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Managing Distribution Groups in Office 365

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A Distribution group (formerly known as mailing list) in Office 365 is a uniquely named email address that consists of multiple users and is managed by a designated owner. Distribution groups are intended to easily facilitate ongoing communications between a large and relatively fixed group of people.

There are a few important concepts to understand about distribution groups before we get started with group management:

  • Emails sent to a distribution group are distributed to all members of that distribution group.
  • Only users granted permission by the Distribution Group Owner can send emails to a particular distribution group. Permission to post (send emails) to a group is managed by USAN, and Group Owners should open a ticket with the Fairleigh Dickinson University Technical Assistance Center (UTAC) to change members that can post to the group.
  • A distribution group can be configured in such a way that emails sent to it can be held for approval and specific users can be made approvers (also known as moderators).
  • A distribution group has a unique email address attached to it. Users granted permission to send email to this email address can do so from any email client such as Outlook on the Web or Outlook installed in your computer, laptop, tablet or phone, Mozilla Thunderbird, Mac Mail and more.
  • You can request a distribution group by submitting the Distribution List/Shared Mailbox Request form located at FDU Forms Portal.
  • As a Distribution Group owner, you can change the group’s settings via the group’s management page on your Office 365 account (Outlook on the web).
  • As a Distribution Group owner, you can add or remove members (recipients) from your group via your group’s management page. This can be accomplished via Outlook on the web or by using the Outlook application installed on your machine.
Adding and Removing Distribution Group Users in Outlook for Windows
  1. Open “Outlook” on your computer
  1. Open “Address Book

You can open Address Book in two different ways:

  • One way is to click the “Address Book” icon located at the top when “Home” tab is selected:
  • The second way is by composing/creating a new email and clicking the “To” button:
  1. Select “All Distribution Lists” from the drop-down menu located under Address Book:
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  1. Select “More Columns” and enter the name or email address of your distribution group in the search field as shown in the first screen capture below. If you see your distribution group on the list, highlight it and double click it. If you do not find your list using “More Columns”, then it might be easier to find by using the “Name only
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  1. Click on “Modify Members…
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  1. If you want to remove a member, then select the member from the members list, click “Remove” button and then click “OK
  1. If you want to add a member, click “Add” button
  1. Select “More columns” and enter the new member’s name in the search field
  1. You should see the user in the list. Select “Name only” to search again if you are unable to locate the user. Once you have found the user, highlight the record and click “OK
  1. Verify that the new member is in the member’s list and click “OK
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  1. Click “Apply” and then click “OK
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Adding and Removing Distribution Group Users in Outlook on the Web
  1. Go to “fdu.edu” in the browser of your choice
  2. Go to “Shortcuts” menu
  3. Click “Office 365 and Email
  4. Sign-in with your NetID and password
  5. Go to online Outlook app by clicking on the “Outlook” icon
  1. Go to Settings by clicking on the “Settings” icon
  1. Click on “View all Outlook settings
  1. Click “General
  1. Click on “this portal
  1. Click on “Distribution groups

Here you see the list of distribution groups that you belong to and the list of distribution groups that you own.

How to open the Configuration page for a particular Distribution Group that you own in Outlook on the Web

  1. Select the distribution group that you would like to make changes to and then click “Edit” (Pencil Icon)
  1. You should see the distribution group configuration page

How to see the list of recipients (members) for this Distribution Group in Outlook on the Web

  1. Click on “membership

How to add recipients (members) to this Distribution Group in Outlook on the Web

  1. Click on “+” icon (Plus Icon)
  1. Click “All Users
  1. Please enter the name or NetID of the user that you would like to add to this distribution group in the search text box
  1. Click “+” button beside the user that you would like to add from the search results (you can search and select more users if you would like)
  1. Click “Save” when you are done

Remove recipients (members) from this Distribution Group in Outlook on the Web

  1. Go to the membership list as shown in Step: 3 How to see the list of recipients (members) for this distribution group
  1. Click on the recipient (member) that you would like to remove

Tip

Press “Control” button while selecting recipient if you would like to select multiple recipients from the list.

  1. To select a range of adjacent recipients on the list, click the first recipient from that part. Now, press the “Shift” key and click last recipient in this part
  1. Click “” button at the top located below the “Members” title
  1. Click “Save” when you are done
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Enabling Distribution Group Moderation and Adding Group Moderators
  1. Follow Step 1 & 2 in “Adding and Removing Distribution Group Users in Outlook on the Web
  1. Click “Message Approval
  1. Check (select) “Messages sent to this group have to be approved by a moderator”.
  1. Click “+” button under “Group Moderators

Note

By default, emails sent to the distribution group will be sent to the group owner for approval if you enable message approval and do not select any moderators.

  1. Click “All Users
  1. Please enter the name or NetID of the user that you’d like to add to this distribution group in the search text box
  1. Click “+” button beside the user that you’d like to add from the search results (you can search and select more users if you’d like)
  1. Click “Save” when you’re done. You’ll be taken to “Message Approval” screen
  1. You can add users’ emails from who do NOT require any approval by clicking “+” under “Senders who don’t require message approval” and following the same process as above
  1. You can choose who should be notified when an email sent to this distribution group has been held for approval -or- you can choose to disable these notifications as shown:
  1. Click “Save” again on “Message Approval” screen

Note

An email will NOT be held for approval from a group moderator who is allowed to send emails to the distribution group.

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Microsoft Office 365 Apps

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Microsoft Office 365 offers a comprehensive set of software tools that facilitate documentation, collaboration, and communication. These tools are available on the Web or as downloadable desktop Office 365 apps.

Below is a list of articles for each of the available tools in the Microsoft Office 365 environment. Each article contains information on what each application is and training on how to use them.


Outlook

Outlook allows you to connect and stay organized with your email, calendar, and contacts all in one place.


Word

Word allows you to collaboratively view, edit, and create high-quality shared documents.


Excel

Excel is the industry leading spreadsheet program, a powerful data visualization and analysis tool.


PowerPoint

PowerPoint is a slideshow presentation program that’s part of the Microsoft office suite of tools. PowerPoint makes it easy to create, collaborate, and present your ideas in dynamic, visually compelling ways.


Teams

Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines persistent workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration. Here you will find documentation on how to install and use Teams and all its features.


OneNote

OneNote is a cross-functional digital notebook. You can organize different notebooks into sections and pages with easy annotation and navigation tools.


OneDrive

OneDrive and Microsoft 365 make it easy to access, share, and collaborate with your classmates or co-workers on files from anywhere within FDU.


Lists

Lists you can Build and share lists to help you track issues, assets, routines, contacts, inventory, and more. You can get started with Microsoft Lists from Microsoft 365, from MS Teams or from within SharePoint.


Power Apps

Power Apps is a suite of apps, services, connectors, and data platform that provides a rapid application development environment to build custom apps. Using Power Apps, you can quickly build custom apps that connect to data stored throughout Microsoft 365.


Power Automate

Power Automate is a service that helps you create automated workflows between apps and services to synchronize files, get notifications, collect data and more.


Power BI

Power BI is a business analytics solution that lets you visualize your data and share insights across your organization or embed them in your app or website. It allows connections to hundreds of data sources and generate live dashboards and reports.


Planner

Planner makes it easy for your team to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share files, chat about what you are working on, and get updates on progress.


Bookings

Bookings offers a simpler way to organize schedules and manage appointments. Microsoft Bookings includes a web-based booking calendar and integrates with Outlook to optimize your calendar and give your contacts the flexibility to book a time that works best for everyone involved.


Forms

Forms is an app that lets you create surveys, quizzes, and polls to collect real-time responses from students, collaborates and colleagues. It has built-in analytics to evaluate responses, and export results to Excel for additional analysis or grading.

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