During our companys collaboration with several business institutes, an interesting question arose.
Many of them wanted to know whether to chooseActive Directory Domain-based groupsorSharePoint groupsfor maintaining security in SharePoint.
Thats exactly what Im going to do in this write-up.
So lets do a thorough comparison between AD groups & SharePoint groups.
What is SharePoint Group?
SharePoint groups are the security groups containing the site users within the SharePoint environment.
There are three security groups in a SharePoint site: Visitors, Members, and Owners.
Lets take a look at the advantage and disadvantages of this punch in of group in SharePoint.
Speaking of which…
What is Active Directory(AD) Group?
Before I explain what an AD group is, we need to learn about the Active Directory itself.
Active Directory is a database that contains various information about a companys user accounts.
This directory is used to keep track of users passwords, activity, roles in an organization, etc.
Basically, all kinds of employee information, along with necessary permissions, are maintained via Active Directory.
Besides storing employee info, AD also allows the company admins to create groups of its employees.
These groups are called Active Directory groups.
These groups can be used for collaboration and have assigned permission based on the organizations needs.
Active Directory vs. SharePoint Group: Whats the Difference?
If youre not too tight on the security aspect, SharePoint groups are much-preferred options over AD groups.
Because SP groups are easily managed by site owners, while AD groups can only be maintained via IT/admin.
So there are more hassles to do basic things like adding/removing members in an AD group.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to create groups in Active Directory?
Now clickAction>New>Groupand fill in the necessary boxes.
Then select Security from theGroup typesection and hitOK.
Can you add Active Directory groups in SharePoint?
SharePoint groups can also include Active Directory Domain Service(ADDS) groups.
Then slide in your AD groups name and clickAdd.
Does SharePoint need Active Directory?
