Email aliases
complete
Meredith Owens
Provide the ability to use email aliases with the email account platform. This could be used to create alternative email addresses for the same email account.
For example, a community may want to send and receive emails using both and with a single email account.
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Robert Dietz
I've added a request in another thread but really need the alias limit moved from 20 emails to 75 in order to bypass having to use yet another service to handle email now that we've moved our domain over. 20 is arbitrary anyway and the UX allows unlimited if you just remove the cap.
Wes Cossick
complete
This feature has just been released!
Steve Crooks
Another reason I'd love pure email addresses is because now that I have some time and experience behind me, I want to use different names for several of our email accounts. I can't just change them, because they're actively in use receiving email. But if I could make an alias with the old name, I could rename the email account for use going forward, and use the alias to catch and forward any emails that go to the old name.
Steve Crooks
This is one of the biggest drawbacks currently with HOA Express. Since I can't manage any parts of the domain record, I can't handle my own email. Very few of our board members will even contemplate using the HOA Express mail accounts, but I can get them to use HOA email addresses that forward to their personal account. Currently, using the forwarding on the mail accounts works okay, but I'm limited to 20 and I'm treating those as a precious resource. I'd like to be able to create forwarding addresses that are not backed by email accounts so that I can be more free with handing them out in greater quantity. (And it would be really cool to be able to tie forwarding -- in either email accounts or pure aliases -- to member records where they keep their own email address up-to-date.)
Wes Cossick
Steve Crooks: Just as an FYI, you can create up to 25 email accounts (not 20).
Also, it sounds like this comment is requesting "forwarding-only email accounts," which is a feature request we've addressed here: https://feedback.hoa-express.com/feature-requests/p/forward-only-e-mail-addresses. This feature request, however, is focused on the ability to create email aliases, or additional email addresses that share the same email account.
Finally, regarding tying forwarding to members' email addresses, I'd recommend adding your vote to this post: https://feedback.hoa-express.com/feature-requests/p/select-membersgroups-when-adding-forwarding-email-addresses.
Steve Crooks
Wes Cossick: The "fowarding-only email accounts" is closed as "not going to implement". The "select members/groups when adding forwarding email addresses" is open and has 23 votes (including mine).
It looks like you maybe intend that the second one will always be backed by an email account if you implement it? If you do that for every group, I will run out of email accounts. If it's optional per group, then that's great and will solve a small problem (maintaining the list in two places). But if these were simply true _forwarding_ email addresses, then it mostly gives me what I want. (I just wouldn't be able to add a free-form email address for forwarding to, since the emails are all attached to members. A loss, but I'll take it if I have to.)
The reason given for not implementing "forwarding-only email accounts" is that you want to do things "right", and you've decided that "right" means every email that flows through is stored somewhere.
You are discounting that not everyone thinks that is necessary or right. Not a single one of our members will even consider using the HOA email accounts. (I've tried getting discussions to happen on a forum, and that never got anywhere at all.) They simply do not want to be bothered with having to check and maintain yet another account somewhere. It's just not going to happen. We have a very small HOA with an all-volunteer Board that rotates out frequently. Many of them will do quick email responses for Board stuff from their phone. Most of these people are minimally "technical". With effort, I have gotten them to use the email accounts I set up as aliases, like boardofdirectors@<ourhoa> for sending out an initial email, but that account is purely used for forwarding. Most do not even have any idea that the mail sent through there is stored somewhere. When they send email, they do it from their personal addresses, even though I've set up things like president@<ourhoa>.
Storage of the email in some centralized location is not important to us at all, nor is it something we'll ever depend on. There are too many personal email account emails flying around, so many items would simply be missing. If we get into some kind of legal situation someday, the lawyers are just going to end up subpoenaing the personal email accounts of everyone involved. I've pointed that out and NO ONE CARES. That's just the way it is here.
Given all that, it would just make many things easier to have pure, forwarding-only addresses. Our "right" is not your "right", and never will be. I would assume there'd be no limit on forwarding-only addresses. I believe I could train members to at least start with these for an email, and to give them out to vendors. I will do the maintenance necessary to ensure they always point to at least one (probably more than one) email address that is valid.
This really goes back to Evin Callahan's original request back in "Customize domain DNS records". Since you kind of hold our domain hostage, those of us who want to do specific things you don't support, like forward-only email addresses, have no way to do it on our own. Same with creating a third-level-domain, like archive.<hoadomain>.com that provides some kind of specialized service. The domain is an important, valuable resource for an HOA, and currently it must be handed over to HOA Express where its use is very limited to only what HOA Express offers.
Wes Cossick
Steve Crooks: Since this comment is relation to other feature requests, please see replies to your comments on those posts: