Ability to hide Groups that are considered "private"
When creating groups, or after the fact with a PowerShell command, all the ability to set a hide=True attribute so that the group is not visible when viewing all. Several other elements such as distribution lists and security groups can be hidden so why not allow the ability to hide Groups. This will allow groups to exist that are truly "private". This would be very helpful for groups that need a bit more privacy in order to operate using the Groups functionality beyond the invite only capability.
Jeff Le Blanc
shared this idea
Thanks for the feedback. We are considering implementation of “Secret groups” in the near future.
50 comments
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Anonymous
commented
We are having the same issues. It's getting way out of control. people create teams and the next thing you know, its on the GAL. Also, people does not know the different between the one from AD and O365.
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Chainzors Zee
commented
We do not need "secret groups". Private and Hidden already meet the requirement if you apply the security to match their respective meaning. Private means visible but can't communicate unless I am a member. Hidden means not-visible and not discoverable.
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Anonymous
commented
Is anyone working on this? Is anyone even picking up the comments on this? Nearly 2 years now and no reported progress. Not surprising that people are not using Groups really.
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Iain S
commented
This issue has just meant my company chose Trello over Planner and have disabled Groups. What should be a huge strength for O365 - the interconnected platforms etc, is completely undermined by what should be a simple fix. Private means Private, not partially visible to the world.....
1. Private Groups visibility need to be restricted to members - email address should not under any circumstances be visible on the GAL - this should be standard.
2. Private should be the default -
Mohit Sharma
commented
Private groups should be strictly private and should NOT be searchable, exposed in any fashion or promoted thru Microsoft graph as it raised security concerns and issues in daily business activities.
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Adam Janecke
commented
This is the #1 barrier for adoption of Teams/Planner in my organization. Please implement the ability to have a truly "private group" and a public group.
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Anonymous
commented
We were burned by this when testing a Group/Team for Payroll. Found out later that the Group feed was receiving emails from often irate employees who never got an answer because only the Team was being used. Just a checkbox on the settings page for the team is all that's needed.
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Dennis Sledge
commented
Adding my vote to the pool. Basic functionality for Groups include:
1. Private visibility as the default.
2. Option to require administrative approval prior to switching to public or limited.
3. Option to not have a default group email.Two years is long enough to have this implemented.
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Frank S
commented
So I assume this is rolling out as per this article:
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/mt238274(v=exchg.160).aspxI see a command -HiddenFromAddressListsEnabled
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Anonymous
commented
Can someone explain to me how it is even slightly useful to...
A.) Automatically create an arbitrary email address as an organizational tool for all groups created in O365?
B.) Make that group searchable, even when marked as private? (Private to most people means the only people who know about it were invited to the group manually and on purpose)
C.) Add this arbitrary and useless address that no one ever wanted to the GLOBAL ADDRESS LIST?!PLEASE FIX THIS!
I am having people email our IT support planner group for help... and no one ever knows it is happening, but they found an address in the GAL so its legit right? No! Just no! One last thing, Secret should be the default, people should only ever know about a group if others want them to know about it. Even if a group is marked public, the GAL does not seem like an appropriate place to advertise the group as no one is using the email address, even if they are part of the group.
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Robin Johnson
commented
This is the #1 barrier for adoption of Teams in my company.
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dave
commented
Like many others, we have a problem with office 365 groups showing up in skype for business searches. We have run the powershell commandlet to hide all O365 unified groups from the GAL -
this ALMOST works. It hides the O365 groups from the GAL, outlook searches and Skype searches for users homed on premise - BUT - we are hybrid at the moment, and users that have been migrated to Skype for Business online show the groups in their Skype searches. We need to be able to hide o365 groups from the skype searches - come on microsoft!As our request is similar, but not identical to this one, I've voted and commented here but also started a new feedback thread that more accurately reflects our need to hide ALL O365 groups from SFB online client searches here:
https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/286611-office-365-groups/suggestions/33255484-hide-office-365-groups-from-skype-for-business-onl -
Claire Ferneyhough
commented
I would also be interested in an update on when the ability to make groups secret would be available.
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Doug
commented
please update, "near future" is now just a distant memory
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Christopher Grande
commented
"Near Future"
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Tony W.
commented
I think there is another thread like this that I posted in that should be combined.
But I agree...Private should be "Private" and should not be able to be seen. We just rolled out O365 to students and they are requesting access to all of these "Private" groups thinking it's related to their course of instruction, but are for staff/faculty. I found I could hide them in the GAL but that's useless.
Come on, this needs to be pushed up the timeline. -
Wyatt Best
commented
My college also needs the ability to have "hidden" or "secret" groups, not just "private" groups. Students are asking to join ridiculous things, like a Teams group for scholarship processing and a Planner group for a database upgrade project.
Management is reluctant to embrace groups because of the chaos.
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John Holroyd
commented
++ for 'Secret' groups, and add the ability for admins to restrict the right to create groups to public/private or private only to certain subsets of users.
It's a total no brainer. -
Gary McCune
commented
We killed Teams because of this. Now it looks athough we need to squelch user's ability to make groups as well.
Please, Microsoft, please stop rolling out new O365 features before you have admin options in place to manage them. -
David Crabbe
commented
It's possible to hide from the GAL, but the Suggested Groups seems to work on social distance (via Graph presumably) and doesn't respect the "hidden" status of the Group.
Eighteen months on from the response and this still isn't implemented... To echo the other commenters, this should have been in place from the start. Please address this issue.