Is there a way to disable users from creating office 365 groups?

[Mihir Yelamanchili]

I came to know that we can disable the users from creating office 365 groups globally. According to Office article  we can give permission to only one or few groups to create groups permission using powershell. We can add the users into those particular groups if we want to give permission to create groups. But how we can set exclusively for one user not to create office 365 groups?

[#2]

I am getting error while trying to providing the link in the question. Even if I type that error it is not allowing me to post that.

[#3 · Accepted solution]

open a Powershell session to Exchange online

export the settings of the default owamailbox policy
Get-OwaMailboxPolicy -identity default | Export-Csv C:\policy.csv
then create a new-owamailboxpolicy with the same settings as default
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351067(v=exchg.160).aspx
after that edit the policy
Set-OwaMailboxPolicy -GroupCreationEnabled $false -Identity OwaMailboxPolicy:NewPolicy
And finally assign the policy to the user
Set-CASMailbox -Identity user@domain.com -OwaMailboxPolicy:NewPolicy

[#4]

We need to create this policy in power shell and assign this policy to the required user right!

[#5]

Keep in mind, if you block users from creating Groups, in Planner for instance, they cannot create a new Plan.

[#6]

Bear in mind that the approach to disable Groups creation via OWA policy is only going to work when trying to create Groups from OWA. Your users will be able to create Groups from any other App in Office 365: Outlook in the desktop, Teams or Planner....in regards of the error you are getting when trying to paste an external URL, I have faced the same problem lately...something has changed in the Tech Community that prevents to add external URLs. @Anna Chu can you help here?

[#7]

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@Juan Carlos González Martín wrote:

Bear in mind that the approach to disable Groups creation via OWA policy is only going to work when trying to create Groups from OWA. Your users will be able to create Groups from any other App in Office 365: Outlook in the desktop, Teams or Planner...

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Is it? That means there is no solid way to prevent users from creating Office 365 groups? Ideally user should not create from any app.

[#8]

There is a way by configuring the Azure AD Policy. You can find the the URL of the related support article in the attachment to this message

[#9]

Same article I am referring to earlier.  This article is saying create a group which will have access to create office 365 groups. Disable group creation permission globally for every user by default. Add the required users to the group for whom I am intend to give permission for group creation. 

But I want to handle in bit another way. I just want to disable for only one user, not globally. Want to know is there any such feasibility!

[#10]

you could add everyone except for the one user to the security group that is authorized to create the Office Groups

[#11]

oh, yes, that's right! then your options are: create a group with all members but one

(BTW, I'm experiencing the same issue with this link, but only this link)

[#12]

Mihir  one approach to fulfill your requirement is to leverage dynamic membership for the security group controlling who gets to create groups and have something like : <include all users>  -and -not (user.userPrincipalName -eq "johndoe@contoso.com")

[#13]

you could add everyone except for the one user to the security group that is authorized to create the Office Groups

[#14]

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@Christophe Fiessinger wrote:

Mihir  one approach to fulfill your requirement is to leverage dynamic membership for the security group controlling who gets to create groups and have something like : <include all users>  -and -not (user.userPrincipalName -eq "johndoe@contoso.com")

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Dynamic membership required Azure AD P1 licence, which I want to avoid :)

[#15]

True as well as controlling who gets to create groups

[#16]

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@Dean Gross wrote:

you could add everyone except for the one user to the security group that is authorized to create the Office Groups

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That is what article is saying. But assume a scenario where there are 1000 users. If I want to restrict 10 users then process will be tedious. So if there is a way to set the property for user not to create group then that will be good.

[#17]

it's not that tedious. You can just do it on Office 365 administration or with powershell
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/msonline/remove-msolgroupmember?view=azureadps-1....

[#18]

Yes, got you. But we need to run powershell every time. I am thinking if there is a way like un-check property of the user not to create group then it will be much more easier.  So exploring the possible ways

[#19]

Edit the group in Administration -> Groups and just clic the X on the user you want to remove

[#20]

I think i haven't conveyed the thing properly seems. I don't want to delete the user from group. I want to un-check/set the property for a user to not create a group either from UI (admin center) or PowerShell.