Email messages sent to a Dynamic Distribution Group aren't delivered to all recipients

• Applies to:

  Exchange Server 2016 Standard Edition, Exchange Server 2016 Enterprise Edition

Original KB number:   4090655

Symptoms

Email messages that are sent to a Dynamic Distribution Group aren't delivered to all the recipients.

Cause

By default, when you create a Dynamic Distribution Group, the RecipientContainer parameter is set to the organizational unit (OU) in which the Dynamic Distribution Group is created, if it isn't selected explicitly.

The categorizer searches only under the OU that is mentioned in the RecipientContainer parameter. It uses the RecipientFilter parameter to select the members of the Dynamic Distribution Group to deliver email messages to.

Users who are part of another OU don't receive email messages that are sent to the Dynamic Distribution Group. This is expected behavior.

Resolution

To fix this issue, specify the correct RecipientContainer parameter when you create the Dynamic Distribution Group.

For example, the following command creates a Dynamic Distribution Group that is named Marketing Group. It contains all users in the OU that are named North America who have a Department field that equals the Marketing or Sales strings.

New-DynamicDistributionGroup -Name "Marketing Group" -IncludedRecipients "MailboxUsers,MailContacts" -ConditionalDepartment "Marketing","Sales" -RecipientContainer "North America"

Additionally, you can use the following command to view members of a Dynamic Distribution Group that will receive the email messages:

$marketing = Get-DynamicDistributionGroup "Marketing group" Get-Recipient -RecipientPreviewFilter $marketing.RecipientFilter -OrganizationalUnit $marketing.RecipientContainer