Disable Office 365 Groups Creation: Redux
Update: I posted roll-back steps at the bottom of the article.
Several months ago, I wrote a blog on Disabling Office 365 Groups. It seems as though we couldn't leave well enough alone. Such is a price of progress.
I got a new laptop a few weeks ago, and then found myself in the position of helping out a few colleagues this week. One of the tasks for this particular customer was disabling Office 365 Groups.
No sweat. I've done this before. I even blogged about it.
I pulled up my blog page referencing the steps.
Pro tip: start a blog so you can have publicly searchable content that has all the steps you used to do something. Also, it makes you seem smart.
At any rate, I start the process, and go to download the Azure Preview module like my post recommends, only to find that we've changed that part, too. I'm now at the customer with a new laptop and I don't have access to the tools to complete the job. So, what do I do?
No, I blog about it.
Without further ado, here's the cheat sheet for the new cmdlets, where to download the module, and how to be a rockstar in general.
If you don't have Windows 10, go to the PowerShellGallery and download PowerShellGet.
Launch an elevated Windows PowerShell console.
Get the Azure Active Directory V2 Preview module (details are available here about it, but guess what--there's nothing to download there) by running this:
Install-Module -Name AzureADPreview
Then, replace the original *msolsetting* with *AzureADSetting* cmdlets (oh, and connect to MSOL, Azure, and Exchange Online PowerShell sessions to complete the tasks).
The following script will:
- Connect to Microsoft Online Service
- Connect to the Azure AD endpoint
- Connect to Exchange Online
- Specify Global Admins as the group that can create Unified Groups (Office 365 Groups)
- Disable the Groups Creation in OWA
Import-Module MSOnline
$UserCredential = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Import-PSSession $Session
Connect-AzureAD -Credential $UserCredential
Connect-MsolService -Credential $UserCredential
$GlobalAdmins = Get-MsolRole -RoleName "Company Administrator"
$GlobalAdminsObjectID = $GlobalAdmins.ObjectId.ToString()
$template = Get-AzureADDirectorySettingTemplate | where-object {$_.DisplayName -eq "Group.Unified"}
$setting = $template.CreateDirectorySetting()
$setting["EnableGroupCreation"] = "false"
$setting["GroupCreationAllowedGroupId"] = $GlobalAdminsObjectID
New-AzureADDirectorySetting -DirectorySetting $setting
Get-OwaMailboxPolicy | ? { $_.IsDefault -eq $true } | Set-OwaMailboxPolicy -GroupCreationEnabled $false
If you've already created a directory setting and you want to update it, you can use:
Get-AzureADDirectorySetting | Set-AzureADDirectorySetting -DirectorySetting $setting
To revert these changes and set your tenant back to default settings:
Import-Module MSOnline
$UserCredential = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Import-PSSession $Session
Connect-AzureAD -Credential $UserCredential
Connect-MsolService -Credential $UserCredential
$template = Get-AzureADDirectorySettingTemplate | where-object {$_.DisplayName -eq "Group.Unified"}
$setting = $template.CreateDirectorySetting()
$setting["EnableGroupCreation"] = "true"
$setting["GroupCreationAllowedGroupId"] = $null
Get-AzureADDirectorySetting | Set-AzureADDirectorySetting -DirectorySetting $setting
Get-OwaMailboxPolicy | ? { $_.IsDefault -eq $true } | Set-OwaMailboxPolicy -GroupCreationEnabled $true
If you've already created a directory setting and you want to update it, you can use:
Get-AzureADDirectorySetting | Set-AzureADDirectorySetting -DirectorySetting $setting
Until it changes next time.
Comments
- Anonymous
May 01, 2017
Thanksyou really do seem smart with that blog:)maybe you are?:) - Anonymous
May 02, 2017
Hello.Thank you for your helpful post.I'm using AzureADPreview v2.0.0.44 and it doesn't containt the CreateDirectorySetting"s"() but CreateDirectorySetting().AzureADPreview module is used, so I suggest to add the "Import-Module AzureADPreview" cmdlet; otherwise the "AzureAD" module will be used and some cmdlets are not available.Bye,Luca- Anonymous
May 08, 2017
Yes, thank you. I corrected the script on the page.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
May 03, 2017
Hi, something else has changed since your first post... Microsoft published its owns guide: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Control-who-can-create-Office-365-Groups-4c46c8cb-17d0-44b5-9776-005fced8e618 :)- Anonymous
May 08, 2017
It's actually a very similar set of steps. :-) I just went through this in a commercial tenant last week, so I can verify that it is still valid. You can use the New-AzureGroup cmdlet to create a new group instead of using the Get-MsolRole cmdlet to choose the Global Admins group. The net result is the same.- Anonymous
May 25, 2017
Patrick's link doesn't talk about setting the OWA policy. Is this still required?- Anonymous
May 29, 2017
I don't know if it's technically required if you disable the group creation, but I do it anyway so that users will get a dialog error if they try to. :-) - Anonymous
August 30, 2017
Based on my testing today, the OWA policy does NOT have to be modified. After following the Microsoft article, I logged into OWA and clicked New group and I received the following message: "Sorry, the ability to create groups has been turned off by the person who manages your email." When I say "clicked New" New was in green text next to "groups". I only get "discover" when I right-click groups in OWA. I also followed the following guide previously FWIW: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2580991/how-to-prevent-users-from-creating-and-managing-distribution-groups-in"GroupCreationEnabled" is still set to true.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
May 03, 2017
Can Microsoft Teams in O365 work when GroupCreation is diabled?- Anonymous
May 08, 2017
No, since Teams relies on the creation of a group for storage.- Anonymous
May 30, 2017
Hello,Thanks for this blog, one thing, how to turn back and allow all users to create groups again ???Thanks- Anonymous
June 03, 2017
You should be able to re-run the steps, replacing $setting["EnableGroupCreation"] = "false" with$setting["EnableGroupCreation"] = "true"And then Get-AzureADDirectorySetting | Set-AzureADDirectorySetting -DirectorySetting $settinginstead of New-AzureADDirectorySetting (because you've already set it)
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
May 31, 2017
Thanks.Questions: Is it possible to allow more than one group ("Global Admins" and custom O365 security group) to create O365 Groups ?- Anonymous
June 03, 2017
Unfortunately, no. The object type is a System.Guid, so you can’t put more than one value there. I’d recommend creating a new group (like a mail-enabled security group) and including all of the people allowed in that group.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
June 29, 2017
If you disable the permissions to create these groups, will that render any existing groups unusable? Will they stop receiving email?- Anonymous
June 29, 2017
No. Existing groups will continue to work.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
August 15, 2017
The comment has been removed- Anonymous
August 15, 2017
I was able to figure it out. I had to uninstall-azuread first.- Anonymous
January 11, 2018
For others who might have this problem, I thought I'd share how I resolved:I got it working by following the instructions in the "For systems running PowerShell 3 or PowerShell 4, that have installed the PackageManagement MSI" section of this website: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/gallery/psget/get_psget_moduleHere's what I did:• Remove-Module -Name AzureAD• Save-Module PowerShellGet -Path C:\location• Closed all PowerShell sessions• Deleted the "PowerShellGet" and "PackageManagement" modules in 'C:\Program Files (x86)\WindowsPowerShell\Modules'• Copied the new folders from C:\location to 'C:\Program Files (x86)\WindowsPowerShell\Modules'Now I can run Get-AzureADDirectorySettingTemplate
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
September 01, 2017
I get this warning, "WARNING: The command completed successfully but no settings of 'OwaMailboxPolicy-Default' have been modified."Not sure what to do.- Anonymous
September 05, 2017
It means that the setting was already in place (to disable group creation in OWA).
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
March 11, 2018
(This comment has been deleted per user request) - Anonymous
June 13, 2018
The Microsoft Guide says you have to have Azure AD Premium Subscription for this task.Is this true for your variant? I can get Access to the AzureAd with Powersehell, no Problem.Will the Modification become active then?- Anonymous
June 15, 2018
I was able to get it to work in a tenant with only Exchange Online P1 (which has Azure AD basic), but YMMV.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
June 18, 2018
Hi, how can I revert these settings?- Anonymous
June 21, 2018
The easiest way is to go through and update the DirectorySetting template object to "EnableGroupCreation" to true. I've updated the blog post at the end to include the steps.
- Anonymous