How to remove the Welcome Message when a new member joins a group.

[Jason Hopp]

We are moving from an on-premise Exchange 2013 environment (using Hybrid) and we have to move our DLs to the cloud.  I can create them through powershell as a distribution group, but that does not write back to our local AD (using AADConnect).  So using the Unified Group commands, I can create them and they write back.

The problem is the welcome message.  We are not ready for users to use the extra features of the groups, plus we have users that are a part of several hundred DLs, based on what customers they take care of.  

I see the attribute WelcomeMessageEnabled, but am unable to change that to $False.  I have also tried using mail rules to delete the message based on content in subject or body, but again no go.

Does anyone have any way of turning these off?  This will create a huge helpdesk and support nightmare if I can not turn these off.

Thanks, Jason.

[#2]

Why is this still only possible in PowerShell? We need a graph endpoint for this please.

[#3]

@Ramiro Melgoza  Do I need to be owner of this Group for the command to work? or just any Global Admin should be able to run this command? I just tried to run it with my Global Admin and it doesn't work.

[#4]

@Siva Shanmugam  Is this working on Non-Profit and GOV tenants as well ? 

[#5]

I had to create a mail flow rule to block these because this command listed as a solution below didn't turn anything off for my tenant unless someone can tell me it takes 24hrs for the command to work.

[#6]

@Siva Shanmugam Is it possible to set this command for any/all groups both present and future. There is no way to do this with a newly created dynamic group prior to the notification being sent out. I can only disable it after the fact for any new members that get added to the group. Right now the only workaround is to first the create the group as an assigned member group, then disable the notification email, then go back in and convert it to a dynamic group and add members through a rule set. Also, there's no way to adjust the privacy settings when creating a group in AAD and they can't be set after the group is created. Currently you have to create the group through the web admin portal for O365 to even be able to see the option to change the privacy settings on the group when creating it.

[#7]

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all are safe and doing good.

"Set-UnifiedGroup "MyGropuName" -UnifiedGroupWelcomeMessageEnabled:$false"

This command will disable the welcome message for the members of the group but when the emails are sent to this group the mail will be lying under the "Distribution Group" in Outlook.

Until the users click on Follow Mailbox, the mails will not flow to Inbox of the user.

Is there any way to change it ? So that when the email is sent to this group the mails are directly routed to Inbox of the users mailbox ?

Regards,

Manoj

[#8]

I just found this thread because the same thing just happened to me. I created a dynamic group in Azure this morning containing all employees -- for ADMINISTRATIVE PURPOSES -- and a few hours later it emailed friggin' all 1850 group members about it. I can't for the life of me understand why Microsoft would think this is a smart thing to do. I could see if this were a group created by a standard user who added a few of their colleagues to it, but when a system admin goes in and creates a group like this...DON'T EMAIL EVERYONE!! 

[#9]

@Siva Shanmugam Hi, I don't know where to enter thiscommande, and am afraid it wouldbe accessible only to some kind of Teams admins. Is that right? else can you provide some additional guidance pls?

[#10]

@gellionh You have to open an Exchange Online Powershell window and run that command in it. Although this issue is happening when you add users to a Team/SharePoint site, it's the Exchange "Group" that's attached to the Team where this setting actually exists.

[#11]

Can I switch off Welcome Messages in a Private ordinary FB Group??  There is nowhere that I can insert or modify code that I am currently aware of.  Sorry that it is such a mundane question.

  @Siva Shanmugam 

[#12]

@Jason Hopp, is there a way to disable this property through Graph API?

[#13]

Hi, is there a way to disable this property through Graph API?

[#14]

The setting appears to have changed to -WelcomeMessageEnabled in our tenant anyway.

[#15]

The -UnifiedGroupWelcomeMessageEnabled:$false seems to have stopped working.
I tested it out on a MS Team about a month or so ago and it did not send the welcome emails. But when I did it yesterday (10/20/22) with the presumption that it would not send them, it sent them! Created quite a mess when they were supposed to be added quietly and now have to tell them to ignore it for now.
I've toggled it just to see if that might get it to work again to no avail.

[#16]

-UnifiedGroupWelcomeMessageEnabled:$false doesnt seem to work anymore.

[#17]

I tried it today, and it worked well. The user didn't get the notification.

Set-UnifiedGroup -Identity "Hello World" -UnifiedGroupWelcomeMessageEnabled:$false