An Overview of Distribution Groups in Exchange 2007

Most users would be familiar with the use of groups for sending e-mail to more than one person, which can save a lot of time. Rather than creating them individually, these groups may be determined by the structure of Active Directory, or by the creation of a variety of different group types within Active Directory. When that happens, an e-mail sent to the group will be automatically expanded and sent to everyone. That’s what a distribution group is; a group that’s mail-enabled and has its own e-mail address.

There is also a dynamic distribution group, which is populated by user attributes defined by a set of filters. Based on the predefine conditions, individual accounts are added or removed from the dynamic distribution group. This works differently from a distribution group, which uses a static list of members.

A future lesson will demonstrate how to create a distribution group and a dynamic distribution group.