Managing a Dynamic Active Directory Group with a Spreadsheet

This use case is a bit different…you are an Exchange administrator who wants to manage your Exchange distribution lists by spreadsheets. You want to have end users give you a spreadsheet of members they want in the Active Directory group and you are going to manage it. You could use ADUC if you are a glutton for punishment. But there is a way to make these groups dynamic (not QBDLs but groups whose membership is dynamically maintained in AD based on the spreadsheet).

The upside to this approach is that end users just maintain the spreadsheet as a shared resource. If the user changes the spreadsheet the group membership changes. They can add email addresses or delete email addresses and they don’t have to know a thing about AD. This process does all of the resolving.

The downside is that users can do the craziest things. If they put an email address in the spreadsheet that does not exist in AD, the email is not added to the Exchange DL. If they accidentally delete the spreadsheet, the job will fail.

Of course you can easily put controls in place on what the user can do with the spreadsheet. I love the idea that you can protect the spreadsheet or the folder it resides in with a security group, just making this a great full circle solution.

Here’s a video on how to configure this using GroupID Automate, our dynamic distribution list management solution. Fill out this form if you want a demonstration of some of the other problems you can solve with Active Directory group management.

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Jonathan Blackwell

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Since 2012, Jonathan Blackwell, an engineer and innovator, has provided engineering leadership that has put GroupID at the forefront of group and user management for Active Directory and Azure AD environments. His experience in development, marketing, and sales allows Jonathan to fully understand the Identity market and how buyers think.