How to override the distribution group naming policy in Exchange Online

Naming policies are a set of rules that ensure groups are named appropriately and without exposing any business details or personal information. They can be configured using the new Exchange Admin Center (EAC) from Microsoft 365. When you create groups using the classic EAC from Exchange Server, the group naming policy is ignored and not applied to the group name. This can be overridden by using Exchange Online PowerShell to create or rename a distribution group for which you want the policy to be applied for.

The steps mentioned below can be used to override the distribution group naming policy by creating or reaming a distribution group using Exchange Online PowerShell:

Steps to create a distribution group using Exchange Online PowerShell:

• Run the following command after filling in the group name. where <Group Name> refers to the distribution group for which you want to apply the naming policy.

New-DistributionGroup -Name <Group Name> -IgnoreNamingPolicy

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Steps to rename a distribution group using Exchange Online PowerShell:

M365 Manager Plus is an extensive Microsoft 365 tool used for reporting, managing, monitoring, auditing, and creating alerts for critical incidents. With M365 Manager Plus, you can:

• Run the following command after filling in the group name.
  Set-DistributionGroup -Identity <Old Group Name> -Name <New Group Name> -DisplayName <New Group Name> -IgnoreNamingPolicy

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  where <Original Group Name> refers to the distribution group for which you want to apply the naming policy, and <New Group Name> refers to the name that you want to assign to the group.

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