Email Enabled Blogs and Forums is an add on module that is available to customers. Please contact Sales@igloosoftware.com for more information.

Enabling a Forum:

In the forum application hierarchy the Forum level is email enabled; once a forum is enabled users can interact at the forum & topic level by email. Categories are not email enabled.

Once a Forum has been created an administrator can then "Edit" the forum to email enable it. In the example below the Forum for "Staff Announcements" is being email enabled. The email address can be chosen for the forum , in this case "staffannouncements@seventeen.iglooclubs.com".

The address can be changed at any time but a warning message will appear informing the user that changing the address will affect users already using the old address.

Hints:

When a forum is emailed enabled a Hint appears at the bottom of the page informing all users of its unique status and providing the forum's email address. Also posts made by email will display a small indicating "email' icon so that users browsing the site know which items were posted by email.

Subscriptions:

The email enabled functionality is very much tied to subscriptions. Subscribing to an email enabled forum is by default instant; only instant notifications can be used to interact with community forums. If a user changes the frequency of their subscription they will no longer be able to interact with the forums through their notifications but will still be able to create new topics by email (example: a user could create a new email and type in the corresponding address instead of using the link in notification email.)

The instant notifications differ from the standard emails in that:

Starting a New Topic

To start a new topic simply email the forum's address including the new topic's name in the subject line. Other users subscribed to the forum will receive a notification that a new topic has been added. Tip: send an email to the appropriate the email address, do not include other recipients in the TO field...other users will receive the notification via their subscriptions.

Replying by Email:

Replying to a topic is done by replying to the notification; this ensures continuation of the same topic thread. Tip: everything in the notification email reply gets added to the post so it's best to delete everything in the email except the reply content itself (example: remove automatic email signature content and the original post content).

Clean Reply:

Messy Reply:

Example of Posted Messy Reply:

Listserv Etiquette:

For E-mail Enabled Forums...

• Include a meaningful subject line
• Keep your messages brief
• Keep the text plain (don't use a lot of formatting)
• Trim all the irrelevant text out of your message (as a courtesy to the other members of the group to make the digest easier to read)
• Do not use automatic e-mail reply programs, for example:
  • If you're going to be away for an extended period of time, unsubscribe from the list while you're away and re-subscribe when you return

Related Topics:

• E-mail Enabled Blogs