New feature: Recover deleted Office 365 Group via PowerShell
If you've deleted an Office 365 group, it's now retained by default for a period of 30 days. Within that period, you can now restore the group and its associated apps and data via a new PowerShell cmdlet. For additional information please go to https://aka.ms/groupssoftdelete.Introducing Outlook Groups on iPad
It's been a year since we launched Outlook Groups mobile apps on iOS, Android and Windows phones. The reception thus far on our mobile apps has been extremely positive, and we have made huge improvements across the board with added functionality, as well as improving speed and reliability of our mobile apps with a goal of producing the best groups experience on the go. Ever since we launched the iPhone app, we’ve seen people using it in all sorts of scenarios, many of them on an iPad! We have heard from teachers in classroom who use iPad as their primary classroom device for the need to have Outlook Groups on the iPad so they can share updates and assignments with their class. We have heard from our enterprise users alike about sales teams who use iPad to share conversations, files and events. Today, we are pleased to announce the availability of Outlook Groups for the iPad. Office 365 work or school users worldwide can now download the app from the iPad store. Download the app to your iPad today and go here http://aka.ms/o365g to learn more about Office 365 Groups! All the functionality that exists for Outlook Groups on the iPhone is now also available on the iPad. It’s easier than ever to participate in group conversations, share pictures, or view and edit your documents in full screen, and view and create group events to bring your team together on the iPad. Give it a try and send us feedback. Kady DundasExperiences "migrating" to an O365 Group
So, I am starting to "migrate" the particular team that I work for over to Groups (that means from our existing SharePoint site, existing Yammer group, existing mailboxes, etc). Wanted to share the general experience and reception so far, with PLUS / MINUS perception notes: PLUS - We are looking to use Group Conversations and shut down use of Yammer for our team discussions. So far users seem more apt to use the conversations because it is more like email, so probably a ding for use of Yammer In general we are going to guide Groups users away from using Yammer PLUS - We are using an automatic group membership (everyone that reports to my Manager) - which works perfectly! We have a revolving door of interns/temps as part of the team, and access to resources is no-brainer. MINUS - This will be our first Modern SharePoint site, and big negative is critical links removed from the UI. Menu - using "/_layouts/15/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx" to recreate our horizontal navigation. This accomplishes what we need, but I fear that it may eventually go away... Permissions - I understand group permission limitations, but our connected SP sites have to have additional viewers and contributors. Right now from the UI, can only apply permissions to Group Owners and Group Members. Using "/_layouts/15/user.aspx" to get around this for now, but again will future updates restrict this? MINUS - Document Migration - we have our own PowerShell scripts that we use to migrate content between sites. The scripts appear to only work run by a Group owner if the person running the script is a Group owner. We typically use a service account and set it as Site Collection Admin, run the move, then remove the service account. Here the service account still doenst have rights even after being made the SCA for a Group. We will definitely be doing most of this for our users since we don't want to put the tedious actions on them MINUS - Calendar - we use a SharePoint Team Site calendar - was able to easily open the SP Calendar in Outlook "Agenda View", copy entries, and paste them into the Group Calendar (in Outlook Agenda View), but they never synced back up, never appeared in the Group calendar, though I see them in my physical Outlook calendar Dont seem to be able to create just an entry (without actually inviting all attendees) MINUS - Group Navigation - switching between the different Groups workloads is still pitiful I've manually entered direct links to the different workloads in the Groups SharePoint Site, but users continually get "lost". They'll end up on the calendar which has no links whatsover (sometimes), the options are in different places in each workload. I know this has been brought up over and over, but its been months and months, if not over a year at this point, and doesnt seem this is getting any better at all. MINUS - Groups files - this is maybe just our opinion, but do not like the Groups Files automatically including email attachments in the default view. Often confusing, especially if things have been moved to the SharePoint files, you see duplicates, etc. PLUS - Groups app - easy access to everything, general consensus is much easier to find stuff from the app then from the web itself MINUS - Groups app notifications - marking conversation messages as read seems to be wonky, users are complaining because they have to physically leave the group a couple times before it tells them they have read all the messages. MINUS - Planner - Though there is excitement about what Planner can be, some negatives emerging - no Planner app, unsure of a way right now to move items from a SharePoint Action Items list to Planner (other than just manually reentering stuff). PLUS - OneNote, this has always been my favorite thing Microsoft has built, so glad to see it easier integrated into our group activities. We are migrating our running Staff Meeting Agenda (from Yammer note) to OneNote MINUS - UI - we have always used a custom enterprise mega menu throughout our SharePoint environment, for easy navigation, with no customization options, we lose this and will have to start teach our users to keep going to our Intranet homepage, then navigate where you want to go with the menu NEUTRAL - Dont care for the single column of the websites, we have traditionally used a custom responsive layout that has at least 2 columns of content. Everything just feels to big / too much whitespace. MINUS - SharePoint App, we have multiple document libraries, the Groups/SharePoint apps really only focus on the primay Shared Documents one. Overall, it seems like it will be a positive adoption, but there are several things that just miss the mark, at least for how our organization works.Office 365 Groups will now have unique mailNickname
Hi all, We've completed an enhancement with the Azure Active Directory team which will now enforce mailNickname to be unique across all Office 365 Groups within a tenant. This will help ensure resiliency across the tenant and facilitate smooth sync scenarios to on-premises. When Office 365 Groups are created, the name provided is used for mailNickname as well as the first portion of SMTP Address. Previously, Office 365 Group creation did not enforce the mailNickname to be unique across Office 365 Groups. If multiple Office 365 Groups contain the same mailNickname, customers can encounter collisions when these groups are sync’d to on-premises via AAD Connect. In Azure Active Directory, an enforcement has been placed on the mailNickname property so that it will be unique across Office 365 Groups. Previously created Office 365 Groups that have duplicate mailNicknames will not be affected. If a user attempts to modify the mailNickname property through PowerShell or other means, the service will verify whether the new mailNickname being specified is unique. If not, the modification will be rejected. Additionally, a user can create an Office 365 Group that has the same mailNickname as an Office 365 Group that has been soft deleted. If a user attempts to restore the soft deleted group, they will be prompted to change the mailNickname. Mike McLean Office 365 Groups Senior Program Manager
Office 365 Groups What to Use When Framework and Inforgraphic
There's been plenty of buzz about which new Office 365 tools to use and in turn it's generated a lot of great content. We struggled with the same problem at AvePoint and decided to create a simple framework to help those in charge of collaboration pick the right combination of tools for their business processes. We've now converted that into a simple infographic and post as well and hope others can benefit from it too :) https://www.avepoint.com/blog/strategy-blog/how-to-use-office-365-groups/ What are some of the deciding factors your organizations are using to pick the right tool today? Would love to learn more from the community as well.Recent Office 365 Groups recordings and slides
Following Ignite Australia last week, please find some recent Groups recordings and slides that might be of interest: Get the Latest on Office 365 Groups - Overview, What's New and Roadmap Deploying and Governing Office 365 Groups Connect your company with Yammer – a vision & roadmap update Meet Planner: Team Collaboration Built on the Microsoft Graph Microsoft Teams, Office 365 Groups, SharePoint, Yammer…What Should I Use, and When? - presented by AvePoint
PowerShell Script to Generate Reports for New, Changed, and Deleted Groups in Office 365
Get-O365GroupReport.ps1 is a PowerShell script for administrators to generate reports about the Groups in their Office 365 tenant. The script stores information about the Groups that were found in a tenant, and uses that information to determine which groups are new, modified, or deleted since the last report was generated. You can download the script from the https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Office-365-Groups-Report-7e3e161b or https://github.com/cunninghamp/Office365GroupsReport/releases, and read more on the http://practical365.com/collaboration/groups/powershell-script-generate-reports-groups-office-365/ web site.How I would "fix" O365 Groups
Been chewing on this stuff for a while, and I know Groups is not technically broken, but mentally it is, given all of the posts and confusion. If I were Microsoft, here is my list of things that I would do to "fix" and simplify the entire Groups concept in O365. Caveat: These are just my opinions and taking into account nothing "technical" that could go into making any of this a reality. When I say Group, I mean any Group created regardless of where When I say Service, I mean any potential Group workflow, like SharePoint, Planner, PowerBI, Outlook, Yammer, and I am including Teams as a Service (1) Consider and start selling Groups as an actual product offering, and not merely an underlying service. While I can agree Groups itself is not a tool, what Groups gives you and how it is perceived by business users is a collaboration unified set of tools. It is easier to think of the different Group services as an outcome of the Group than the Group being an outcome of the service. Too much time is spent explaining Groups away... This would be helped by doing what is in bullet #2 (2) Create a SharePoint-home-esque equivalent Groups home page Would be web based, but use the same concepts for what it shown in the Groups app, or Outlook for joining other groups Show all Groups the current user is a part of Make recommendations of Groups for a user to join Allow users to filter Yammer Groups, versus Outlook Groups, versus Team groups, keywords, members, etc Once you found a group, the entry should have quick links to each Group service that is enabled. (3) All Groups should technically have the all of the same services available to them, regardless where they are created. Meaning if I create a Group, I could technically have a Yammer, Outlook Inbox/Calendar, and Team if I wanted, in addition to Planner, SharePoint, Files, Notebook, PowerBI, etc. At the end of the day, a Group is a Group is a Group More details on what this ultimately means in bullets 4 and 5 (4) Give Group Admins the ability to "turn on" and "turn off" Group services as they want. I would envision this as a list of checkboxes underneath the Group settings Maybe technically everything gets provisioned, but at least hidden from the interfaces as to not clutter things up all the time. If I go to Planner, I see tons of unused Plans because they are being provisioning for tons of Groups that have no need to use Planner Maybe I started out with a Yammer group, but I want to shut off Yammer and start using the Outlook Inbox/Calendar instead later. At the end of the day, make the products available, but don't force them to be present and used if the team doesnt want to use them. Even more details on what this ultimately means in bullet 5 (5) In line with Points 2 and 3, give O365 Admins the ability to create Group service creation policies based on where a Group is created from A group can now technically be provisioned from Outlook, SharePoint, Yammer, Dynamics, Stream, Teams, and probably a few more that I am leaving off A group admin could configure for example: A group created in Stream will receive only Stream and no other services. A group created in Yammer will by default receive Yammer, SharePoint, Notebook, Files, but no Planner, Outlook, PowerBI, and Teams A group created in Dynamics will by default receive SharePoint, Files, Notebook, but nothing else (6) Make Yammer not necessarily tied to the Group membership, but a tool of the Group Group could use it for internal Group-based conversations Or Group could extend it out to other non-Group members without granted access to the other Group services. E.g. a Learning and Performance Group could use the Yammer as a company-facing discussion interface without allow members to access their own Group tools (7) Revert back to the old Groups Mobile App Icon, or at least something a little less visually pointless. I'm also including don't do away with the Groups Mobile App, many have danced around this subject, but it is better to have the one app for all of the services then eventually make you go to a Service, then find a Group that you want to access for that Service. e.g. incorporating Groups Conv/Calendar into Outlook, incorporating Groups Files into OneDrive, incorporating Groups Notebook into OneNote Those are nice to have, but don't make that the only entry point to get to the services. (8) The Group should be able to be used anywhere in O365 as a Security container This is mostly true today, but some services dont let you share to O365 Groups e.g. O365 Video, PowerBI, Stream Group Writeback to AD should create elements as email-enabled security groups so that they could be re-used on-prem
New Release: Add Mail Contact as Guest available to FR(First Release) Tenants
We are happy to announce that now you can add Mail Contacts as guests in O365 Groups. This feature is fully deployed to First Release tenants & associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 15043. This was top requested feature in Guest Access. If tenant admins have enabled guest access, they don't need to do anything; End users will be able to add mail contacts just like they have been able to add guests before. For more details here is the documentation: https://aka.ms/mailcntrelease Update: 06/28: We are now 100% WW. Let us know if you are having some trouble using this feature.New feature: Office 365 Groups now supports retention policies and label management
Today, we are pleased to announce the release of the following features to help you manage Office 365 Groups: deletion recovery, retention policies and label management. We've also summarized recent enhancements to help admins manage group as well as key upcoming features in this blog post: https://aka.ms/groupsupdate Have a question about Office 365 Groups administration? Ask Microsoft during our AMA at 9am PT on April 13, 2017. Join here: https://aka.ms/groupsama
