How to Set Up and Manage Microsoft 365 Groups for Maximum Efficiency?

Summary: In this content, you will learn about how to set up and manage Microsoft 365 Groups. However, Office 365 Groups are used to enhance team collaboration with shared workspaces. Therefore, it is essential to know how to create and maintain Office 365 groups. Moreover, some good practices to ease the task and issues related to managing are mentioned for better understanding.

Table of Contents,

• What are Microsoft 365 Groups?
• Benefits of Office 365 Groups
• How to Create Groups in Office 365?
• How to Manage Microsoft 365 Group?
• Use of the Professional Tool
• Wrapping Up?

Setting up Microsoft 365 groups is simple whereas managing it may be difficult if you are not aware of how to do the same. However, managing of the groups includes adding and removing members, setting the permissions, giving access to users, and using integrated tools. Moreover, the need for regular viewing, clear naming of groups, and training provide effective use of the groups.

Before moving to the main topic i.e. how to set up and manage Microsoft 365 groups, let us discuss the Office 365 groups in brief.

What are Microsoft 365 Groups?

Office 365 Groups is a feature that is present within the Microsoft 365 suite. These are designed to help the teams work together more effectively by providing shared tools. Just you need to set it up according to the requirements of your organization. Whether you're collaborating on documents, managing projects, or coordinating tasks, Microsoft 365 Groups provides a wide range of tools to simplify and enhance teamwork. Whenever you create it you you will get the tools mentioned below.

Shared Inbox for group emails, a shared calendar used for scheduling events, and for taking notes together you can use a shared OneNote notebook, etc. In addition, Groups are of two types i.e. public and private groups. Anyone in the organization can join whereas private groups are joined by only approved members. It comes with other Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, SharePoint, and Teams to increase communication, simplify the sharing of data, and help keep everything organized in one place. If you are doing any project you can create a group and share the related resources in it.

Benefits of Office 365 Groups

Some of the key benefits of the Microsoft Office 365 group are as follows.

1. Improved Collaboration: Every communication and document sharing related to work/project helps the teams to work together and keep everyone updated and informed.
2. Integrated Tools: You can make use of other Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, SharePoint, Teams, and Planner.
3. Access Control: Group owners can manage who is in the group and allow different permissions to the users.?
4. Simplified Management: Admins or the person who has the right can easily create, manage, and monitor groups in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
5. Cross-platform support: You can access the groups remotely from desktops, the web, and mobile devices.

Now moving to the topic i.e. how to set up and manage Microsoft 365 groups, First, let's go through with the creation after that I will discuss how to manage it.

Also Learn: How to Export Office 365 Group Members to CSV?

How to Create Groups in Office 365?

Setting up Microsoft 365 groups is easy and it can be done with several Microsoft 365 apps, such as Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint.

Let's go through the ways to create the groups in different apps one by one.

Way# Setup a Group in Outlook

Step 1. Login to Outlook with credentials and open it.

Step 2. Navigate to the left-hand sidebar and click on "New Group" in the toolbar.

Step 3. Enter the group details such as the group name, description, and privacy settings however, you can choose between a public group/private group.

Step 4. Now, Add members by typing their email addresses.?

Note: You can add more members later.

Step 5. Click "Create" to finish setting up the group.

Way# Setup a Group in Microsoft Teams

Step 1. Login to Teams with credentials and open it.

Step 2. Go to the Teams tab and click on the "Join or create a team" option.

Step 3. Now, select "Create team" and then choose "From scratch" or "From a group or team".

Step 4. Select team type.

Step 5. Enter the group details.

Step 6. Add members to the Team by clicking on the "Create."

Way# Setup a Group in SharePoint

Step 1. Login to Microsoft 365 with credentials and open SharePoint from the Microsoft 365 app launcher.

Step 2. Click on "Create site" and select "Team site".

Step 3. Enter the details and then add members after that click on "Finish" to set up your site, which automatically creates a Microsoft 365 Group.

Moving to the next headline where I discuss how to manage groups in Office 365.

How to Manage Microsoft 365 Group?

After the group creation, Now it's time to manage it day by day. However,? managing involves adding or removing members, setting permissions, and making use of the various tools available within the group. So let us discuss these various aspects of maintaining the group after knowing how to set up? Microsoft 365 groups.

Adding and Removing Members

• In Outlook you need to open the group and then click on "Members." After that use the "Add members" or "Remove members" options.
• For Teams, open the team, click on the three dots next to the team name, select "Manage team", and then use the "Add member" or "Remove member" for the same.
• In SharePoint navigate to the team site, click on "Members", and make use of the "Add members" or "Remove members" options.

Set up and manage the Permissions

Permissions are needed to ensure that only authorized members can access the data present within the groups. Only the admin can set this. However, the admin can make group owners that manage group settings and members whereas members can access group resources but cannot change settings.

Moreover, you can invite external guests to the group but they will have limited access compared to internal members.

For managing the permissions in Outlook you need to open the group settings and navigate to "Permissions" to adjust access levels. Whereas in Teams go to settings, where you can manage member permissions and guest access. Moreover, if I talk about SharePoint make use of the "Site permissions" option to set permissions for the site.

Use of Group Tools

Microsoft 365 Groups come with different integrated tools to enhance communication and collaboration.

Managing Group Settings

You can also manage and adjust settings such as group name, description, and privacy from the group settings page in Outlook or Teams. Moreover, you can apply group policies using the Microsoft 365 admin center. Also, manage the set-up of group expiration

Hope you get the picture clear idea of how to set up and manage Microsoft 365 groups to improve production.?

Use of the Professional Tool

Now, jump to the scenario, Due to some problem you want to upgrade the subscription plan of your Microsoft 365 account so you need to migrate your Microsoft Office 365 Groups and other data to another place. Since there is no solution provided by Microsoft 365 to move the groups from the source to the target. Therefore, you need to make use of any automated and professional tool for preparing the same. One of the software that comes out of the box is Office 365 to Office 365 Migration Software. However, you can make use of it to migrate easily without any data loss.

Wrapping Up?

Hope this blog is beneficial for the user who is eager to know How to set up and manage Microsoft 365 groups. However, Groups are used to increase team collaboration and productivity. By following the steps mentioned in this guide, you can easily set up and manage groups within your organization. In addition, make sure that you regularly review and adjust group settings and permissions to keep your groups functioning smoothly.

Also, See: Convert shared mailbox to Office 365 groups.