Problem Statement
How can I maintain a list of people who do not work for my organisation but need to receive emails about what the organisation is doing – for example customers, partners, volunteers etc? How can I share such a list with others in the organisation who need to use it – including allowing them to update the list?
Are Microsoft 365 Distribution Lists or Outlook Contact Groups suitable for this?
Distribution Lists in Microsoft 365
Definition: A distribution list is created by a user of an administrator and has owners and members. The distribution list will appear in the address book “Offline Global Address List”
How to create a distribution list: Administrators can create a distribution list in Microsoft 365 Admin Center, or users can create one in their online Outlook settings in the General > Distribution Groups > Distribution groups I own configuration pane.
How to change membership: When a distribution list is defined in Microsoft 365 the owner of the list may modify the members by adding other people who are in the Microsoft 365 offline address list to the distribution list.
You can’t add users who are not in this list as you cannot add generic email addresses but only contacts that appear in the global address list.
Additionally – you can’t add contacts that appear in your personal address book/contacts and standard users can’t add entries to the global address list (except, for example, if they invite a user to collaborate with Teams/SharePoint).
Administrators, much like standard users, can only add users who appear in the global address list for the tenant. But an administrator could add a user to Azure AD at which point they would appear in the global address list.
How distribution lists are shared: The distribution list when defined will by default will appear in the global address list for the organisation it sits in, and any member of the organisation can send to it. This means all members of the organisation can see it and send to it, unless the default configuration is changed.
Updating contacts: If someone’s email address changes then this will need to be changed by an administrator in Azure AD by deleting the old account and creating a new one with the new email address.
Conclusion: M365 distribution lists are designed for use with people who have access to your environment rather than just random people who interact with the organisation (i.e. the difference between staff and the public, or staff and attendees). Users or guests in the distribution list must be in Azure AD.
Contact Groups in Outlook
Definition: A contact group is something you create in your contacts folder or another contacts folder you create. Unless you share it with another user it will be visible to only you.
How to create a contact group: Create a contact group in Outlook using the “New Contact Group” button on the Contacts pane. Make sure that you name the contact group uniquely to avoid Outlook getting confused.
How to change membership: Members can be added to a contact group from i) Contacts ii) Address Books or iii) Email addresses
How contact groups are shared: Individual contacts can’t be shared in Outlook but rather the folder they are in must be shared. For example, to share the default “Contacts” folder with another user you would right-click on the folder and click “Share > Share Contacts” and an email would be generated to share the contacts.
However there are some caveats:
- You might not want to share your main “Contacts” folder with another user – after all, you might not want to share all the contacts you’ve defined as shared, maybe for a very specific purpose.
- If the contact exists in your main “Contacts” folder, Outlook will ‘find’ the contact or contact group name only when you type it in the ‘To’ box of a new email. If the contact or contact group exists elsewhere, in another folder, to send an email to that address you must go to the folder, select the contact or contact group and click “Send Email” within the contact entry.
To create a dedicated folder for sharing contacts/contact groups with another user select “Contacts” and then click “New Group” (not “New Contact Group”) this will create a new contacts folder that you can name e.g. Shared with Billy” and then create a “New Contact Group” in.
Updating Contacts: Beware! If you have the same “contact” in multiple places – e.g. Gerald Fronda is in both “Contacts” and “Shared with Billy” – then updating only the entry in “Contacts” will not update the entry in “Shared with Billy”.
Similarly, if you have added the user to the Contacts Group and ticked the box “Add to Contacts” and then modify the contact email address, Outlook will not automatically update the email address in the Contact Group. You would need to remove the contact from the list of members, and then add them again. Even clicking the “Update” button in the Contact Group doesn’t appear to update the users email addresses against the associated Contact.
Conclusion: Contact groups are not an ideal solution for an organisation to use for managing and sharing a list of email addresses – there are too many complexities around creating, sharing and updating contact groups.
Horses for Courses
The problem statement right at the start of this blog described the function normally fulfilled by a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. A CRM normally enables users to add email addresses and create groups based on these. For a business, this would be a list of people who have previously purchased from you. For example, for a church you could create a list of members. For a charity, a list of supporters… etc. Then create groups for different purposes, e.g. all members, leadership, whatever teams you need, etc, then add users to one or more groups.
A CRM would also allow an organisation to define a template for their communications, allowing for consistency.
It could also be used to fulfil the requirements around data protection & consent (GDPR).
Other tools do exist for this function, specific to a particular organisation type. For example for churches, Church Suite includes an address book and allows groups to be created for sending emails about specific topics. For tennis clubs ClubSpark exists. For other clubs, solutions like ClubExpress exists. And so on.
It’s worth looking at these alternative options as they can sometimes offer a better price point for an organisation. For example Church Suite would probably be more cost effective for a church than Zoho CRM. It’s priced based on the number of adult email addresses added to the address list which may make it cheaper than Zoho which is priced based on the number of users who will be using it to (for example) send emails.
AMDH Services Ltd is an Office 365 specialist. As your ICT partner, we can help you ensure you have appropriate tools available to meet your organisational needs including selecting and implementing a CRM or equivolent tool. To find out how we can help, give us a call on 01332 322588.
