Create group

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Create a new group as specified in the request body. You can create the following types of groups:

  • Office 365 Group (unified group)
  • Security group

This operation returns by default only a subset of the properties for each group. These default properties are noted in the Properties section.

To get properties that are not returned by default, do a GET operation and specify the properties in a $select OData query option.

Note: Although Microsoft Teams is built on Office 365 Groups, you can't currently create a team via this API. You can use the other group APIs to manage a team that has been created in the Microsoft Teams UI.

Permissions

One of the following permissions is required to call this API. To learn more, including how to choose permissions, see Permissions.

Permission type Permissions (from least to most privileged)
Delegated (work or school account) Group.ReadWrite.All, Directory.ReadWrite.All, Directory.AccessAsUser.All
Delegated (personal Microsoft account) Not supported.
Application Group.ReadWrite.All, Directory.ReadWrite.All

HTTP request

POST /groups

Request headers

Name Type Description
Authorization string Bearer {token}. Required.
Content-Type application/json

Request body

The following table shows the properties of the group resource to specify when you create a group.

Property Type Description
displayName string The name to display in the address book for the group. Required.
mailEnabled boolean Set to true for mail-enabled groups. Required.
mailNickname string The mail alias for the group. Required.
securityEnabled boolean Set to true for security-enabled groups, including Office 365 groups. Required.
owners string collection This property represents the owners for the group at creation time. Optional.
members string collection This property represents the members for the group at creation time. Optional.

Note: Groups created using the Microsoft Azure portal always have securityEnabled initially set to true.

Specify other writable properties as necessary for your group. For more information, see the properties of the group resource.

Note: Creating an Office 365 Group programmatically without a user context and without specifying owners will create the group anonymously. Doing so can result in the associated SharePoint Online site not being created automatically until further manual action is taken.

groupTypes options

Use the groupTypes property to control the type of group and its membership, as shown below:

Type of group Assigned membership Dynamic membership
Office 365 (aka unified group) ["Unified"] ["Unified","DynamicMembership"]
Dynamic [] (null) ["DynamicMembership"]

Response

If successful, this method returns 201 Created response code and group object in the response body. The response includes only the default properties of the group.

Examples

Example 1: Create an Office 365 group

The following example creates an Office 365 group.

Request

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups
Content-type: application/json
Content-length: 244

{
  "description": "Self help community for library",
  "displayName": "Library Assist",
  "groupTypes": [
    "Unified"
  ],
  "mailEnabled": true,
  "mailNickname": "library",
  "securityEnabled": false
}

Response

The following is an example of the response.

Note: The response object shown here might be shortened for readability. All the default properties are returned from an actual call.

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Content-type: application/json

{
    "id": "b320ee12-b1cd-4cca-b648-a437be61c5cd",
	  "deletedDateTime": null,
	  "classification": null,
	  "createdDateTime": "2018-12-22T00:51:37Z",
	  "creationOptions": [],
	  "description": "Self help community for library",
	  "displayName": "Library Assist",
	  "groupTypes": [
	      "Unified"
	  ],
	  "mail": "library7423@contoso.com",
	  "mailEnabled": true,
	  "mailNickname": "library",
	  "onPremisesLastSyncDateTime": null,
	  "onPremisesSecurityIdentifier": null,
	  "onPremisesSyncEnabled": null,
	  "preferredDataLocation": "CAN",
	  "proxyAddresses": [
	      "SMTP:library7423@contoso.com"
	  ],
	  "renewedDateTime": "2018-12-22T00:51:37Z",
	  "resourceBehaviorOptions": [],
	  "resourceProvisioningOptions": [],
	  "securityEnabled": false,
	  "visibility": "Public",
	  "onPremisesProvisioningErrors": []
}

SDK sample code


GraphServiceClient graphClient = new GraphServiceClient( authProvider );

var group = new Group
{
	Description = "Self help community for library",
	DisplayName = "Library Assist",
	GroupTypes = new List<String>()
	{
		"Unified"
	},
	MailEnabled = true,
	MailNickname = "library",
	SecurityEnabled = false
};

await graphClient.Groups
	.Request()
	.AddAsync(group);

Read the SDK documentation for details on how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance.

Example 2: Create a group with owners and members

The following example creates an Office 365 group with an owner and members specified.

Request

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/groups
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "description": "Group with designated owner and members",
  "displayName": "Operations group",
  "groupTypes": [
    "Unified"
  ],
  "mailEnabled": true,
  "mailNickname": "operations2019",
  "securityEnabled": false,
  "owners@odata.bind": [
    "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/26be1845-4119-4801-a799-aea79d09f1a2"
  ],
  "members@odata.bind": [
    "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/ff7cb387-6688-423c-8188-3da9532a73cc",
    "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/69456242-0067-49d3-ba96-9de6f2728e14"
  ]
}

Response

The following is an example of a successful response. It includes only default properties. You can subsequently get the owners or members navigation properties of the group to verify the owner or members.

Note: The response object shown here might be shortened for readability. All the default properties are returned from an actual call.

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Content-type: application/json

{
    "@odata.context": "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$metadata#groups/$entity",
    "id": "502df398-d59c-469d-944f-34a50e60db3f",
    "deletedDateTime": null,
    "classification": null,
    "createdDateTime": "2018-12-27T22:17:07Z",
    "creationOptions": [],
    "description": "Group with designated owner and members",
    "displayName": "Operations group",
    "groupTypes": [
        "Unified"
    ],
    "mail": "operations2019@contoso.com",
    "mailEnabled": true,
    "mailNickname": "operations2019",
    "onPremisesLastSyncDateTime": null,
    "onPremisesSecurityIdentifier": null,
    "onPremisesSyncEnabled": null,
    "preferredDataLocation": "CAN",
    "proxyAddresses": [
        "SMTP:operations2019@contoso.com"
    ],
    "renewedDateTime": "2018-12-27T22:17:07Z",
    "resourceBehaviorOptions": [],
    "resourceProvisioningOptions": [],
    "securityEnabled": false,
    "visibility": "Public",
    "onPremisesProvisioningErrors": []
}

SDK sample code


GraphServiceClient graphClient = new GraphServiceClient( authProvider );

var group = new Group
{
	Description = "Group with designated owner and members",
	DisplayName = "Operations group",
	GroupTypes = new List<String>()
	{
		"Unified"
	},
	MailEnabled = true,
	MailNickname = "operations2019",
	SecurityEnabled = false
};

await graphClient.Groups
	.Request()
	.AddAsync(group);

Read the SDK documentation for details on how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance.