As the name says Dynamic Distribution List is the group which maintains the list of users in the group dynamically. Every time it’s hard to maintain Static list. Static list needs to be manually managed for adding and removing users. If it’s the smaller list then it can be managed easily and if the group is very big and it bigger the problem

Dynamic Distribution list is can be created using Exchange management Console or Exchange management shell. Dynamic Distribution list manages the users using filter condition. Default filter condition provides us limited filter options like State, Department, Company, and other custom attributes like 1 to 15. Same has been shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. List of Condition Options for filtering members to group

With this option we can build the Dynamic DL and these options some times can match our requirement and some times it may not.

For example we need to build a Dynamic DL with the list of users belonging to the specific Mailbox Server. Requirement option can vary depending on the business. Here i am just trying to take one example and explaining the concept.

Dynamic DL saves all the filters in the Active directory. AD Attribute msExchQueryFilter, msExchDynamicDLFilter has all filters settings.

msExchQueryFilter:
msExchQueryFilter hold the OPATH filters. OPATH is basis for the filtering syntax used by Powershell.

msExchDynamicDLFilter:
msExchDynamicDLFilter hold the LDAP filter which is available in msExchQueryFilter attribute

If we wanted to change the filter to match the requirement then we need to use ADSI Edit and edit the AD attributes and apply the new filter.

1. Access ADSI Edit from your computer and connect to Default naming context. Figure 2

Figure 2. connecting to Active Directory – Default naming context

2. Create the Dynamic DL in Advance and Browse the Adsiedit to the Dynamic DL which is create and right click and properties

3. Copy and paste the below OPATH filter on msExchangeQueryfilter and replace server name with the mailbox servrname, if clusterd then cluster CMS name

(((RecipientType -eq ‘UserMailbox’)) -and (-not(Name -like ‘SystemMailbox{*’)) -and (-not(Name -like ‘CAS_{*’) -and (ServerName -eq ‘Servername’)))

4. Now you have configured the filter. If you wanted to see if this filter is applied then you can use the below Powershell cmdlet. Replace DymamicDL with the name of the DL which we have worked on and it will get the result of all the users’ name that belongs to the specific server.

$DynamicDL = Get-DynamicDistributionGroup -Identity “DynamicDL”

Get-Recipient -RecipientPreviewFilter $DynamicDL.RecipientFilter |select name,servername

You can get this requirement if you wanted to send communication to specific users on the specific server when there is any maintenance etc. As I said earlier we can use similar filters based on the requirement to add users dynamically into the list. Technically you can get any Powershell filter into Dynamic DL