Nesting Groups

[Quentin Finck]

Am I missing something or is it not possible currently to nest O365 groups?

[#2]

Hi

I think the point is that DLs is not all we want. We already have those but we also want the collaborative features of groups and ability to self-manage membership, without the overhead of having to go to central IT to micromanage the email features (incl SENDAS) or organisational structure (nesting).

Mike

[#3]

OK, but the point in rebuttal is that when you buy into a cloud service like Office 365 that serves millions of people, you must accept that the functionality offered is what's on offer... It's the same with G Suite, where you can have the same debate about how Google implements certain features.

You don't like Groups because they can't be nested, but you want the self-maintenance capability. Perhaps you can think of a way where you can change what you do to match what's available inside Office 365?

[#4]

We've certainly looked at what's available within Office but managing hundreds or thousands of people AND advancing them from DLs into managed collaborative groups is not easy.

However we all know that Office 365 is not a static offering, and as both a former MVP and member of the Office and Windows teams, I engage with the design team as much as possible to advance those possibilities, because they want to hear real world situations, not rebuttals.

[#5]

You don’t get real world solutions to complex deployments in forums like this. If you want real help, then you engage experienced consultants who have the necessary experience and give them the time to work through the business requirements and technical issues - or you do the work yourself. No one, even MVPs, has the time to figure out the detailed responses that some posters seem to assume is available. I merely pointed out that part of taking on Office 365 as a platform is accepting the functionality that’s available. If it meets your needs, great. If not, keep on sending your comments to the Windows and Office teams to be included in their very long lists of customer wishes...

[#6]

I’m perfectly happy to keep using DLs for what I need, and it sounds like that’s the answer—thanks.

My problem remains that Microsoft is pushing the new group types as a replacement for DLs, when they don’t offer the very basic functionality that everyone uses DLs for.  SMBs don’t have the time, patience or money to turn on and learn how to use advanced features (including console functionality), or hire a consultant to do something so basic and fundamental to email list management.  It shouldn’t be confusing for a part time IT ops guy to go in and create a hierarchy of DLs that do the right thing—that’s the vast majority of use cases.

/mike

[#7]

Mike,

You can be sure that the lack of functionality in Office 365 Groups to allow them to replace DLs has been the cause of a lot of feedback to Microsoft going back to the introduction of Groups in November 2014. Indeed, at that time, I was roundly criticized by some of my MVP peers for standing up at a meeting in Redmond and saying to the Groups development team that what they planned to do was not up to scratch. The lack of management annoyed me more than anything else at that point (largely taken care of now), but other issues are still present. I don't know if nesting will be taken care of in the near future because of the way that Groups are now used as a membership service across Office 365. In some respects, Microsoft has traded utility for usefulness, but I can understand how they came to take that decision.

Read https://www.petri.com/microsoft-crusade-office-365-groups for more on this topic, if you are interested.

[#8]

Vote for "Be able to Nest Groups like Distribution Groups" via UserVoice » https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/286611-office-365-groups/suggestions/10114956-be-able-to-nest...

[#9]

Hello @Tony Redmond

Thanks for the PowerShell trick. I have added an Office 365 group as a member of a DL, finally.

But when I send email to the DL, the emails go to members of Office 365 group (like a DL). The Office 365 group itself didn't get the email.  I tried to track emails, it seems Exchange Online expands the Office 365 group like a DL, instead of sending email to it. It never happens If I send an email directly to Office 365 group (it goes to the group mailbox) in Outlook.

SAD..I only have the half solution.

[#10]

Different logic is used when you address email to a DL than to an Office 365 Group, which is what you're seeing. The logic to expand and create copies for everyone in a DL treats all recipients as equal. But when a group is addressed, the group gets a copy too.

[#11]

@AwesomeAnand 

Just an FYI to anyone here

The fact that you can't nest, or nest into, 365 groups is ridiculous but you can work around using powershell, either in Azure automation or even in your on-prem AD server.

Create a script that collects members of desired "nested group" (security group, distribution list, AD synced group etc) and then adds any that are missing to the "nest group" (365 dynamic or static group). Or vice versa as was described already. I for one don't like having a bunch of automated processes to accomplish a simple task, but that is where we are at the moment

I wish it was possible out of the box, people nest groups in AD all the time serving dual purpose as both ACL security groups and distribution lists. If you are well organized this works great. Now we are forced to duplicate groups and create slew of new management tasks.

The fact that so much of 365 is actually good stuff makes shortcomings like this even more frustrating. It's like buying a Snickers bar with only a couple peanuts in it. Sure you got the chocolate and stuff but you really want the crunch as well

[#12]

Thanks @wcsand. I get it. I am hoping Microsoft fixes this shortcoming soon.

The problem was the members of most established DL (gets important emails) started using Office 365 group. Now they want to get those emails to the DL to this Office 365, but I should not delete the DL (& move the email address to the Office 365 group). 

[#13]

@Tony RedmondIs this no longer functional?  I have used it a few weeks ago, but now it doesn't matter what combination of DL and Group I use in my tenant, it gives me an error.

An Azure Active Directory call was made to keep object in sync between Azure Active Directory and Exchange Online.
However, it failed. Detailed error message:
        A Unified Group cannot be added as a member of a Distribution List or Security Group or Elevated Group. paramName:
Members, paramValue: , objectType: Microsoft.Online.DirectoryServices.Group RequestId :
619ff911-e67b-4bcf-abb7-89f3a4cb6500
The issue may be transient and please retry a couple of minutes later. If issue persists, please see exception members
for more information.
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Add-DistributionGroupMember], UnableToWriteToAadException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : [Server=CY4PR08MB2934,RequestId=6b0833cd-2fa1-4674-8b1b-7e65ffaefae4,TimeStamp=4/15/2021
    1:45:06 PM] [FailureCategory=Cmdlet-UnableToWriteToAadException] 586CF1B6,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.Recipient
  Tasks.AddDistributionGroupMember
    + PSComputerName        : outlook.office365.com

[#14]

Looks like Microsoft has updated Add-DistributionGroupMember to stop people adding Microsoft 365 Groups to DLs. Oh well...

[#15]

Agreed.  @Chris Porosky