Email Distribution Lists moving to 365 groups

Question

We currently have a lot of nested email groups on exchange on prem, e.g.

#LITIGATION contains the groups:

#LON-LITIGATION
#BVI-LITIGATION
#CAY-LITIGATION
#HKG-LITIGATION

Then each of these are broken down in to the roles: #LON-LITIGATION-LAWYER, #LON-LITIGATION-LEGALSUPPORT.

It would be so much easier if we could convert all of these to 365 online groups to bring the benefits of teams/Sharepoint sharing & collaboration etc. Plus IT also maintain the group memberships as part of the joiner/mover/leaver processes and for us, the IT Team only have to add the employee in to the lowest level group and then they get all the other email they need. It's worked well for years. Users can create and manage their own 365 groups but I can already see that we are going to end up in a mess with lots of old groups and the retention rules also don't flag to auto delete groups when there are no members (or internal members)!

Can see that you can't upgrade groups to 365 as they are nested (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/recipients-in-exchange-online/manage-distribution-groups/upgrade-distribution-lists)

I tried creating two 365 groups to nest them but all it does is show you the current members to add them in to the group. This won't maintain the membership automatically.

I don't see how the design helps larger organisations manage their groups, would like MS to change this to work with nested groups which is likely a long shot. Would appreciate any guidance from people who have faced a similar dilemma!

Answer 1

Hi, @Rachael Fowler

I understand the challenges you face when managing nested email distribution list and want to convert them to Microsoft 365 Groups for better collaboration and management, but managing group membership and ensuring proper retention can be challenging. In response to your question, I give the following suggestions:

1.While users creating their own groups can lead to potential clutter and administrative issues, there are strategies you can employ to keep things organized and tidy.

a. Establish clear policies for group creation, usage, and lifecycle.

b. Use Microsoft 365's built-in features to develop group expiration and renewal policies. You can set the group to expire after a certain period of time, and if it is not renewed, it will be deleted. This helps to manage unused or inactive groups.

c. Consider using PowerShell scripts or the Microsoft Graph API to automate administrative tasks, such as archiving or deleting groups that don't have members.

2.As you said, you can't upgrade a nested distribution list to an M365 group. You can only upgrade a simple, non-nested distribution list managed by the cloud to a Microsoft 365 group. Can't upgrade distribution lists to Microsoft 365 groups - Exchange | Microsoft Learn

You can try to use Group Membership Management (GMM) to help you manage your groups. Microsoft Automates Group Member Management

3.Even though there are many limitations in the process of upgrading DL to M365 groups, this also has many advantages for large organizations to manage their groups. As technology continues to evolve, so does technology about nesting. Migrate traditional Distribution Groups to Office 365 Groups - Microsoft Community Hub

4.If you've configured a hybrid deployment between your on-premises Exchange organization and Microsoft 365, you can follow the steps in this topic to make the groups you created in Microsoft 365 available to on-premises users. Configure Microsoft 365 Groups with on-premises Exchange hybrid | Microsoft Learn

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Answer 2

Whilst it is a helpful response and an answer to my question, I still feel it is a poor design.

It should be easier for companies to restrict certain functionality and automate group membership on deployment other than relying on PowerShell scripts.