This article covers how Microsoft 365 Groups can be managed by group owners.
Managing Group Membership
You can see the groups you own by visiting Heelmail and clicking on the People icon on the left side of the page.
There should be a Groups section on the left, and it should have Member and Owner within it. Click Owner to see the groups you currently own.
After clicking on a group, more information should appear on the right. This includes the group's email address and a selection of the members of the group. At the bottom of this page there should be an Edit Group button. Clicking this should open the Edit group page.
Along the top of the Edit group page you should see a Members tab. Clicking this will take you to a list of all members and owners of the group. There will also be a Add member button.
A member's role can also be altered from the Edit group page. Each person in the group should have their role on the right side of the page, and this can be changed to update the role and permissions.
What Can an Owner Do?
Owners have full control over a group. They can add new members and owners to the group. They can also change certain settings for the group, such as allowing external email addresses to reach the group. Owners can also change the group name and email address from the group screen mentioned above.
Deleting a Group
Groups can also be deleted using the Delete group button at the bottom of the Edit group page.
When a group is deleted, these associated items will also be deleted:
- Conversations
- Files (including files in Sharepoint
- The group notebook
- Planner tasks
Caution: Deleting a group will delete an associated team and vice versa.
Deleted groups can be restored up to 30 days after deletion. A deleted group or Team cannot be restored after this time has passed.
Synchronization
Microsoft offers a synchronization client for Group OneDrive. The client allows you to synchronize files between Office365 and your computer. This can be very handy in that it allows files to be automatically downloaded to a local computer without needing to visit the Group OneDrive website.
How Do I Determine if Synchronization is Enabled for my Group OneDrive?
Open the OneDrive files view for the Office 365 Group to check and see if synchronization is enabled. See the OneDrive Getting Started help document if you need instructions.
Using the image below, if the Sync option appears within the Documents library of the OneDrive, then synchronization is enabled.
Things to Keep in Mind When Using Syncing
- The current version of the application works better than previous versions but some users run into issues where the synchronization stops working. Generally, the user is unaware that synchronization has failed and their file systems get into an inconsistent state leading to lots of confusion.
- Sensitive Data is allowed to be stored in Office365. Read through the Sensitive Information Guidelines for more information. If you synchronize sensitive data to your computer, special requirements must be met. Please see the UNC Chapel Hill Information Security Controls Standard to review these requirements.
- There are concerns that users may try to synchronize a group, file or folder not realizing that it contains sensitive data.
- The storage allocations in Office 365 can be large. If you choose to synchronize large amounts of data, you can fill up your local hard drive. If you do a sync, select just the files and folders you wish to sync – not all files and folders.
- If you enable local sync and then delete the local files, they will be deleted in Office 365. Be careful.
Group OneDrive has an option to enable/disable file and folder synchronization at the document library level. There is a default “Documents” library that is automatically created when new Office 365 Groups are created.
How Do I Disable/Enable Synchronization?
Note: You must be a group owner to make this change.
Open the OneDrive files view for the Office 365 Group you wish to modify. See the OneDrive Getting Started help document if you need instructions.
Near the top of the window, click the square box next to the name of your Group (circled in the screenshot below). This will open the home page for your Group.
Click the “Gear” icon near the top right and then select Site settings (both circled below).
Click the “Search and offline availability” link (circled below).
Under the Offline Client Availability section (circled below), select “Yes” to enable the sync feature, “No” to turn off the feature.
Then click OK to save your change.
