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rackabajsarn's avatar
rackabajsarn
Copper Contributor
Nov 21, 2018

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 differen...
microsoft 365
ChrisHoardMVP's avatar
ChrisHoardMVP
MVP
Nov 21, 2018

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

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/recipients-in-exchange-online/manage-distribution-groups/manage-distribution-groups 

 

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

rackabajsarn's avatar
rackabajsarn
Copper Contributor
Nov 21, 2018

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? 

  • ChrisHoardMVP's avatar
    ChrisHoardMVP
    MVP
    Nov 21, 2018

    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

    • rackabajsarn's avatar
      rackabajsarn
      Copper Contributor
      Nov 22, 2018

      Hi again Chris,

       

      Yes, it's all been set up like that. As soon as I started a Yammer group, I got the 365 group, sharepoint site, Onenote etc.  But, as I wrote, I see the email address in the group admin, but nothing happens when I mail it. They do show in the address book though, which is going to be utterly confusing.

       

      "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. "