Create groups & aliases

Mercurie bills your Google Workspace subscription, but you still own and administer your Workspace. Creating distribution groups (sales@, support@, team@) and giving users alternate email addresses (aliases) both happen inside Google Admin at admin.google.com, exactly the same as if you were billed by Google direct. Mercurie has no separate console for this — that's the point of staying on Google's reseller system rather than forking the tenant.

This page is a quick orientation so you know what's possible, where to do it, and which Google guide to read for the deep walkthrough.

Groups vs aliases — pick the right tool

You want to…	Use a…	Why
Send mail to everyone in a team with one address (`team@yourco.com`)	Group	One address fans out to many users. Each member keeps their own inbox.
Give one person multiple email addresses (`tim@yourco.com` + `timothy@yourco.com`)	Alias on that user	All addresses deliver to the same inbox. No new licence, no extra cost.
Create a shared inbox for a function (`support@yourco.com`)	Group with Collaborative Inbox turned on	Members triage shared mail together; no single owner.
Configure a Workspace feature for a subset of users (e.g. enable Calendar interop)	Configuration group (created in Admin, not in Google Groups)	Only Admin-created groups can be referenced by service settings.

Aliases are free. Adding three aliases to a user does not consume a second licence — Mercurie won't bill you for it.

Create a group

The full step-by-step lives in Google's official guide:

Google Workspace Help → Create a group in your organization

The short version:

Sign in to admin.google.com as a Workspace super-admin (or someone with the Groups Admin role).
Open Menu → Directory → Groups.
Click Create group in the top bar.
Fill in:
- Group name — up to 73 characters, e.g. Engineering Team.
- Group email — the address members will mail, e.g. engineering@yourco.com. Pick the right domain if you have multiple.
- Description (optional) — shows on the group's About page.
- Group owner — usually a super-admin or the team lead.
Click Next, choose access settings (who can post, view, join), then Create group.
Add members from the group's page → Add members → paste a list of emails or pick from the directory.

The group is live the moment you save — emailing the address fans out to every member.

Naming rule worth knowing. Group names created in Admin can't contain =, <, or >. Names created in groups.google.com can — but those groups can only be used for collaboration, not for service configuration.

Add an alias to a user

Admin → Directory → Users.
Click the user you want to give an alias.
Open User information → Email aliases (or Add alternate emails).
Type the alias local-part (the bit before @), pick the domain, click Save.
Mail to the alias arrives in that user's normal inbox within a few minutes (Google says up to 24 hours; in practice it's near-instant).

Same flow gives a user an address on a secondary domain if you've verified more than one domain on the account.

Things Mercurie will and won't do

We will:

Help you turn on Groups for Business if it isn't already on (one-time setting on the subscription).
Add a secondary domain to your subscription so you can issue aliases on it. Open a support ticket from the dashboard.

We won't (because Google doesn't let resellers):

Create a group on your behalf — group creation is locked to the customer's super-admins.
Add aliases on your behalf — same reason.
See which addresses are aliases vs primary — Mercurie's view is licence-level, not address-level.

When to escalate to support

Open a ticket from the Support entry on the Mercurie dashboard if:

You can't find the Groups option in Admin (most likely cause: Groups for Business is off, and your role doesn't include the toggle).
You added an alias and mail is bouncing — usually a DNS/MX problem on the domain, which we can verify against your subscription record.
You need a domain added to the subscription before you can issue aliases on it.