Mar 16 2017 12:19 PM
Please let me know what you think:
To view the complete article: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Manage-automatic-creation-of-direct-reports-group-Admin-hel...
Mar 17 2017 03:45 PM
@Christophe Fiessinger a few other thoughts...
What cycle will this auto-creation run on? If I set up direct reports for someone, does the Group appear immediately (or within a few minutes), after an hour, after a day?
Will the auto-created groups comply with group naming policies already in place? If not, can we apply a separate naming policy to auto-created groups?
Mar 17 2017 04:06 PM
Mar 17 2017 04:37 PM
Agree with Ivan and others. Organizational opt-in makes more sense. However, i think I understand the drivers: Most managers will likely create a similar group on their own, and those who don't already have one (one of the conditions of this automation) are missing out on a key collaborative tool. I would venture that the majority of people to whom this would apply are not as engaged -- and Microsoft views this new feature as an engagement tool designed to nudge them in the right direction.
Whether opt-in or opt-out, you still have the ability to rename or remove the direct reports group. What the automation can't do for us is add any dotted-line reports or supporting personnel who may not formally report to a manager, but who are part of the functional team. So regardless of the provisioning process, managers should review and modify, as needed.
Mar 18 2017 04:02 AM
Mar 18 2017 10:10 AM
Mar 18 2017 10:34 AM
How ?
How does it know if they've already got a direct reports group ? Does it look at the membership of all their groups and see if they match with all direct report ? what if there was one non-direct report in a group would it then create a new group ?
What happens in future, if a new user gets to their 2nd direct report does the group get created ? or is this a one time thing ?
Mar 18 2017 11:23 AM
Well, if it's not dynamic, how exaclty are you going to sell the need for this at all? I sure hope you put this part in BIG letters in the documentation, as it can create all sorts of problems.
I could really see a use for such feature *if* it was dynamic, but even then had some reservations about the default opt-in. If it's not even dynamic, it should be disabled by default. Or something like a simple email notification to managers, with an embedded link to provision the group or similar, if they see the need for it.
Mar 18 2017 02:23 PM
Presumably the statement means that a new auto-created group will not be created if an auto-created group already exists for the manager. Auto-created groups are identified by a property (GroupPersonification is set to "Groupsona:AutoDirectReports"), so I guess that is the check that is made.
TR
Mar 18 2017 02:24 PM
Presumably the statement means that a new auto-created group will not be created if an auto-created group already exists for the manager. Auto-created groups are identified by a property (GroupPersonification is set to "Groupsona:AutoDirectReports"), so I guess that is the check that is made.
Mar 18 2017 03:46 PM
Mar 18 2017 05:36 PM
Mar 19 2017 08:36 PM
"If the manager already has a group created it shouldn't create another group.:
Exchange distribution group or Office 365 Group"? Auto-created Group or manually created Group?
Let's say you've got an IT Ops team, the manager is Jane Tulley, she has 4 direct reports (with relationships already set up in AD), and they have one of the following *already in place*...
1) A distribution group (little g) named "IT Operations" that they use for email communication only. They're happy with this and deliberately have chosen an Exchange distribution group for this purpose (especially now that emails sent to Groups don't get delivered to the sender), and they manage the membership of the Exchange distribution group as needed. With Groups auto-creation, they'll also end up with a "Jane Tulley Direct Reports" Group (big G), and now they have two things to manage the membership of. Or they delete the unneeded Group, which you say won't be recreated. How does it know not to recreate? Can anything trigger re-creation of an auto-created Group, like a change in Manager/Reports relationships?
2) A Group (big G) called "IT Operations" that they use for email comms, Planner, Teams, file storage, OneNote stuff, all the good things that Groups provide, because they've bought into the Groups concept. Does auto-creation still create a "Jane Tulley Direct Reports" Group for them with the exact same members? If so, it has done so for no benefit whatsoever.
This whole conversation would be different if the feature was opt-in and the behavior was communicated more clearly from the outset. We'd be discussing with customers how best to leverage the feature, e.g. by setting up all your Manager/Reports relationships first, letting managers know they'll get this Group to communicate with their direct reports, then flipping the switch to enable auto-creation (PS - a way to phase the roll out of this within your tenant would be helpful, to avoid Help Desk overwhelm when hundreds/thousands of Groups suddenly appear).
But as Vasil has already mentioned, the value of this feature is diminished by the lack of dynamic membership. For the average Joe Bloggs or Jane Doe, having a Group of their direct reports that they can easily send email to is a nice thing to have, but having to maintain membership is a pain. That's the sort of thing they expect technology to solve for them, e.g. by having the Manager/Reports relationships all set up properly and maintained by IT or a HR system ongoing.
Mar 19 2017 08:43 PM
Mar 20 2017 05:38 AM
We will disable this as well. Case would have been differrent if membership would have been dynamic like the team calendar list in Outlook.
Mar 20 2017 08:33 AM
I saw this first thing this morning after I logged in and couldn't believe that this was to be automatically setup. Then I saw I could disable it. I immediately did. Fortunately no groups were created.
I then thought how if I had been on vacation for a couple weeks and these Groups started showing up without warning how my users would have reacted. It would not have been a positive reaction.
Things like this need to be Opt-In NOT Opt-Out.
Mar 20 2017 09:48 AM
Since we are in the process of rolling out Office 365, we have turned off Group creation by staff until we get some educational/policy work done. If we do turn on Group creation by staff, I will be disabling this feature. Although it seems like a nice convenient way to auto create groups for managers, many of our managers have their direct reports separated into specific teams they work with. Adding another group for all will just add to the clutter and confusion.
The other factor is maintenance. We already have a tough time monitoring staff changes. This would just add to it unless it's set up to dynamically change when updates are done to AD. Since we don't have AD premium, I am guessing that won't be happening.
Mar 20 2017 10:14 AM
Mar 20 2017 10:18 AM - edited Mar 20 2017 10:27 AM
For Scenario 1 - A new group shouldn't be created because an existing group already exists (even though the name is different).
For Scenario 2 - I'd probably recommend disabling auto creation of groups for that company and letting them continue to manage groups manually.
For Scenario 3 - When Bill takes over as manager of John's group he should be added to the group as the owner (https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Assign-a-new-owner-to-an-orphaned-group-86bb3db6-8857-45d1-...) and the system shouldn't create a new group for him.
By the way - Bill, as the new owner, can also change the display name of the group if he likes so that it would now say "Bill's Direct Reports" (or whatever he likes) instead of "John's..."
Hope that helps!
Mar 20 2017 10:22 AM - edited Mar 20 2017 11:05 AM
An Office 365 Group will be autocreated if there exists a distribution group, however if the manager and direct reports have an Office 365 Group(manual or autocreated) then another Group will not be created.
1) We only create a Group one time regardless of if the manager deletes or uses the group. We also don't create another Group if the manager moves teams.
2) No. Regardless of the name of the Group, if the membership of the existing Group consists of the manger and direct reports we will not auto create another one.
We have decided to go with the approach of non dynamic membership, because we find that many teams include admins, external members, vendors, etc., who are not necessarily part of the reporting chain. We wanted to allow group owners to flexibly update the group membership if needed.
Mar 20 2017 11:22 AM
First of all, Kudos is deserved @Christophe Fiessinger for making this change known via the message center in a timely manner, and making sure people know how to opt-out. And while some of you have pointed out that not all admins read the message center, Microsoft is in a tough spot finding a way to effectively communicate to everyone (if you have figured out how to do it in your company, please share!).
I also assume the logic behind this change is to drive adoption. Again, I can see the logic behind those thoughts since we also struggle with getting our internal users to understand all of the tools available in O365. If you can lead them to water by creating Groups for them, then perhaps they'll take a drink (and drive adoption which is probably how the PG gets compensated$)
But we'll be turning this auto-creation off. Too many things that can go wrong with this that outweigh the possible rewards. And from a bigger picture, this is so close timewise to the launch of Teams where people in our company are already asking if we should create a Team from every Team/Group.