SFU Groups - FAQs

We recommend reading the Introduction to Group Management and Comparison Chart for a better understanding on how groups are used at SFU. If you wish to explore options for emailing services at SFU, visit Email Distribution Lists.

In SFU Groups, groups are used to organize users who have similar roles or responsibilities. Think of a group as a team or a club: when you add users to a group, you can manage their access to resources and privileges all at once, instead of doing it individually for each user. There are two types SFU Groups:

 

Exchange Distribution Group:

Exchange Distribution Groups (EDGs, or distribution groups) is a feature of Microsoft Exchange (SFU's email system) that allows a user to send messages to a list of SFU email addresses, or to members of other SFU Groups, all at once. For more details, visit Requst a Group (Exchange Distribution).

 

Security Group:

Security groups (or reference groups) are used for security or access control to services or resources. Security groups contain a list of SFU members and can be synced to multiple services or resources to provide access, assign privileges or provision licensing. For more information, visit Request a Security Group (Reference Group).

While viewing groups in SFU Groups, you may see that members are listed as direct or indirect members.

 

Direct Member:

If you add an individual or another group as a member to your group, the individual/group is classified as a direct member to your group.

 

Indirect Member:

Adding another group (a "nested" or "child" group) to your group will automatically populate all the individuals from the "nested/child" group. These individuals will appear on your group membership and are classified as indirect members to your group.

Exchange Distribution Groups (EDGs, or distribution groups) is a feature of Microsoft Exchange (SFU's email system) that allows a user to send messages to a list of SFU email addresses, or to members of other SFU Groups, all at once. For more details, visit Requst a Group (Exchange Distribution).

If you are a manager of a group, you can add or remove other managers by adding or removing members on the 'group managers' privilege tab.

Yes. As long as a group manager is also not a group member, they will not receive emails on the distribution group.

Yes. You can adjust this under Edit Distribution Group Settings and set it to be a Public group. 

 

Note: Know that this also increases the likelihood to receive spam emails.

Yes. This is ideal for very large or complicated distribution groups. Such groups may benefit from having automated memberships or auto-populated groups.

Technically, yes, as long as you have enabled the group to be public. You can adjust this under Edit Distribution Group Settings and set it to be a Public group. 

 

Note: Know that there isn’t no self-unsubscribe for Exchange Distribution Groups.

Technically, yes, as long as you have enabled the group to be public. You can adjust this under Edit Distribution Group Settings and set it to be a Public group.

 

Note: Know that if someone from the distribution group clicks "unsubscribe" on the Campaigner email, the entire distribution group will be unsubscribed.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to rename Exchange Distribution Groups once it has been created. We recommend simply requesting a new Exchange Distribution Group with the corrected name.

 

In rare cases where you need to have an existing Exchange Distribution Group renamed, request a support ticket using Group Management - Submit Question or Inquiry.

Any deletion requests for Exchange Distribution Groups will need to be done by our Identity team. Request a support ticket using Group Management - Submit Question or Inquiry.

Security groups (or reference groups) are used for security or access control to services or resources. Security groups contain a list of SFU members and can be synced to multiple services or resources to provide access, assign privileges or provision licensing. For more information, visit Request a Security Group (Reference Group).

Only Grouper IT admins can add or remove managers on security groups. 

 

Contact your department's IT staff (or the individual who has originally created the group on your behalf) to make the adjustments. If you are unsure, request a support ticket using Group Management - Submit Question or Inquiry.

A group review (or attestation) refers to the periodic review to certify that their membership is accurate and up-to-date, and that the group is still required or in-use on SFU Groups.

 

To ensure that security groups don't become stale, group reviews happen every 100 days to follow a semester (once per term/semester) and email notifications are sent to group managers to review and certify their groups are accurate and are still in-use.

 

If you happen to manage many groups, you may receive multiple "group review" emails throughout the week.

 

If you are no longer supposed to be a manager of the group, or the group is no longer needed, contact your department's IT staff (or the individual who has originally created the group on your behalf) to make any modifications your security group. If you are unsure, request a support ticket using Group Management - Submit Question or Inquiry.

Unfortunately, renaming security groups after it has been created can sever its connection with other SFU systems and cause additional problems. We recommend against renaming security groups unless there's a clear reason to do so.

 

In rare cases where you need to have a security group renamed, contact your department's IT staff (or the individual who has originally created the group on your behalf) to rename your security group. If you are unsure, request a support ticket using Group Management - Submit Question or Inquiry.

Contact your department's IT staff (or the individual who has originally created the group on your behalf) to delete your security group. If you are unsure, request a support ticket using Group Management - Submit Question or Inquiry.

The two common reasons for not receiving emails from an Exchange Distribution Group:

• Double-check that you are a member of the group. Group Managers wanting to receive email need to also be included as a member.
• You sent your email too quickly before membership changes have been synced. If you recently made changes to your group membership, you will need to wait an additional 30 minutes for the changes to fully sync to Microsoft servers.

This is because someone (usually another manager) has added another group as a member to your group. Because you don't have view permissions to the added group, it appears as "entity not found" on your side.

If you are making changes to Exchange Distribution Groups or security groups linked to a Microsoft service (e.g., Teams, SharePoint), you will need to wait an additional 30 minutes for your changes to fully sync to Microsoft servers.