Distribution lists in SharePoint
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Thursday, June 18, 2009 2:36 PMI am developing the SharePoint site for the finance team at our company. One of the requirements is that we have "distribution lists" so that when a user clicks on a link, it automatically opens Outlook with the "To:" field populated with all the team members names for a certain group. One of the groups would be the "Finance Leadership Team."
Example scenario:
A finance employee has a document that she just completed. After completing the document, she must send it to all employees that are a part of the finance leadership team. She accesses the finance SharePoint site, clicks a link that opens Outlook and fills in the "To:" field with all members of the finance leadership team, attaches the file and a message, and clicks send to distribute the document to the team.
All Replies
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Thursday, June 18, 2009 6:08 PMYou can use the alert function to do this. Check out this blog post: http://blog.gavin-adams.com/2007/10/26/sending-alerts-to-groups-in-sharepoint-2007/
Or, you could create a workflow in SP Designer to email that group when the Employee kicks off the workflow manually, submits a new document and assigns it to the leadership team, etc.
I don't think there's any way to email the group by clicking on the group's presence it just takes to the list of members. From there you can select them manually and email them.
It just depends on how you'd like to automate the process. -
Friday, June 19, 2009 2:25 PMThank you. I do not think that the alerts or the workflow you were describing will meet our needs. In my example, I only included one reason why we might need to contact a group of people, but it would also be for communication rather than strictly document transfer. The communication may need to be kept private, that's why I do not setup discussions, etc. for each of the groups where people can post questions, etc.
Is there a way to do this with active directory groups? -
Sunday, June 21, 2009 12:41 AMBrian, your explanation confuses me a bit.. Let's think about it for a minute. In Active Directory, there are Distribution Lists and Security Groups. The difference is that a Security Group is a distribution list that can be used for Microsoft security or more specifically, it can be used for SharePoint permissions. This is a radio button setting in Active Directory. If you truly have a bunch of DLs instead of Security Groups, then they first need to be converted to Security Groups probably, but that depends on how you implement the solution.
Ok, so let's say you have a DL or SG already for Finance Leadership Team. The finance employee is in SharePoint and filling out a document of some sort that she completes and checks in. Why in the world would she go click some other link (not familiar with such a thing, but I'll play along) that invokes a new email? Anything that automatically invokes a new email will invoke the default email application on that computer. If Outlook is their default, then wouldn't they already have Outlook open and be used to using it for all email? Why would they not just click the "new" button and select the Finance Leadership Team in the To field? What you're talking about isn't really automating anything except MAYBE the auto-population of that DL in the To line> That's about 2 seconds of effort unless you're saying that the user would not even know the group to send it to. Is that the case? Why would they be expecting to click a strange link in SharePoint outside of the doc lib that opens an Outlook email? It just doesn't register to me. Also, why would they want to attach a document? How would they even do the attachment? If it's in SharePoint, then they'll have to save it somewhere locally in order to upload, or they'll have to know how to map straight to the SharePoint server from the attachment browser, or they'd have to know how to use Windows Explorer view in order to snag it from the server directly. None of that seems feasible to me at all, and none of it makes use of what SharePoint is built to do. On top of all that, you're doing the exact OPPOSITE of what you should do when using SharePoint, and that is attaching a file to an email and sending it to a bunch of people. Why even use SharePoint if you teach people to do that (or facilitate doing it)? You should never be attaching files that are stored in SharePoint unless they are going to people without access to SharePoint. You should only be sending links in emails that point back to the document. That accomplishes a few things:
1) It saves a ton of storage, because you're not duplicating the document in the email system for every person you send it to. You have one copy of it in one place. It might have versions, but that's far less of a concern than emailing copies of the document to 20 people. That's what people did before SharePoint.
2) You ensure that people ALWAYS are seeing the current version of that doc. If you email it, then there is no control over it unless maybe you are using RMS (highly doubtful). One person might download it, change it, and send it to a few other people. Then what? There is no data integrity? Keeping it in SharePoint and sending a link ensures there is only one copy, and everyone knows where it is. Anything sent outside of this link is invalid.
Ok, so SharePoint has built-in workflows that will notify a pre-defined set of people of a completed document, will send the direct link to the doc, and it will track who does what with it during the workflow. The set of people can be a bunch of individuals, a SharePoint group, or a Security Group. In your case, you would want to use a Collect Feedback workflow, assign it to the Finance Leadership Team Security Group, and set it to run whenever a document is created (or edited maybe). This allows the SharePoint system to auto-generate the email, send it to the right people, create the tasks for the group or for individuals (or both), send a direct link to the file, and track all comments/feedback from each person who completes their task. You set it up once, and then it runs on its own - no manual entry. If you need the user to be able to choose the group each time, then you set the workflow to only run manually, so when the person clicks the workflow start button, she will get to choose the proper security group (as long as the DL is indeed a security group).
SharePoint Architect || My Blog- Edited by Clayton Cobb - MVP Sunday, June 21, 2009 11:37 AM
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Monday, June 22, 2009 12:37 PMI do agree with what you say Clayton. I guess that I went about explaining it wrong. Rather than transferring documents, this would be used for easy communication to certain groups of people. People "outside" of a group sometimes need to communicate easily with all people "inside" a group, so it's not as easy as just setting permissions on a site or a discussion board.
It is the case where the "groups" that need to be e-mailed contain many people. The people that need to communicate with them do not know everyone within the group. That is why it was requested that there be a single link to send e-mail to a whole group of people rather than having to figure out all of the people you are supposed to e-mail and then making sure the list it is updated each time you would go to e-mail something to that group.
I was looking for a way to create a groups and have an admin maintain the list. I hope that clears it up a little, but it's probably stll murky water for everyone. -
Monday, June 22, 2009 3:30 PMThat makes sense where the user may not know the group, so you need to be able to dynamically define it. That can be done in a variety of ways, but I'd need to know an exact end-to-end scenario to help figure it out. It may be too complicated to just talk through over a forum, so be prepared for that possibility.
Instead of Security Groups, it's possible to just have some custom SharePoint groups with users in them, and this could be managed by the site admin or individual owners of each group could be given control of their respective groups. These groups could be referenced in an SPD workflow based off metadata within the submitted doc. So, let's say someone submits a doc and selects "Finance" in a department dropdown. The workflow would kick off, read the Finance metadata from the Department field, and then send the email to the SharePoint Group that you specify for any Finance-related doc. You'd have to do your mapping in SPD with conditions (If Finance, then send email to Finance Leadership Team). This is one way to do it without code, but there are other ways. It just depends on the exact requirements and tools available.
SharePoint Architect || My Blog -
Monday, June 22, 2009 3:45 PMWhat you have proposed sounds like it would work, and I could probably do this; however, this seems document-centric. Although documents may be shared with certain teams, the user should also be able to send private e-mails to these groups. Only that person and the users within that group should be able to see the message. If I understand what you have proposed, it would be like uploading a document, having a column with a few different options and basing the workflow off of the column metadata. If a document is uploaded with the option "finance leadership team" selected, an e-mail will be sent to all people within that security group, but would there be a way to do this if a user just needed to send a basic, private text e-mail to the "finance leadership team"?
Someone internally suggested setting up "Outlook groups." Keep in mind I am not familiar with this at all, so I am not sure if it makes sense. There could only be one administrator for those groups, so it would be difficult to maintain. Someone would have to have that responsibility. The way he uses them is if he needs to send an e-mail out to these groups, he just starts to type the group name in the "to:" field of an e-mail, from there he clicks the group, and all of the names are added. The person I am doing this for seems to want something easier (basically, no manual work on the users part), but this may be too complicated. There might be a way to put a link to these "Outlook groups" on the SP site. When the user clicks the link, it opens Outlook and populates the "to:" field. -
Monday, June 22, 2009 3:51 PMYeah, this is kind of frustrating to read, because it doesn't make sense to me. If you have users who need to send private emails to a group of people, then I don't know why or how SharePoint would get involved. This started with documents and sending them to pre-defined groups, but now it includes basic email. I don't know why there wouldn't be security groups for each group, and then people simple click New in Outlook and choose that group, whether by typing in the alias, the full group name, or using the GAL. What's the difference between that and some strange hyperlinks you create in a custom list that have the name of the group? That's the same effect as using Outlook except that it's far more strange and foreign to people who are used to using Outlook. Am I way off?
SharePoint Architect || My Blog -
Monday, June 22, 2009 4:04 PMYou are correct, I think. We would still be using Outlook as the application for sending the messages. I think the person that assigned me to do this wants something easy as far as sending to a particular group, but I think it would just be feasible to setup the groups and just have them add the group to the "to:" field in Outlook.
EX:
1. User has information vital to the "finance leadership team" group, but is unaware of what members are included in that group
2. User brings up the finance SP site
3. User clicks link related to the "finance leadership team" group
4. The click opens Outlook, adds the "finance leadership team" group to the "to:" field
5. User types message, and adds attachment (if needed)
6. User sends e-mail and all "finance leadership team" members receive the e-mail
I don't know if this needed to be cleared up or not, but I went ahead and typed it out since you said you would need an end-to-end scenario.
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The goal of this is to be able to communicate easily with all of finance groups without having to perform any actions outside of the finance site other than filling out the e-mail as well as be able to access all other finance related websites/portals from a central location. -
Monday, June 22, 2009 4:45 PM That's very simple.
- First, make sure all security groups are created for each relevant group and that all users are added where they fit
- Create a Links list for each place you need to do send this notification
- In the Links list, create an entry and instead of an HTTP url, type in "mailto:<security group name>
Here is a sample entry for automatically putting entries into the To:, Cc:, Subject, and Body fields:
mailto:sharepoint administrator;sharepoint admins?subject=AutoEmail Testing From Links List&body=SharePoint Administrators, delete this and ignore.&cc=ccobb
- This would put the SharePoint Administrator account and SharePoint Admins security group in the To: field
- ccobb (my username, which resolves to the email address) in the Cc: field
- AutoEmail Testing From Links in the Subject
- SharePoint Administrators, delete this and ignore in the Body
SharePoint Architect || My Blog- Marked As Answer by SP Brian Monday, June 22, 2009 5:04 PM
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Monday, June 22, 2009 4:51 PM"mailto:sharepoint administrator;sharepoint admins?"
What would this look like if it were a single person such as the CFO? mailto:cfo@email.com?
what does "sharepoint administrator" as well as ";sharepoint admins?" represent? -
Monday, June 22, 2009 4:55 PMAlso, I would want the CC: field to be populated by the user that clicks the link (the user signed into sharepoint)... How would I do that?
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Monday, June 22, 2009 5:00 PMBrian, try to soak it in, because it's right in front of you. :) I think it's easier than you realize, but you'll get it very soon. Above, I explained that I was just giving examples of the types of things you can specify in the To: field (or any addressable field). I specified a user AND security group back-to-back. Those are just names of a user and group in my environment. In your environment, you use whatever is relevant. You can reference users and groups by the email address (like you did with CF@email.com), by full name (last name, first name), alias, or Display Name. You choose whatever method you prefer. Here is the string using your requests:
mailto:cfo@email.com?subject=AutoEmail Testing From Links List&body=SharePoint Administrators, delete this and ignore.
I don't know how to auto-populate the Cc: field dynamically with the current user.
SharePoint Architect || My Blog -
Monday, June 22, 2009 5:04 PMThank you for your help. I was just trying to make sure I understood what TYPES of information I could include in mailto: I wasn't certain if I could include them by name, etc like you just told me. I do understand the rest. Thanks. I think this will meet our needs. :) +1 Answer... again.
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Monday, June 22, 2009 5:05 PMYou got it - thanks for the marked answer.
SharePoint Architect || My Blog -
Monday, June 22, 2009 5:32 PMI go to fill in the "mailto:" part of this, and if I put a user name or group that has permissions on this particular site, when the e-mail comes up, and I try to send, it does not recognize the user or group as being someone/something it can send the email to.
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Monday, June 22, 2009 5:42 PMIt should - it does for me. Basically, you have to pick something that Outlook can resolve. You can test this by simply opening a new Outlook email and try all different combinations of things to reference users or groups, then hit Ctrl-K. This will auto-resolve each entry. Also, if you do multiple entries, be sure to use semicolons between them.
SharePoint Architect || My Blog -
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 1:31 PMIt does work. I just had to get a public distribution list setup on our exchange server.
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009 1:47 PMBe sure to use security groups and not DLs. They sometimes are uses synonymously, but there is a big difference.
SharePoint Architect || My Blog -
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:45 PMI am actually unsure of how it was setup. I passed it to the support team here, and they got it setup through the people at Microsoft. Is there a way that I can check whether it is a security group or DL? What is the difference between the two, and why do you insist on using security groups? (questioning out of curiousity, not as an attack on what you advised)
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009 6:33 PMSecurity groups can be used for Microsoft permissions, but DLs cannot. Both can have an email address with people contained within for distribution list purposes, but only the SG can be used for permissions. You know it's an SG if you can see it in SharePoint. For instance, go to add a user to your site and click the address book icon to look it up. If you can find it in the GAL, then it's a security group. If it's not there, then it's likely just a DL.
SharePoint Architect || My Blog -
Thursday, June 25, 2009 2:09 PMI believe it is a DL. It is not coming up as a group within SP. What are the implications of having this only as a DL rather than SG? I would like to identify any concerns in order to see if we need to change this.
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Thursday, June 25, 2009 3:06 PMThere is really no reason to create DLs, because it's just a radio button to make it an SG. Just because it's an SG it doesn't mean you HAVE to give it permissions in SharePoint, but you will always have that option. The only concern would be if the DL includes users that aren't in your domain and don't have access to SharePoint, so if they got an automated email telling them they have permissions to a site, they wouldn't be able to browse to the link. That's a very, VERY minimal risk, so I consider it best practice to just make all new DLs as SGs.
SharePoint Architect || My Blog -
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 2:41 PM
Hello Clayton,
I would like to know if there was a VB Script or anything else with which I can add users that is the new hires or internal transfers automatically into the Distribution list of their department. Right now it's all manual where in the IT people go into the exchange and add users manually.
But, I want to come up with an automated way to add them to their respective distribution list so that we can get rid of the manual process.
Please it's a real urgency and emergency if I can get a quick reply. I just want to know whether I can automate it or not????
Thank you.- Edited by Aashca Wednesday, May 23, 2012 2:42 PM
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