can approve messages.
- Senders who don't require message approval: A list of people who will bypass moderation and be allowed to send whenever they want. These are pre-approved senders.
- Select moderation notifications
- Notify all senders when their messages aren't approved
- Notify senders in your organization when their messages aren't approved
- Don't notify anyone when a message isn't approved
Group Delegation
When sending, a message can appear to be from the original sender, from the group itself, or from the original sender on behalf of the group.
- Send As: Allows users to send as the group, instead of their individual address.
- Send on Behalf: The message will appear to be sent from the individual user on behalf of the group. This could get complicated if an assistant is sending on behalf of their manager, on behalf of the group.
When setting up owners, moderators, and approved senders, please consider using other groups. For example, a "Executive Communications group" may include the usual list of people who can send to all the Board lists. If someone needs to be added, he or she can be added to that one group, instead of updating every Board list individually.
Spending the time to think through the process ahead of time will save lots of headaches later.
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