Group Email Notification of Calendar Changes?

[LucidBike1140]

For my test team, I've created a team calendar as a SharePoint list, with Event, Start and End fields, using the "Calendar" view.  For change notifications (via email), I set it so all group members are sent copies of emails sent to the group in their own inboxes.

Then, for the SharePoint list, I set an alert to email the group mailbox if anything changes.  Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working.  Other emails to the group mailbox are received by members, just not the ones from SharePoint, and I don't know why.

Am I missing something?  Might there be another way to accomplish this?  I understand that each group member could go to the calendar and subscribe to their own alerts, but the idea is to keep this automated as team members come and go.

[#2]

Looks like you need to allow external senders to email the group for this to work, as the alert emails come from no-reply @ sharepointonline.com.  (Had to add spaces so email address wasn't blocked "for privacy reasons".)

Unfortunately I don't know how to only allow external emails from that sender.

[#3]

I think this should be a exchange admin part. And do not know if it is possible at all. I would stay away from groups myself and use teams as main communication. YOu could setup a powerautomate to send a message in teams.

[#4]

@Paul_Keijzers A Teams message is an option, but one of the main goals is not having to maintain a notification list, meaning once someone is added to the team, they'll automatically be notified of calendar changes. When I looked into sending a Teams message to a group with Power Automate, each recipient must be added individually, which would be a maintenance issue.  Do you know of another way?

I also really like the built-in SharePoint alerts; they are excellent at showing exactly what has changed.

[#5]

Hey, just going back to your original post, is there a reason why you're using a SharePoint list?

You can use channel meetings and the Channel Calendar app to schedule meetings for the team.

Having the "Send copies of team conversations and events to team members' inboxes" option turned on will send them updates if anything changes in the calendar.

But for your question about Power Automate, y go with the option to post in a channel, not in a chat. You'll just need to make sure your team have notifications on for that channel if you want them to be notified. I've also seen options for getting Power Automate to @mention the channel but I haven't tried it myself.

[#6]

Honestly, it's the users. Our company has been "using" Teams for a few years now, but there are many who don't use it for their day-to-day work. Channel usage is almost non-existent, though chat and voice calling in Teams is very high. This team has kept all they need in a SharePoint, so I'm just continuing it, albeit using Teams. The reason is it's easy for the manager to add or remove users from the team, instead of via SharePoint or security groups. Truthfully, it's baby steps!

So channel messages just won't work for them, as they'll never see them. Chats would probably work better. Oh, and this is just to know when folks are on PTO (time off), not any kind of internal team meetings. (That's 95% of what our teams want calendars for. Even our IT team only uses a calendar for the same purpose.)

It is a bit frustrating to have all the capabilities of Teams and the apps, but have very minimal interest in anyone using anything more than the very basics.