Groups are an easy, HIPAA compliant way to collaborate and share resources with other CUIMC Microsoft 365 account holders of your choosing. Creating a Group automatically creates a shared Outlook Inbox, Calendar, OneNote notebook, and SharePoint site.
The Owner is the person who creates the Group and adds other Members. The Owner can add or transfer ownership as needed, as well as add and remove Members. Being able to self-manage resources and permissions is one of the biggest benefits of using Groups.
See Learn about Microsoft 365 Groups on Microsoft's website for more information. Note that some features or apps mentioned are not currently part of CUIMC's Microsoft 365 implementation.
While creating a Group you choose whether it is private (i.e. you select the members), or public, allowing any CUIMC Microsoft 365 account holder to join.
Groups created from Outlook, Web Outlook, SharePoint, or Planner show up in the Global Address List (the repository of Columbia, CUIMC, NYPH and Weill Cornell contacts), whereas Groups created via Teams do not show up in the Global Address List.
Email messages to a CUIMC Group can only be received if they are sent from another CUIMC Microsoft 365 email account. The CUIMC Group cannot send any email messages from its address. If either option is needed, please see other solutions on the Collaborative Email Solutions page.
Groups are recommended if you want conversations to happen inside of Outlook using email between team members and wish to use the Outlook calendar extensively with team members.
Teams are recommended if you wish to use chat extensively, have multiple channels under the same team, use audio and video calling, and screen sharing.
Neither should be used to replace Shared Mailboxes or Mailing Lists, especially when the ability to send from a group email address or receive email messages from a non-CUIMC Microsoft 365 email address is needed.
Microsoft's Learn about Microsoft 365 Groups