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Getting Off to a Good Start with Microsoft 365 Groups

UPDATED March 2026 -- This post has been reviewed and updated to reflect current Microsoft product names, portal locations, and technology status. See inline notes for specific changes.

Introduction

A must read for anyone contemplating the use Microsoft 365 Groups within their Organization.

Microsoft 365 Groups are here to stay! and they offer huge benefits for collaboration on projects and daily tasks. It is however extremely easy to just turn this feature on, and then just let the users go crazy. But you really should consider the following points before jumping the gun.

Open Image: Microsoft 365 Groups infograph

A Few Pointers on Getting Off to a Good Start with Microsoft 365 Groups (UnifiedGroups)

  1. Define a Naming Policy for your groups.

    • Prefix, suffix? Not a practical thing to change once you have 1000 groups...

  2. Define one or more custom email domains specific to group creation.

    • E.g. groups.contoso.com. (so groups emails won't clash with regular email account names)

  3. Make sure your users know just how much stuff comes with these Microsoft 365 Groups.

    • It's A LOT! (Consider setting up training sessions!)

  4. Birth them through Teams if you are doing chat based collaboration.

NOTE (Updated 2026): Microsoft 365 roadmap links referenced in this post may have expired or changed. Visit microsoft.com/microsoft-365/roadmap directly to find current feature status.

  1. Consider restricting who can create the Microsoft 365 groups.

    • Or you will have chaos within a short amount of time.

  2. Keep in mind that all groups have a file area to store data in.

    • Consider using a login script to have users OneDrive client populated with available file areas (/posts/modernwork/easy-automapping-office-365-groups-drives-with-onedrive/).

  3. New things happen ALL the time with Microsoft 365 Groups!

  4. Microsoft 365 Groups are the foundation for Microsoft 365 Copilot collaboration features and Microsoft Loop workspaces. Ensure your Groups governance strategy accounts for AI-generated content and Loop component sharing.

All of the above items, link to relevant reading / tricks / scripts. I suggest you dig your teeth into them if you want to get serious about Groups!

The good Adam Fowler has also written a few gotchas! https://www.adamfowlerit.com/2019/05/office-365-group-as-a-distribution-list-gotchas/

This video from Ignite 2017 is also pretty great for IT Pros wanting to get more info on Microsoft 365 Groups:

Open Video: Microsoft 365 Groups overview from Ignite 2017

There are a lot more areas to consider, but these are a must in my opinion.

Getting Off to a Good Start with Microsoft 365 Groups