What Is the Maximum Number of Groups I Can Create in Communicator?

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 will reach end of support on January 9, 2018. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

This is a question that frequently comes up, and the answer is really quite simple. This article also answers a related Communicator question. Read on to find out.

Author: Tom Laciano

Publication date: February

Product version: Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2

When end users begin working with Communicator, they typically create their own groups to help sort their contacts. These groups are at times referred to as personal groups or custom groups but simply as groups in the documentation. The maximum number of groups is 64. This is not a value that can be altered because it is hard coded.

The first of two related questions that comes up is the number of contacts an end user can add. The default number of contacts an end user can add is 300 contacts. An administrator configures this on the General tab for Front End Properties on the pool level properties of the Office Communications Server Management Console. The end user is also able to add distribution groups to the contact list, allowing fast communication with project teams.

The second related question is about the maximum members that are included with group expansion. The value is set on the Address Book tab for Web Component Properties under the pool level properties. The default is 100; and when increasing this value, you must also apply an updated policy to the Communicator client documented in Knowledge Base article 945542, "Error message when you send an instant message to a distribution group that contains more than 100 members in Communicator 2007: ‘<GroupName> is too large to display’," https://support.microsoft.com/kb/945542.

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