This article is for administrators. To manage your own groups, visit the Google Groups help.This feature requires turning on Google Groups for Business.
You can use Collaborative Inboxes in Google Groups. Members of the Collaborative Inbox who have the correct permissions can assign conversations to each other for tracking.
For example, you could create a group for your technical support or customer service team with the address support@your-domain.com. Then, add your support staff as group members and allow people outside of your organization to send messages to the group.
When your support staff gets a message, they can:
- Assign responsibility for conversations to group members
- Set a resolved status for conversations: complete, duplicate, or no action needed
- Search for conversations according to resolution status or assignee
Step 1: Create a group
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Sign in to your Google Admin console.
Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).
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From the Admin console Home page, go to Groups.
- In the upper left corner, click Create group.
- Enter the following information, then click Next:
Setting Description Name Name that identifies the group in lists and messages. Use these guidelines:- Names can be up to 73 characters long.
- Use names that make it easy to identify the group’s purpose.
Description Purpose of the group or how it's used. The information appears on the group’s About page. You could include information about group members, group content, an FAQ, links to related groups, and so on.
Group email Email address used for the group. If more than one domain is displayed, select the appropriate domain from the list. Email addresses can be up to 63 characters long. This limit doesn't include the domain portion of the address, such as @gmail.com.
Some words are reserved and can't be used as email addresses. View reserved words.If you're creating your group in a work or school account, your email address might include a suffix, such as -user-created. For example, if your group name is training, the actual email address might be training-user-created@your_domain.
Group owner(s) (Optional) Search for the name or email address of users who will have the owner role for this group. - Choose settings for group members with owner, manager, and member roles. Then choose whether the group is open to the entire organization and people outside the organization (external users):
Setting
Description
Access type
Select a preconfigured access type or choose settings manually:
- Public—Open to anyone in your organization. Depending on your settings, it can also be open to people outside your organization. Groups with the Public setting might get more spam messages. Malicious senders often send spam to email addresses they find on public websites.
- Team—Open to a specific team in your organization. Select this setting to create a group for a specific internal department or team.
- Announcement only—Used to broadcast information to a group. For example, use this setting for a group that receives company news.
- Restricted—A private group setting for employees who share private or sensitive information.
- Custom—Shows that settings have been manually configured.
Access settings
Choose settings for each category of users. These settings form the basis of what people are allowed to do in the group. However, you can also set role-based permissions for the group in Google Groups, groups.google.com. Learn about group roles.
Note: The External category includes anyone outside your organization. External people can be group members or non-members.
- Contact owners—Who is allowed to email group owners directly.
- View members—Who is allowed to view group members.
- View conversations—Who is allowed to view conversations posted in the group. Non-members outside your organization (External) can only view conversations if Groups for Business sharing options are set to Public on the Internet.
- Publish posts—Who is allowed to publish messages to the group.
Membership settings
Choose whether group members who have the owner, manager, or member role can add people to the group directly, invite people to join the group, and approve requests to join the group.
Who can join the group
Choose how to add people to the group:
- Anyone in the organization can ask—People in the organization must ask and then be approved before they can join the group
- Anyone in the organization can join—People in the organization can add themselves to the group directly
- Only invited users—People can join the group only if they’re invited
Allow members outside your organization
Turn this setting off to prevent external people from being added to the group. Or turn the setting on to allow external people in the group.
Note: If you’re an administrator for Google Groups, you can always add external people to groups in the Google Admin console, regardless of the external membership setting.
- Click Create Group.Wait a few minutes for your new group to become active before sending a message to it. Otherwise, you might get a notification that your message couldn't be delivered.
- Sign in to Google Groups.
- In the upper left corner, click Create group.
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Enter information and choose settings for the group.Settings reference.
- Click Create group.
Wait a few minutes for your new group to become active before sending a message to it. Otherwise, you might get a notification that your message couldn't be delivered.
Next step: Set the group type to Collaborative inbox.
Settings reference
Group info
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Group name |
Name that identifies the group in lists and messages. Use these guidelines:
|
| Group email |
Email address used for the group. If more than one domain is displayed, select the appropriate domain from the list. Email addresses can be up to 63 characters long. This limit doesn't include the domain portion of the address, such as @gmail.com. Some words are reserved and can't be used as email addresses. View reserved words.
If you're creating your group in a work or school account, your email address might include a suffix, such as -user-created. For example, if your group name is training, the actual email address might be training-user-created@your_domain. |
| Group description |
Purpose of the group or how it's used. The information appears on the group’s About page. You could include information about group members, group content, an FAQ, links to related groups, and so on. |
Privacy settings
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Who can search for group |
Choose an option for who can find the group by searching for the group’s name, email address, or conversations:
|
| Who can join group |
Choose an option:
|
| Who can view conversations | Select who can see conversations posted to the group. |
| Who can post | Select who can send messages to the group email address. |
| Who can view members | Select who can view the group's member list. |
Adding members
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Group members | The names or email addresses of people you want to add and assign the member role.
Everyone in a group has the member role. Any permissions that are set for the member role are automatically given to managers and owners.
|
| Group managers | The names or email addresses of people you want to add and assign the manager role. By default, managers can do everything that owners can do except:
Group owners can set any permission to owner-only, further limiting what managers can do. However, managers always have the ability to adjust group settings themselves. A group can’t be a manager of another group. |
| Group owners | The names or email addresses of people you want to add and assign the owner role.
Members with the owner role have these permissions:
You can assign the owner role to any group member. However, a group can’t have the owner role for another group. |
| Welcome message | A message emailed to people when they're added to the group without being invited. This option is available only if Directly add members is on. |
| Invitation message | A message sent to people in their email invitation to join the group. Invitees click a link in the invitation to join. This is available only if Directly add members is off. |
| Subscription |
Preferences for receiving email from the group. Options include:
To receive abridged summaries or digests of a group’s messages, you must turn on conversation history for the group. |
| Directly add members |
Whether to add members to the group directly, or invite members to join. If you turn Directly add members on—Specified users are added to the group with the subscription settings you select. Members can change their subscription settings later. If you turn Directly add members off—Specified users receive an email invitation to join the group. They're added to the group only after they accept the invitation. |
Step 2: Turn on Collaborative Inbox features for the group
- Sign in to Google Groups.
- Click the name of a group.
- On the left, click Group settings.
- Under Enable additional Google Groups features, select Collaborative Inbox.
Wait a few minutes for your new group to become active before sending a message to it. Otherwise, you might get a notification that your message couldn't be delivered.
