SOAR

When creating an Email List, you have options on which type of list you would like to create. The default is Member list type and will meet most of your needs.

The following List Types are available for your use.

Restricted

• Anyone on the Member List will receive email, but they cannot send email to the list
• A separate Authorized Senders list defines who can send to the list
• Global Senders can also send email to the list

List Member

• This is the default List Type
• Anyone on the Members List will receive email AND can send email to the list
  

Email Lists has been designed to protect privacy of the individuals and to protect against SPAM.

Privacy

When sending an email message to an Email List, the email addresses of those receiving the message are never displayed. There is also a setting to protect the email address of the individual sending the messages as well - see Return Address Types.

SPAM

SPAM is a huge issue on the Internet today. Email Lists are designed to protect against SPAM by only allow messages through that are authorized. So even if a SPAMMER finds the email address for an Email List and sends SPAM to your Email List - it will not be forwarded on to unit members.

Each Email List is a valid email address that can be used from anywhere on the Internet - the same way your own personal email address is used. The power of this approach comes from the fact that unit members only need to remember a single address to reach many people. Also, the people on the list may change over time but the email address remains the same.

The following is a sequence of events for how Email Lists are used

1. A unit member opens their email client
2. A new email message is opened
3. They type the Email List address (i.e. leaders@pack123.com) into the To field of the new message
4. They complete their message and click the send button
5. The messages travels over the Internet to our servers
6. We validate that the email address the message is sent from is authorized to send email to the list
   • If the email address is authorized, the message goes through
   • If the email address is not authorized but is a list member, they receive a non authorized return message
   • If the email address is not authorized and is not a list member, the message is discarded and no return email is sent. This is to protect against SPAM.
7. Our servers apply the Email List settings to the email message - see Return Address Types
8. Our servers forward the email message to each email address for List Members of the list
9. Any undelivered or bounce messages are sent to the List Owner

This features allows you to select a number of members that can send email to any Email List you create. This will save you the time of manually adding these members to the Authorized Senders list for each individual Email List. It will also make leader changes easy - just change the Global Senders once and all Email Lists will be updated.

Two good example of where this function comes in handy are the following.

Troop 123 has setup Email Lists for each Patrol with the Member list type. This means that each member of the Patrol can use the list, but members outside of the list cannot. Troop 123 has decided to add the Scoutmaster, Committee Chair, Advancement Chair, and Secretary to the Global Senders list. Now they can send email to any of the Patrol Email Lists.