Using Exchange Online Transport Rules for Microsoft365 Groups / Teams Groups (Distribution Group)

Question

Hi there,

we set up project related Microsoft365 Groups and use them for email communication. All project related emails shall be send on behalf the project email (Microsoft365 Groups) such as 1234@keyman .com.
To keep other group members updated we put the project email itself into BCC.
Beceause some users tend to forget putting the mail into BCC, we'd like to automate this with Exchange Online transport rules, which shouldn't be a big deal.

Unfortunately, we are not able to set up rules because Microsoft does not want us to set up transportation rules for distributions groups.
I don't get it, because I have the impression MS wants users to use Microsoft365 groups over classic shared mailboxes.
The integration of Microsoft365 Groups into Outlook and the other Office365 services is nice, but there are so many disadvantages compared to shared mailboxes.

Is this something that can be changed or is there a easy workaround, to make 365Groups more attractive for a project related setup?

Answer 1

Hi @ManuD

Yes, that's by design for this scenario we cannot add bcc for groups and o365 group.

However we could consider a workaround: Create a new specific user in your organization and add this user to this o365 group. Create your mailflow rule to add this user to bcc for mails related to this project.

Then in the admin center, go to the Users > Active users page.

Select the name of the user whose email you want to forward, then open the properties page.

On the Mail tab, select Manage email forwarding.

On the email forwarding page, select Forward all emails sent to this mailbox, enter the forwarding address(Your M365 group address), and choose whether you want to keep a copy of forwarded emails.

---

If an Answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 2

Hi @Joyce Shen - MSFT ,

thanks for your answer.

To be honest, I am not quite happy with your answer and the proposed workaround.

• This leads to much more administration work and loads of active users
• In my understanding I have to licence each dummy user account just for forwarding

Why can't we just add bcc for groups and o365 group "by design" for this scenario?
I don't understand in which way there is a technical limitation to change the design.