Microsoft 365 Group Setup

Automatically assign permissions and create a collection of user collaboration resources.

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Last Review: March 31, 2021

Product(s): Microsoft 365, Azure

Author(s): Kyle Vang

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Summary

Microsoft 365 Groups are the preferred membership service to automatically assign permissions for collections of shared resources for user collaboration including at minimum a SharePoint Team Site, Group Mailbox, and optional Team.

Adding, editing, or deleting a Microsoft 365 Group adds, edits, or deletes the related shared resources (unlike Azure Security Groups that simply assign permissions to selected Azure users or devices).

For this reason, it’s important to plan for naming conflicts when adding and use caution to prevent data loss when editing or deleting.

Requirements

  • Microsoft 365 Global Admin permissions
  • Restricting users from creating e-mail addresses, groups, or sites that conflict with organizational goals is highly recommended:
    portal.azure.com – Azure Active Directory – Groups – General
  • Microsoft 365 subscriptions that have Exchange Online and SharePoint Online
  • Shorter is better for Group names that automatically create e-mail address and Sharepoint Teamsite URL.
  • Creating Microsoft 365 Groups takes less than 5 minutes

Create Microsoft 365 Group

  1. Log into admin.microsoft.com with your Global Admin account.
  2. Navigate to Groups - Active groups
  3. Click on Add a group and Choose Microsoft 365
  4. Give the new group a name (single or compound words recommended) and optionally a description
  5. Assign Owners and Members
  6. Give the new group a group email address which must be unique in the tenant
  7. Set the Privacy to Private for restrictive access
  8. Optionally you can Add a Microsoft Team for the group at any time

Follow-up

As a Group member, browse to the SharePoint site in a browser and verify the Group is displayed in Outlook. Optionally verify access to the Team and post a test comment or upload a file in Microsoft Teams