Google Calendar Invitation Behavior with MCommunity Group

Environment

MCommunity groups and Google Calendar integration at University of Michigan.

Issue

If I invite an MCommunity group to a calendar event and later add new members to the group, will those new members automatically receive the calendar invitation? Does this behavior change for recurring events?

Resolution

New members added to an MCommunity group after a calendar event has been created will not automatically receive the invitation. To include them, you must either:

  1. Individually add the new members as guests to the calendar event, or
  2. Remove the MCommunity group from the event and then re-invite it.
    1. Note that this will resend the invitation to all group members, including those who were previously invited.

Note: the person you are adding and removing from a calendar would receive a notification in their email if you were making those adjustments within the calendar invite itself (assuming you chose to send an email notification). Since you are making adjustments in the MCommunity group they will not receive the email update, but they will see the changes reflected in their calendar.

Additional important points:

  • Inviting external guests who are not part of the MCommunity group to a Google Calendar event does not add them to the group later.
  • All changes to group membership (adding or removing members) must be done through http://mcommunity.umich.edu.
  • The MCommunity group’s "Email Settings" must be set to "Anyone" for "Restrict who can send messages to this group" to allow Google Calendar to send invites to group members.
    • Subgroups with the same Email Settings will expand in the calendar invite.
  • The MCommunity group's "Settings" must be set to "Anyone with an @umich.edu address" for "Who can view members" to allow Google to add calendar events to member's calendar. 
  • External (non-uniqname) MComm group members are not synced to Google.
    • The external members will not receive any email invitations or update emails. They will need to be added manually as guests.

This behavior applies to both single and recurring calendar events.

Additional Information

Need additional information or assistance? Contact the ITS Service Center.

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Related Services / Offerings (1)

ITS-MCommunity Directory
This service is a directory of people and groups at the University of Michigan. All current members of the U-M community have profiles in the MCommunity Directory. This includes faculty, staff, students, retirees, alumni, and sponsored affiliates. Anyone who has a profile in the directory can create groups in the directory. It is an an enterprise directory; it covers the entire university. It is part of a larger identity management system that allows the university to know who is and is not a member of the U-M community so that central offices—as well as departments, schools, colleges, and campuses—can grant and remove access to their online resources as needed and appropriate.