HOSTED EXCHANGE - DISTRIBUTION GROUPS Print
Distribution groups in Exchange exist to allow single emails to be delivered to multiple predefined recipients. They work with both inbound and outbound mail.
Each distribution group has an email address and one or more members. Any mail sent to the group's email address will be delivered to all of its members simultaneously.
In Hosted Exchange, two types of object can be members of a distribution group:
- internal mailboxes (i.e. within the same domain)
- external mailboxes (i.e. outside of the home email domain - also know as mail-enabled contacts)
Distribution groups can be added and managed through Manage Services and through the Customer/Services journey.
There are two aspects to managing a distribution group:
- Edit, which allows you to change the properties of the group itself
- Edit members, which allows you to add or remove members from the group
Add - Manage Services
Navigate to the Manage Services page, select Hosted Exchange and the customer you wish to add a distribution group for, then click the Distribution Groups tab:
You will see there are no distribution groups added yet. To add a group, click the + icon to open the Add distribution group dialog:
Add the email address for the group (which must be unique within the domain).
Select the Spam action - choices are Delete spam, Warn in subject and Ignore (the same options as with a mailbox).
You can optionally check the Internal only box which will prevent the group receiving or sending mail outside of the home domain.
Click Add distribution group to create the group. You will see the newly-created group in the Distribution Groups list, but the amber status indicates that it has not been fully activated yet. When the status changes to green the group is ready to use.
Add - Customer/Services
Navigate to Customers, select the customer you are adding the distribution group for, click the Services tab and click Manage Exchange:
This will open the Exchange management page - click Distribution groups. You will see the group we already created through Manage Services:
To add a new group, click the + icon to open the Add distribution group dialog:
Add the email address for the group (which must be unique within the domain).
Select the Spam action - choices are Delete spam, Warn in subject and Ignore (the same options as with a mailbox).
You can optionally check the Internal only box which will prevent the group receiving or sending mail outside of the home domain.
If there are pre-existing groups (as in this example), you can choose to copy the member list from one of them, which can save time if you are creating multiple groups with identical memberships.
Click Add distribution group to create the group. You will see the newly-created group in the Distribution Groups list with a status of Queued for activation. When the status changes to Active the group is ready to use.
1. Edit properties of the group
Navigate to the Manage Services page, select Hosted Exchange and the customer whose distribution group you wish to manage, then click the Distribution Groups tab. Select Edit from the Group actions drop-down to edit the properties of the group:
The Edit distribution group dialog allows you to:
- Edit the Display name
- Change the Spam action
- Enable or disable Internal only
- Hide or show this group's address in the Offline Address Book - you might want to do this if you don't want internal users seeing the group, e.g. if the address is intended to be only externally visible
Click Submit Changes to commit your amendments or Cancel if you don't need to change anything.
2. Add/remove group members
Navigate to the Manage Services page, select Hosted Exchange and the customer whose distribution group you wish to manage, then click the Distribution Groups tab. Select Edit Members from the Group actions drop-down to change the membership of the group:
The resulting dialog shows which users are already in the group and which are not. In this example the group has no members yet.
Either click Select/Deselect all users or select individual users and click the right-facing arrow to add them to the group. Similarly the left-facing arrow removes the selected users from the group:
Click Submit Changes when you are finished.
3. Edit group membership of a user
Section 2 above shows how to edit members of a group - you can also edit group memberships for individual users, which is useful if you need to add a user to several groups at once.
Navigate to the Manage Services page, select Hosted Exchange and the customer whose distribution group you wish to manage, then select Distribution Groups from the Mailbox actions drop-down to change the group memberships of the user:
The resulting dialog differs from the Distribution Group dialog above in that it shows group membership from a user's perspective. As before, use the check boxes and arrows to determine which groups you wish this user to be a member of, then click Submit Changes.
1. Edit properties of the group
Navigate to Customers, select the customer whose distribution group you wish to manage, click the Services tab and click Manage Exchange:
This will open the Exchange management page - click Distribution groups and select Edit from the Action drop-down to edit the properties of the group:
The Edit distribution group dialog allows you to:
- Edit the Display name
- Change the Spam action
- Enable or disable Internal only
- Hide or show this group's address in the Offline Address Book - you might want to do this if you don't want internal users seeing the group, e.g. if the address is intended to be only externally visible
Click Submit Changes to commit your amendments or Cancel if you don't need to change anything.
2. Add/remove group members
Navigate to Customers, select the customer whose distribution group you wish to manage, click the Services tab and click Manage Exchange:
This will open the Exchange management page - click Distribution groups and select Edit Members from the Action drop-down to change the membership of the group:
The resulting dialog shows which users are already in the group and which are not. In this example the group has no members yet.
Either click Select/Deselect all users or select individual users and click the right-facing arrow to add them to the group. Similarly the left-facing arrow removes the selected users from the group:
Click Submit Changes when you are finished.
Unlike the Manage Services route, there is no way to edit group membership from the user's perspective via this method.
Related Guides
- Basic mailbox settings for Outlook and other email clients (POP/IMAP)
- Diagnostics log collection in Support and Recovery Assistant
- Add an Outlook.com or Office 365 account
- How to Create Email Account in the Control Panel
- Groups naming policy
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