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How To Use CAHNRS Email Lists and Email List Generator

CAHNRS Mailing

CAHNRS has two separate facilities for sending out email messages to employees. The first is a collection of Lyris email lists with a fixed definition that are updated every morning. The second is an ad hoc list generator accessible via the CBS menu by going to Reports->Bfo->Email Lists. CBS can be accessed by going to https://intranet.cahnrs.wsu.edu.

Lyris Lists

Lyris has the following email lists: (Go here for help understanding the codes)

CAHNRS All

CAHNRS Faculty

CAHNRS Exempt

CAHNRS Staff

Academic Faculty + Graduates

Research Faculty

Research Graduates

Research Faculty + Graduates

Extension All

Extension Program Units - (County + Public Affiliates)

  • Area: 41
  • Home Dept: 41, 4160, 8010, 8647, 8649, 8650, 8653 (Ext Admin, County Ext, AHEC, ANR, CED, Y & F, Food Sense)
  • Employee Types: F, G, E, C, H, U, Public Affiliates, and Adjunct
  • Employee Status: A, L
  • auto_extension_program_units@lyris.cahnrs.wsu.edu

Extension Non-Program Units - (Departments + R&E Units)

Mail Generator

The email generator accessible via the reports module of CBS is a filterable list of employee appointments in the college. By applying various filters to the list a person is able to create a custom collection of employees. In addition the interface supports the following:

  • Export a CSV of the appointment records based on current filters
  • Export a semi-colon delimited list of distinct emails based on current filters
  • Send an email to the filtered list via a HTML5 WYSIWYG editor

Note that if you export the emails with the intent to email the list of users know that employee exchange email accounts have the following restrictions:

  • 1000 distinct recipients per email
  • 4 emails per minute
  • 2000 distinct recipients in a 24 hour period
  • Your email client may have length restrictions on the "to" and "bcc" fields

Data Source

The data source for both the Mail Generator page and the statically defined Lyris lists is the tblPersonnelCurrentAppointments_UNION table, unioned with the vwCAHNRS_CourtesyAppointmentsEmpList view. The result is that, unless otherwise noted in a specific lists definition, all lists members are drawn from current appointments as well as courtesy appointments.

How to Send an Announcement

There are two ways you can send an announcement email; the first and easiest is to use one of the Lyris lists, and the second way is to use the Mail Generator.

Using Lyris

If your target audience is defined by one of the Lyris email lists above then all you need to do to send an announcement is to email the list address that corresponds to your target readers. For example if you wanted to send an email to all research faculty you would send the email to auto_research_faculty@lyris.cahnrs.wsu.edu. In addition to the Lyris lists providing easy and up to date list members every morning, sending an email via these Lyris lists has the following benefits:

  • List recipients will only be able to respond to the message originator.
  • List members will not be able to see other email recipients on the list
  • You bypass the email restrictions in place on most exchange accounts

Note though, that only list administrators can send email to the Lyris lists and have it be delivered. In most cases this is restricted to the Dean and Associate Deans, their assistants, and employees with a demonstrated business need. If you need to be given access to these lists please contact the using the information in the Help section at the bottom of the page.

Using the Mail Generator

If your target readers are not defined, or not completely defined by one of the Lyris lists above you may need to use the Email List Generator located in the BFO reports group in CBS. Once loaded you will see a filterable list of current appointments. By applying the relevant filters to the data you will be left with a list of appointments that you intend to mail.

The next step is to go to the drop down header menu, denoted by the "#" in front of the WSUID column, and select one of the export or mailing options. The simplest use case would be to select "Export Email" which will create a text file of semi-colon delimited distinct email address that you can copy and paste into an email client of your choice. Please be mindful of the exchange account limitations, as well as any mail client limitations you may have.

Alternately you can select the MailTo option in the header menu which will open a basic mailing interface with a HTML5 based WYSIWYG editor, with the selected users distinct emails already in the BCC field. Emailing via this interface is not subject to the regular exchange account limitations, or those of most mail clients.

In Conclusion

The Lyris lists and the Mail Generator can be used in conjunction which each other for simple yet flexible mailing. For complicated use cases it is certainly possible to send an email to both a Lyris list, as well as a custom made list of users via the Mail Generator. Questions, bug reports, and feature requests about the mailing systems should be directed to the Reports project in the CAHNRS issue tracker at https://tracker.cahnrs.wsu.edu.

Help

If you need help with using, accessing, or being given permissions for the Lyris lists or Mail Generator use one of the following the get in touch with CWR support.