Hey everyone! Our IT department went through a major shakeup this year, and I'm part of the new team. We're in the process of restructuring our security groups, and I'm checking to see which groups we really need. I have a couple of questions that I hope you can help with:
1. Is it okay to rename groups to match our new naming convention? Will that break anything, or do most systems rely on the Object ID rather than the Display Name?
2. Can I safely delete empty groups? Is there a way to find out if a group is being used somewhere that's not visible on the group page? What should I keep in mind before I go ahead and delete them?
I suspect there are quite a few unused groups, but I want to make sure I don't accidentally remove any that might still be important for some hidden functionality.
3 Answers
Deleting old groups can feel like busy work, but it’s important! If you’re really worried about breaking something, maybe just tag the groups somehow or move them to an OU you can easily filter out later. That way, you avoid the risk of messing things up too much.
In Entra, each group and user has a UUID, which means you can rename them without breaking anything major. Just remember that some synchronizing may happen after you make changes, so give it a little time before checking everything again.
Yeah, it can be really frustrating not knowing where a group has been used. We definitely need tools that can show us group usage, similar to GPResult for users. It would be especially handy for groups that are tied into services like Entra, Exchange, and SharePoint.
Totally agree! It would be great to link permissions back to named groups clearly. You create a group to manage permissions, then another for roles, but without transparency, it’s a guessing game. Thankfully Entra has introduced nested groups recently, but it’s still a bit of a pain.
Exactly, sometimes the push to 'clean up' can create more headaches. Just manage your groups smartly and don't stress too much about the old ones unless there's a clear purpose for them!