---
title: "RapidIdentity and O365 Group Management Best Practices"
slug: "o365-group-management-best-practices-in-rapididentity"
description: "Groups within O365 can be synced with the RapidIdentity Roles module via the Microsoft Graph API."
tags: ["Groups", "Management", "O365", "Microsoft", "Azure", "Best Practices"]
updated: 2023-07-11T20:26:10Z
published: 2023-07-11T20:26:10Z
canonical: "help.rapididentity.com/o365-group-management-best-practices-in-rapididentity"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.rapididentity.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# O365 Group Management Best Practices in RapidIdentity

## Office 365 Group Management

RapidIdentity allows for groups designated with the RapidIdentity Roles module to be synced to Office 365 via the Microsoft Graph API.

          Note

          

Microsoft is deprecating distribution lists and planning to replace them with Microsoft 365 Groups.

### Microsoft Group Types

Microsoft documentation outlines the following supported groups that can be used via the API. [Working with groups in Microsoft Graph - Microsoft Graph v1.0 - Microsoft Docs](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/groups-overview?view=graph-rest-1.0)

| Type | Use case | mailEnabled | securityEnabled | Created and managed via API |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Microsoft 365 groups](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/groups-overview?view=graph-rest-1.0#microsoft-365-groups) | Facilitating user collaboration with shared Microsoft online resources | TRUE | true or false | Yes |
| [Security groups](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/groups-overview?view=graph-rest-1.0#security-groups-and-mail-enabled-security-groups) | Controlling user access to in-app resources | FALSE | TRUE | Yes |
| [Mail-enabled security groups](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/groups-overview?view=graph-rest-1.0#security-groups-and-mail-enabled-security-groups) | Controlling user access to in-app resources with a shared group mailbox | TRUE | TRUE | No |
| Distribution groups (deprecated) | Distributing mail to the members of the group. It is recommended to use Microsoft 365 groups due to the richer set of resources they provide | TRUE | FALSE | No |

### Distribution Groups

Even though distribution groups are available within Microsoft 365, the ability to manage them is not available due to the benefits of Microsoft 365 groups. It is suggested to convert these groups to Microsoft 365 groups as per Microsoft's documentation.

- [Why you should upgrade your distribution lists to groups in Outlook (microsoft.com)](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/why-you-should-upgrade-your-distribution-lists-to-groups-in-outlook-7fb3d880-593b-4909-aafa-950dd50ce188)
- [Upgrade distribution lists to Microsoft 365 Groups in Outlook - Microsoft 365 admin - Microsoft Docs](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/manage/upgrade-distribution-lists?view=o365-worldwide)

If there is still a requirement to manage distribution groups, please discuss options with your project success manager as an additional agent will be required.

### RapidIdentity Recommendations

Based on Microsoft's documentation, there are only two groups that are supported natively with the product and that is Microsoft 365 and security groups. Microsoft 365 groups are the suggestion, as they allow for security and the ability to be a mail group. If groups are not meant to be emailed to, then security groups should be used. The purpose of security groups is to limit access to resources in Office 365 (e.g., Sharepoint folders).

- [Groups in Microsoft 365 and Azure, and which is right for you - Microsoft Docs](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/community/all-about-groups#microsoft-365-groups)

## Related

- [New Rostering Access Groups](/new-access-groups.md)
- [Deploy MSI Installer for Windows Authentication with Windows Group Policy Object (GPO)](/deploy-msi-installer-for-windows-authentication-with-windows-group-policy-object-gpo.md)
- [Automatically Exclude Disable Accounts from Groups](/automatically-exclude-disable-accounts-from-groups.md)