Azure AD allows you to define two different types of groups. The second characteristic of a group that you need to be aware of is the Membership Type.

 

• Security groups - the most common type of groups and are used to manage member and computer access to shared resources for a group of users. For example, you can create a security group for a specific security policy. By doing it this way, you can give a set of permissions to all the members at once, instead of having to add permissions to each member individually. This option requires an Azure AD administrator.
• Microsoft 365 groups - provide collaboration opportunities by giving members access to a shared mailbox, calendar, files, SharePoint site, and more. This option also lets you give people outside of your organization access to the group. This option is available to users as well as admins. Microsoft 365 groups are often referred to as distribution groups.

The second characteristic of a group that you need to be aware of is the Membership Type. This specifies how individuals members are added to the group. The two types are:

• Assigned - members are added and maintained manually.
• Dynamic - members are added based on rules, creating a Dynamic Group. These groups are still either a security group or Microsoft 365 group, just their members are controlled by rule.

Dynamic groups