Dynamic Distribution Groups at Christman

Distribution groups are great ways to get communication out to groups of folks. The problem with these groups is keeping them up-to-date. We have an environment where employees may move around from one region to another, and we in IT may only find out when someone asks why they didn't get emails sent to XYZ region users.

Through a number of initiatives at Christman we've been working at implementing new systems (such as Workday) that will help keep everybody's information up-to-date so information only needs to be input in one place (be it Workday or Vista) and that information gets distributed throughout our various systems and processes.

IT decided to utilize this consolidation of information and create Dynamic Distribution Groups.

Typically, a distribution group is a static entity, and somebody has to go in and modify the membership when needed.

With a dynamic group there is no management. We define a filter, and the group will gather up all users who match that filter.

Each user's account has a number of attribute fields. Your Name, Title, Company, Office address and city, etc—all of these are stored as values in your account. When creating a dynamic distribution group, we'll create a filter using these values.

For example, we can create a TCC West MI Region group that includes all users who:

• Have a Company that matches The Christman Company
• Have a City that matches Grand Rapids

Then any users who match those criteria will be included as recipients when people send to that group. This way as users move regions or new users come on board, as long as their information gets updated in Workday/Vista the information will get pushed out to their accounts and they'll get added automatically.

Wait, why can't I see the members of the group?

This is the #1 question folks have. With a standard distribution group, you can click a button to expand the group and see who's in it. It's important to note that this is not the purpose of that feature—the purpose is so you can quickly add a group, expand the list, then click on people you want to remove, or add a few more.

Dynamic distribution groups are different. Since they function based on a filter and there isn't a way for end users to execute commands to run that filter, you're effectively "blind" to the members of the group.

From a basic level, the thing to keep in mind is this: you need to trust the system. The filter is in place, and if the user matches the filter they're in the group. If you're wondering if Bob is going to get an email sent to a regional distribution group, look up Bob in Outlook. If it shows him in that region, he should get the email. If you find out otherwise, put in a ticket (there are some users who are excluded from some dynamic groups, such as contract or union employees).

If you need to do an audit (or if you're curious), you can put in a helpdesk ticket and ask us who the members of the group are. One of our email admins can manually run a command to list the members of the group based on the filter. We can also let you know what the filter criteria are.

How do I add people to a dynamic group?

Technically speaking you can't, as it's dynamic—you can only directly make changes to a static group. If a user should be in a group but isn't, then it's usually an issue where HR needs to update their information. For example if Bob moved from Detroit, MI to the DC Metro area but his account still shows him as in Detroit, his group membership (and email signature for that matter) will continue to list him as being in Detroit. This is not something IT can correct; it needs to be initiated by HR.

On the other hand, sometimes we have users who are multi-region. Our user accounts don't have the capability of handling or storing information for more than one region. Let's say Bob's work in the DC Metro area isn't full-time, and he splits time between there and Detroit. He wants to be in both regional distribution groups.

In this circumstance, instead of having the regional group be dynamic, we'll create a hidden dynamic group to gather all of the folks in the region, and then make a visible static group and add the hidden dynamic group to it as a member. This allows us to:

• Still have a dynamic group to automatically include new users and full-time transfers
• Also have a static group that can be modified to add users ad hoc as needed

The group you see in the Outlook Address book would be the static one and can be modified by anyone who is designated as an Owner of the group. Note that the owners will only see the ad hoc users, NOT the hidden dynamic group or any of its users.

For example, this is what an owner of such a group would see:

This is what it looks like to us as email admins:

So don't panic if you look at a supposedly large group and only see one or two folks in it. Again, you can contact the helpdesk for reassurance.