Office 365 Groups can be created or deleted by departmental Resource Coordinators. A resource coordinator can set any user as the group owner when a group is created. Group owners manage the group ownership, membership, and settings using the Office 365 Portal.

Note for Office 365 Group Owners: Do not use the Office 365 portal to change the group name (automated processes will set it back to the original name) or to delete the group (automated processes will automatically recreate the group from scratch) for the reasons noted.

Users with O365 Mailbox: For users with an Office 365 (Exchange) mailbox, groups are accessible by logging into the Office 365 Portal > Accessing the "Mail" section > Clicking an Office 365 Groups listed (groups that a user is a member of are shown by default) or clicking the "Discover" link as shown below:

Users without O365 Mailbox: CSU users who do not have an Office 365 mailbox (ex: most undergraduate students) can be members of an Office 365 group. However, they will not be able to access the group's mailbox or calendar and in order to access an Office 365 group notebook or shared file space, users without a mailbox will need to know the exact URL for the applicable service.

If a resource coordinator or an Office 365 Group owner deletes an Office 365 Group, it is not possible to restore the contents of the group's mailbox, notebook, calendar, etc. Note that group owners should not delete an Office 365 group directly from the Office 365 Portal. Groups deleted via the O365 Portal will be re-created from scratch by automated processes and the previous contents of the group will not be recoverable. Office 365 Groups can only be permanently removed by departmental Resource Coordinators.

Office 365 Groups are created as "private" groups by default. The content of private groups is only viewable by approved members of the group, who are managed by the group's owner(s). If an Office 365 Group is marked as public, anyone can see the contents of the group. Group owners can change the private or public setting using the steps posted at Make Office 365 Groups public or private.

Traditional Distribution Groups allow users to easily e-mail a group of users and in some cases are used to grant permissions within Outlook. Office 365 Groups are much more feature-rich and offer a group mailbox, calendar, shared file space, notebook, and Office 365 Plan. Please refer to Learn about Office 365 groups for more information about Office 365 Groups.