Forum Discussion
Using email for 365 connected yammer group?
Hi there,
I'm the administrator of our intranet on a small non-profit preschool and I'm having some troubles understanding something. At first I had set up a number of 365 groups for the different work-groups we have, to be able to use sharepoint sites etc. I was looking at ways to increase the usability of our intranet, and I wanted to implement Yammer since it's pretty good at pushing out information to groups or the whole organization. So I redid the groups through Yammer, since I wanted the 365 integration it now brings. But I'm having some problems.
In the administration center, I see all the groups I created as 365 groups, and they all have an email address connected to it (groupname@intranet.domain.se). I thought that this email could be used as a 365 group email, where it would show up in outlook for all the members. But when i try to add a group, it throws me to Yammer instead. OK. So I googled like a madman and in some posts, it seems like it should end up in the Yammer-feed for said group, in other posts it says I have to send the mail to groupname+intranet.domain.se@yammer.com. This is not very user friendly... *EDIT: Also, the groupname@intranet.domain.se shows up in the global address list, which will cause a lot of confusion to users.*
Soo. Nothing happens when i try to mail groupname@intranet.domain.se. I get an error reply if I disable external communication and send a mail from an external mail account. So it seems something is happening, but what? Where does it end up? I'm really disappointed, since I did all the work and just assumed the mail showing in group admin would go to the members. Setting up a secondary group for outlook for each team is just too much administration..
Any tips on what I should do here? I'd really like for an email sent to groupname@intranet.domain.se, to be sent to all members of that group.
And by the way. I've set up logos for each group (png's with black logo on transparent backgrounds), and it's just a horrible experience. In sharepoint, the background is black, meaning the logo is ALL black. But in yammer, it looks like it should with white background.
Hi rackabajsarn
Hope you are well. Thanks for a detailed explanation of what you are trying to acheive
I may be wrong, but reading your post it sounds like you want to set up email distribution groups where you email it and then it sends to the members of the group. This is very straightforward and you can set them up as per the following article if you have access to the Exchange Admin Centre via the Office/Microsoft 365 admin centre
This is simple one time creation. Once created they show in the address book in Outlook.
Office 365 groups have similar functionality as distribution groups, but operate a little differently and the similarities and differences are covered here
https://www.codetwo.com/admins-blog/office-365-groups-vs-distribution-lists/
Let me know how it goes.
Best, Chris
Thanks for the answer Christopher,
I'm aware of the distribution list and that's the functionality that I'm after. But I'm trying to avoid yet another group to administrate.
As it is now, when we get a new member I have to add that member to a group in sharepoint, yammer (365 group), and now a distribution list. That will be too much, and I really just want a simple way for this to work. Like "enable-distributiongroup" on a yammer-group. But that's not possible from what I understand?
Ah, got you. I had to do some testing though so sorry for the delay.
You may have missed a part out in terms of Yammer. This is because there are Yammer Groups and Office 365 Connected Yammer Groups. Its not immediately clear how to get these so I will explain.
1.) Go into Yammer admin panel via Office 365/Microsoft 365 admin centre
2.) Go to Security settings under Content.
3.) You must ensure that under Office 365 Identity Enforcement that this is ticked and saved. This enables Office 365 Connected Yammer Groups
Now when you create a new Yammer group it'll create an Office 365 group with an address of groupname@yourdomain.com. This will create the Office 365 group, the distribution list in Exchange off the back of that, it'll show up in the address book.
However it is important to point out the follow limitations. 1.) Even if you connect Yammer Groups to Office 365 groups you still have to use the @ yammer.com when emailing Yammer groups. That is the way its designed. 2.) You cannot create Teams in Microsoft Teams based on Yammer connected Office 365 Groups as discussed here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams/Is-it-the-case-that-a-Group-started-in-Yammer-cannot-get-Teams/td-p/143490. These are big limitations.
There is talk of Microsoft 'groupifying' everything (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Yammer/Yammer-Integration-with-office-365-group/td-p/147240) but this is in development with no official confirmation or timeframe.
So my advice is that you will need to use these guidelines to how best you work and create groups. In my own experience most organisations use Office 365 Groups built through the admin centre for email distribution and which they base their Microsoft Teams on since organisations tend to use Teams far more. Yammer groups in this scenario are separate because technically, Yammer is and always has been a more distant app from the rest of the stack. At present, there is nothing to unify them all however all the applications are converging.
Hope this clarifies things, or at least allows you to make a decision on how you want to proceed.
Best, Chris
