Create distribution lists in webmail
complete
S
Scott Denbow
Would like to be able to create distro groups in email app. When I need to email the entire HOA board (9 members), I have to choose each member every time I send an email. Creating a distro group for board members (or anything else) would be much easier.
Log In
Wes Cossick
complete
Wes Cossick
in progress
We'll be upgrading our email account platform on February 18th, and the new webmail will support contact groups (i.e. distribution lists). For more details, see: https://status.hoa-express.com/incidents/jm9syhhn3vz0.
John Howard
Wes Cossick: the provided link seems to be to System Status, not to this topic in any way...
Meredith Owens
John Howard: With the update that was made to our email account platform in 2020, you can now create distribution lists in webmail! Step-by-step instructions for how to do that are provided here: https://help.hoa-express.com/en/articles/3754015-creating-contact-lists.
Wes Cossick
planned
Steve Crooks
You can sort of do this in a clunky way. I just made another email account that I called boardofdirectors@<myhoa.com>, and put all the board members in for forwarding addresses. So no one actually looks at the HOA Express mailbox, but it does work to send to everyone. It's a pain to keep up-to-date.
I totally love the idea of being able to create _pure_ forwarding email addresses, with no mailbox behind them. I've found that ZERO of our board members will use the HOA Express mailbox and simply rely on the forwarded email that they then respond to from their own email account.
It would be _really_ cool if any Group could have such a forwarding address associated with it. I _do_ remember (usually) to update the Board Of Directors Group itself...
Wes Cossick
Steve Crooks: Even if you don't plan to utilize the full mailbox feature on a regular basis, it's still usually best for forwarding accounts retain a copy of all incoming messages for historical records. Especially for groups like the board of directors that undergo periodic turnover. This is why we don't currently offer pure forwarding accounts.
Regarding your other feature request about using groups as forwarding recipients, we actually have an open post to do just that. See: https://feedback.hoa-express.com/feature-requests/p/select-membersgroups-when-adding-forwarding-email-addresses. It looks like you've already added your vote to it.
Steve Crooks
Wes Cossick: I'm pretty certain we don't need those historical records, but since you provide a big storage space for each email account I don't suppose it hurts anything. If you want to save on creating an email account and allocating the space, you could make it a user option for forwarding. I think each member can decide on their own if they want to keep a historical record of group emails on HOA Express or not.
Dave Nyce
Scott, while I am still a new admin, I believe this would be accomplished by creating a group in which the nine members are assigned. I believe sending an email can select a group as the recipient.
Meredith Owens
Dave Nyce: This request is for our webmail interface, which you can use to access community-branded email accounts that are created on our system.
While you can create custom groups, and use those to send out blast emails, that isn't currently a capability offered on the webmail platform. Therefore, this is a capability we're open to considering adding!
S
Scott Denbow
Meredith Owens: Would love to see it! While the "work-around" is doable (creating a disto group suggest by Steve Crooks above), it just creates another pain to keep an eye on that distro email group to make sure I keep it clean.