Are you using Office 365 Groups yet? You should be! Office 365 Groups is one of the best ways to get wide adoption and usage of Office 365 through cross application group membership (managed in Azure AD). It's a fundamental building block of many of the newer features of Office 365 like Planner, and is leveraged by apps such as Outlook, SharePoint, Yammer, OneNote, Skype for Business, Power BI, and Dynamics CRM. Come learn about the latest updates and see what you and your organization can do with Office 365 Groups.

1. Are you using Office 365 Groups yet?
You should be!

2. Introduction
Matt Greene
Engagement Manager at Netwoven
mgreene@netwoven.com
Over 6 years experience in Building and
Delivering SharePoint Solutions

3. Show of Hands

4. Agenda
21 3

5. How Business Works Today

6.  Request Distribution List for Messaging
 Get SharePoint site for files
 Create project plan
 Manually manage permissions on content
 Ramp up new team members based on previous group
discussions
 Apply and manage policies on content
 Manually manage membership and access on Distribution
Lists
Working in the Past

7. Business Challenges
of employees believe IT is
ineffective at providing
collaboration, data analysis,
and mobility capabilities.

8. Working Today with Office 365 Groups
Hub for Teamwork
Teams
Co-Author
Office Apps
Connect Across
the Organization
Yammer
Intranets &
Content Management
SharePoint
Email & Calendar
Outlook
Office 365 Groups
Single team membership
across apps and services
Microsoft Graph
Suite-wide intelligence
connecting people and content
Security and Compliance
Centralized policy management

9. Office 365 Groups is a Membership Service
One identity Federated resources Loose coupling
Azure AD is the master for group
identity & membership
Office 365 services extend with
their data
Service notify each other of
changes to a group

10. Demo

11. How do I manage Groups at scale?
OPEN
• Everyone can create groups (default).
• Using all teamwork apps to meet their diverse needs.
• Consistent classification and policy enforcement.
CONTROLLED
• Creation is limited to certain business units/users.
• Progressively expand self-service during O365 apps onboarding.
• Guide users to collaboration choices.
Processes in place
Reporting &
monitoring
Change
management

12. Tools to manage groups
Expiration Policy
Admins set a duration to expire groups and group owners need
to attest the continuing need for their group.
Naming Policy
Naming convention set on display name and alias during
create/edit imposing custom blocked word check
Groups reporting
Admins can view the total groups vs. active groups and the
activity across group workloads.
Soft Delete and Restore
Admins and IWs can soft delete groups, and the groups and it
contents across workloads will be stored for 30days.
Security group for Group Creation
Set up a security group which is allowed to create groups
Pro Tip: use a dynamic security group!

13. How can you ensure it is rolled out in a
controlled fashion?
?

14. Scope group creation to a pre-determined set
of users.
Incrementally expand access before enabling
self-service for entire organization.
Group Creation
Permissions
Creation Policies
Set up a security group which is allowed
to create groups.
Hidden Membership
Hide the Office 365 group members
from users who aren’t members of the
group.
Dynamic Membership
Admins can define groups with rule-based
memberships using the Azure
Management Portal or via PowerShell.

15. Enforce a consistent naming strategy for
O365 groups created across all group
workloads (Outlook, SharePoint, Microsoft
Teams, Planner, etc.)
Group Naming Policy
IT admin can override
Selective admin roles can override the
naming conventions and blocked words
check
Custom Blocked Words Check
Upload your organization specific
blocked words to restrict usage
Force a Naming Convention
Prefixes and Suffixes to identify creator
and user intent. Use fixed strings or Azure
AD user attributes

16. Manage group content produced by setting up retention policies
to keep what you want and get rid of what you don’t need.
Admins can now create Office 365 Groups retention policies that
apply to the group’s shared inbox and files in one step using the
Office 365 Security & Compliance Center.
With labels, you can classify Office 365 Groups emails and
documents across your organization for governance, and
enforce retention rules based on that classification.
Group Policies &
Information Protection
Usage Guidelines
You can define usage guidelines for
Office 365 Groups—to educate your
users about best practices and internal
content policies.
Guest Expiry
Automatically enforce guest access
review with expiration policies that group
owners must respond to.
Default Classification
create a customizable data classification
system for Office 365 Groups, such as
unclassified, corporate confidential or top
secret.

17. How can I manage unused groups?
?

18. Manage group lifecycle and clean unused O365 groups across all
group workloads (Outlook, SharePoint, MS Teams, Planner, etc.)
Group Expiration Policy
Notify Group Owners to
Renew the expired groups
Owners get notified by email to renew
the expiring group incase they still need
to use it
Apply expiration policy to
specific groups
Admins can select a specific set of groups
and apply the policy to those
Expire Groups older than a
specific period
Admins can expire groups created older
than x days
Owners can restore expired
groups that are soft deleted
If the group expires and gets soft
deleted, owners can still restore the
group

19. Retain group workload content in soft deleted state for 30 days after deletion
No more complex scripts needed to retrieve content of accidentally deleted
groups. Restore groups and its content across workloads by a click in admin
center or a simple PowerShell commandlet
Soft Delete and Restore
Hard Delete the group
Admin can permanently delete the soft
deleted group
Restore the soft deleted group
Admin can restore the soft deleted group
and its contents within 30 days of
deletion
Deleted group content across
workloads is stored for 30days
Any group that is deleted is stored in a
separate container for 30 days

20. Demo

21. How can I audit user actions and gain
insight on group activity?
?

22. View which groups are active in your organization so
that you can act on inactive groups
View storage used by group mailboxes and group
sites so that you can clean up unused groups and
reclaim storage space
Groups Admin Reporting
Group storage
View the group mailbox storage used
and the group site storage used
Group Activity across
workloads
View group activity across Group
mailbox, SharePoint sites and Yammer
groups
Total Groups vs Active Groups
View the total groups created and how
many are active

23. Groups Admin Reporting – Workload Activity
Groups Activity across workloads
Admin can view group activity across Group mailbox Conversations, Group site/files activity, Yammer group activity

24. Auditing
Audit Logs in the Azure AD Admin
Portal
Audit Log Search in Security and
Compliance Center
Group Activities that are logged
• Added group
• Updated group
• Deleted group
• Added member to group
• Removed member from group

25. Demo

26. Office 365 Groups Roadmap
Rolling Out
• Expiration policy
• Naming policy
• Guest expiry
• Guest allow/deny for individuals & domains
• Default classification and classification description
In Development
• Expiration policy: In-app renewal & custom email
notification
• Yammer: SharePoint DocLib as default file store;
naming policy; guest access
• Teams: Guest access; larger team size
• Multi-geo: Enable the geo positioning of group
created in EXO & SPO based on the creator’s data
at rest location
• SharePoint: Connect an existing site to a new
group; manage group sites via SharePoint admin
center; select site designs

27. Getting Started
 Establish Business pilot goals and make sure IT and
Business are committed to executing the pilot.
 Create a pilot roll out plan in partnership with Active
Directory, Exchange, and SharePoint administrators
 Deploy ProPlus for latest Outlook 2016
 Amplify successful groups and demonstrate value to
other departments
 Upgrade existing Distribution Lists (DL) & SharePoint
team site

28. Upgrade Distribution Lists to groups in Outlook
• Can do it in one click via Exchange Admin
Portal
• Automatically provisions other Group assets
(Planner, Team Site, etc.)

29. Connect existing sites to Office 365 groups
• Site collection administrators can connect sites
to groups
• Only top-level team sites (STS#0 template) are
eligible
• Respect current permissions hierarchy

30. Thank you

31. Thank You to Our Sponsors

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33. References

34. Group Naming Policy: FAQs
What if our user attributes are quite long? Will it impact group creation?
Yes, group alias is restricted to 64 chars and group name to 256 chars. So longer user attributes used as prefixes/suffixes could block group creation in
your organization
Can we use extension attributes and custom attributes?
Extension attributes and custom attributes are currently not supported
Can we have different naming policies for each group workload?
No, this will be a tenant wide policy and will apply to all group workloads
Can we create rule based policy where we can apply prefixes only for users in a specific department?
We currently do not support rule based policy application. We suggest that you leverage user attributes for these scenarios
Is this a premium feature?
Yes, Group naming policy requires Azure AD Premium P1 license for unique users that are members of Office 365 groups in tenants.

35. Group Expiration Policy: FAQs
Can I set an option to expire groups that are inactive?
This is not currently supported. The expiration policy is applied based on group creation date.
Can we change the expiry notification intervals?
The expiry notification intervals are fixed to 30 days, 15 days and 1 day prior to expiry and cannot be changed.
Can we apply expiration policy to specific group workloads?
The expiration policy applies to all groups workloads and it cannot be set for specific group workloads.
What happens to expiring groups if I have setup an Advanced retention policy in Security and Compliance Portal?
When a group expires and gets soft deleted, the group’s conversations in mail box and files in the group site are retained in the retention container for
the specific number of days defined in the retention policy. Refer link for more details.
Is this a premium feature?
Yes, Group expiration policy requires Azure AD Premium P1 license for unique users that are members of Office 365 groups in tenants.

36. Soft Delete and Restore : FAQs
Can I change the soft deletion period of 30 days?
The soft deletion period is fixed to 30 days. The soft deleted group content is retained only for 30 days. After 30 days, the group content across
workloads is permanently deleted.
Can I restore a soft deleted group, if another group with the same name exists?
Restore will fail with an appropriate error. You would need to rename or delete the new group with the same name so that the soft deleted group can
be restored.
Can I soft delete a group if the group mailbox is on legal hold?
The group can be soft deleted and can be restored within 30 days. But the group cannot be hard deleted. So after 30 days in soft delete, only group
mailbox can be restored and all other group workload content will be permanently deleted.
Can I soft delete a group if I have setup an Advanced retention policy in the Security and Compliance Center?
The group can be soft deleted and restored within 30 days. The group’s mailbox and site content moves to a retention container which can be retrieved
by eDiscovery. Refer to this link for more details.

37. Soft Delete and Restore
Office Documentation
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Restore-a-deleted-Office-365-Group-b7c66b59-657a-4e1a-8aa0-
8163b1f4eb54
Azure AD Documentation
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/active-directory-groups-restore-azure-portal
MS graph API Documentation
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/docs/api-reference/beta/api/directory_deleteditems_restore
Exchange Online PowerShell
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt784604(v=exchg.160).aspx

38. Group Expiration Policy
Office Documentation
https://support.office.com/article/8d253fe5-0e09-4b3c-8b5e-f48def064733
Azure AD Documentation
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/active-directory-groups-lifecycle-azure-portal
MS graph API Documentation
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/docs/api-reference/beta/resources/grouplifecyclepolicy
PowerShell Module
https://www.PowerShellgallery.com/packages/AzureADPreview/2.0.0.137
PowerShell Documentation
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/PowerShell/module/azuread/?view=azureadps-2.0-
preview&branch=master#groups

39. Group Naming Policy
Office Documentation
https://support.office.com/article/Office-365-Groups-Naming-Policy-6ceca4d3-cad1-4532-9f0f-d469dfbbb552

40. Information Protection
Data Classification and Usage Guidelines
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/active-directory-accessmanagement-groups-settings-
cmdlets
Retention Policies
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Overview-of-retention-policies-5e377752-700d-4870-9b6d-
12bfc12d2423?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
Label Management
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Overview-of-labels-af398293-c69d-465e-a249-d74561552d30?ui=en-
US&rs=en-US&ad=US