This page will replace Creating a Google Group for E-mail Distribution.

Overview

UWF students and staff can create Google Groups, without needing to gain approval from ITS.

Prerequisites

Instructions

If you need a group in MyUWF, please submit an ITS Request.

Generally speaking, the only groups that should be in MyUWF are those that

control access to various other systems (such as Banner, Confluence, or Jira)
show who has completed various trainings (such as the Banner User Training and the Certified Knowledge Working training
are anticipated to incorporate one of the two features listed above

Step 1

Go to Gmail.com and log in to your UWF account.

Log in to a departmental account, if possible!

Whoever creates a Google Group will own that group by default. If you create a Google Group using your student UWF account, then that account will own the Google Group. The same goes with employees too.

Problem

When people leave their positions, and they owned Google Groups, those people will have to transfer ownership of those groups to someone else. This may become a problem if people forget to transfer ownership, or if these owners leave UWF and their Gmail accounts have been downgraded.

Solution

Create the account using a departmental Gmail account – departmental Gmail accounts rarely leave, and whoever has access to the departmental Gmail account would have access to the Google Group too.

Log in to the departmental account first, then follow the instructions below. After creating the Google Group, you could determine who manages the group. Note that the only difference between a Google Group Manager and the Google Group Owner is the Owner changes who owns the group. See Managing Google Group membership for additional details.

Step 2

Go to the Google Groups app. Click More to find the Google Groups app, if necessary.

Step 3

Click Create Group.

Steps 4-10

Screenshot	Step #	Instructions
	4	Create a group name. This will become part of the group email address. The group email address file will be inserted automatically while you enter the group name.
	5	Create a description for the group. This description should provide the purpose for the group's existence.
	6	Choose a group type: Email list (recommended) – This group type is an emailing lists. Create a new email address so anyone in your organization can send messages to everyone in your group at once. This is the most common type of Google Group to send emails, share files, and send Google Calendar invites. Web forum – This group type is an an online community where people with similar interests can discuss various topics. If this group type interests you, and you're a UWF employee, then consider using Slack instead. Q&A forum – This group type allows your team and key clients to answer common questions about your services and vote for the top answers, similar to Quora and StackExchange. The answers are then archived as a knowledge base for your team and all your clients. If this group type interests you, and you're a UWF employee, then consider becoming a BPL author instead and house your procedures in Confluence. Collaborative inbox – This group type allows group members to receive and respond to email a using a common address. This type also allows members to assign messages to each other, so that they know who is responding to which messages. If this group type interests you, and you're a UWF employee, then consider submitting an ITS Request to get a Jira project.
	7	Choose who can view topics: Managers of the group All members of the group (recommended) All organization members (not recommended) Anyone on the web (not recommended)
	8	Choose who can email the group: Owners of the group Managers of the group All members of the group (recommended) All organization members (not recommended) Anyone on the web (not recommended)
	9	Choose who can join the group: Anyone on the web (not recommended) Anyone in the organization Only invited users (recommended) Anyone can ask Anyone in the organization can ask
	10	Click Create.

Page tree