Forum Discussion

Darren Burke's avatar
Darren Burke
Copper Contributor
Feb 24, 2017

You no longer receive messages sent to Office 365 'Groups' that you are a member of

Seems like a very recent change but if you email a group that you are a member of you no longer get the message in your own inbox.   If others email the group you get the message so you are subscri...
Office 365 Groups
  • Ravin Sachdeva's avatar
    Ravin Sachdeva
    Jul 25, 2018

    Update (7/25/2018):

     

    Thanks for all your feedback and sharing your concerns. Our mission is to help you be more productive at your work, and some users complained about their workflows being affected with this change.

     

    Based on the feedback we've seen from our users on this post, we are working on making this option configurable for our users. We are adding a switch which can be toggled by the user to start receiving their sent emails to Groups back in their inbox.

     

    The exact details on how this setting can be used and the timeline for this change will be communicated soon. Thanks for your patience. 

jcgonzalezmartin's avatar
jcgonzalezmartin
MVP
Feb 24, 2017
Nice to know...did you post a message about this change in the Message center?
Ravin Sachdeva's avatar
Ravin Sachdeva
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Feb 24, 2017
Yes, it will be live any moment now. Got delayed because of a technical glitch.
  • Bruce Wilson's avatar
    Bruce Wilson
    Copper Contributor
    Jun 09, 2017

    In my opinion, making this change without providing the admin a means to control the behaviour is an incredibly bad move.  Particularly since the behaviour applies to both groups and distribution lists.  I understand that there are organizations that would prefer people to not get copies of what they send to a distribution list.  But there are people who depend on that closed loop of seeing the copy come back to their inbox to know that the mail actually went through.  You're dictating a value system here.

     

    Further, every other distribution list system I'm aware of either provides a means for the list owner to control this or sends a copy back to the originator.  

     

    I just spend two evenings trying to trace what looked like a mail delivery problem for a new O365 tenant I just set up for a non-profit because this behavior is completely non-standard, different from what it was when I set up a different tenant in late 2016, and completely undocumented in the UI.

     

    Please provide both a global setting for a tenant -- so the admin can control the default behavior, and a per-group setting so that a group owner can choose what works for them.  

     

    Bruce Wilson

    Chief Technology Officer, Information Technology Services Division

    Oak Ridge National Laboratory

    • Ravin Sachdeva's avatar
      Ravin Sachdeva
      Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
      Jun 09, 2017

      Bruce Wilson - totally understand your concern. But, to clarify, this behavior *only* affects O365 Groups in Outlook and NOT distribution lists (DLs).

       

      For DLs, the email sending behavior continues to behave the same way it has always been. If a sender emails a DL, the sender would receive that email back in his/her inbox. The item would also be present in the sender's sent email folder.

       

      One big advantage of O365 groups in Outlook vs. DLs is that the former has an archive & history of all the conversations that have taken place in that group. This conversation archive is equally visible to each member of the group at any time. Hence, the additional email that sender receives back in their inbox becomes superfluous. This conversation history/archive is not available for DLs. We had received a lot of user feedback around this superfluous email sending behavior and we have corrected it for Groups in Outlook.

       

      You speak about workflows that get triggered once the sender receive their email back in their inbox. Though this won't break the behavior for DLs but for Groups, have you explored using Flow Automation to trigger some of these workflows? (https://flow.microsoft.com/)

       

       

      • Mike Paine's avatar
        Mike Paine
        Copper Contributor
        Jun 20, 2017

        This really should have been implemented as an option, not something forced.

         

        It doesnt really seem consistent to have the new o365 groups NOT work like on prem DLs do.

         

        This behavior is\was expected, and a mix of people want\dont want it, so really should have been optional not some random global change.

    • Darren Burke's avatar
      Darren Burke
      Copper Contributor
      Feb 26, 2017

      Thank you Juan - I see it listed under Feature ID: 76175

       

      Office 365 Group member who sends email to the group will not receive that email in their individual inbox
      An Office 365 Group member who sends email to the group will no longer receive that email in their individual inbox.Previously, when a member of an Office 365 group that was subscribed to the group - i.e., they receive emails to the group in their individual inbox as well as in the group's shared inbox - sent an email to that group, the member would receive a copy of their email in their individual inbox.
      More info
      Feature ID: 76175
      Tags: O365, Groups

       

      Will there be an option to override this and revert to original functionality?

       

       

      • jcgonzalezmartin's avatar
        jcgonzalezmartin
        MVP
        Feb 26, 2017
        At least for now there is not a way to revert it :-(

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