What is SSGM?

SSGM stands for self-service group management.

Groups may be used for many purposes in an organization: application access management, license management, SharePoint site access, and SSPR – to name a few.

SSGM can enable some of, or even the whole of, the process of creating and managing group configuration and membership, allowing IT teams to concentrate on other functions within the organization.

For a lot of organizations, the day-to-day control of groups and group membership should be delegated to people in the business who understand the business context. These people can be designated as owners, and administrators can define policies for what these owners can do with specific group types (for example security or Microsoft 365 groups).

In Microsoft Entra ID, self-service groups work like this:

• Users can be given a role that allows them to create groups (and become the group owner), or an Admin can create a group and assign an owner.  
• A group is either open to join for all users, or membership requires owner approval. 
• Owners manage their groups, including membership requests, through the access panel (myapps.microsoft.com). 
• Users make requests through the same access panel (with a business justification if required). 
• If the group requires owner approval, then an owner receives an approval notification and can decide whether to approve or reject the request. 
• The user is notified of the response. 

Updated December 2023