St. Thomas has a variety of email distribution groups. Some are ITS managed and others are automatically populated based on information from user profiles in Banner. Many are restricted so that only certain people can send to them. There are also a number of options for people and groups that want to own and manage their own email distribution groups. These include Microsoft Office 365 Groups for collaborative teams, and email distribution groups for one-to-many email communication.
Email Distribution Groups
Distribution groups are great for one-to-many communication. You can create and manage your own distribution groups, add other owners, and even control who can send to those distribution groups.
Instructions
These instructions can only be completed in Outlook on the web. Once you create a distribution group there, you can use it in Outlook desktop if needed.
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Go to https://outlook.office.com/
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Select the Gear icon in the upper-right, and then select View all Outlook settings.
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Go to General and then Distribution Groups. Click the link in "To manage distribution groups, visit this portal." You may have to log in.
- This is where you can see and manage groups you own, or use the + sign option to create a new Distribution Group.
- For new groups, use the + sign option and fill out all required information, and click Save. The Distribution Group will now show under Distribution groups I own, and you can double click to edit it.
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To add or manage your distribution group, double click the name. You can add other owners to help you manage membership on the group. This is also where you add members to the distribution group.
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There are a number of other settings you can configure here. If you want to control who can SEND TO your distribution group, go to Delivery Management and add people there if they should be able to send to your group. By default anyone at the University can send emails to your distribution groups.
**If you have an ITS managed distribution group that you wish to manage yourself going forward, please submit a ticket to the Email, Distribution Groups, and Calendar service here.
**You can still request and use ITS managed distribution groups if you prefer that option.
**ITS is not responsible for keeping user managed distribution groups up to date. We can add and remove people if requested, but owners are responsible for managing these DGs.
Microsoft Office 365 Groups
Microsoft 365 Groups are used for collaborative groups. One of these groups comes with a shared mailbox, a distribution group of the same name, a calendar, and a SharePoint site for file storage. So you can manage access to the mailbox, DG, calendar, and SharePoint site all with the same group. Anyone in the group can access and use the all parts of the group, including the distribution group.
Instructions
These instructions from Microsoft describe how to create a group in any version of Outlook.
This article explains the different ways you might use your Group.
**ITS is not responsible for keeping user managed groups up to date. We can add and remove people if requested, but owners are responsible for managing these groups.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams provides a chat space for your group to communicate. This is often more convenient that sending emails back and forth, and is great for collaborative work groups.
Instructions
Click here to learn about getting started with Teams and find out how to create one.
Click here if you want to learn more about collaboration options at St. Thomas.
If you already own a Microsoft Office 365 Group, you can add Teams to it at any time. If you already own a Team, you can also use that Team's membership group for email communication. If you need help with either of those scenarios, please submit a ticket to the Email, Distribution Groups, and Calendar service here.
Contact Lists
If you need an email mailing list that is contains external (non-St. Thomas) email addresses, and you are not working with the Marketing Cloud and Salesforce teams to manage it, you might consider creating a contact list in Outlook.
You should also consider creating the contact list within a shared mailbox. That way, it's not tied to your individual account. Contact Lists associated with individual accounts typically go away when the account does. If you already have a shared mailbox, try the following:
- Open Outlook on the web (https://outlook.office.com/mail/)
- Select your photo/profile in the upper-right corner, and then go to Open another mailbox.
- Enter the share mailbox name and select the appropriate mailbox. Click Open.
- Follow these Microsoft instructions for creating a contact list on Outlook on the web.
- From there, anyone with access to the shared mailbox can access the mailbox's Contact Lists from any version of Outlook.