STC Email List Training
How to prevent autoreplies from reaching subscribers or the list
How out of office messages reach list subscribers and sometimes the list
When a list subscriber is away and sets an “out of office” message, what happens to “out of office” messages depends on the Subscriber Setting "Kind" for that subscriber.
- If the subscriber is set to receive messages as they are contributed, then that subscriber's out of office message is sent to each person who posts a message to the list. As the administrator, you can set the subscriber to receive the digest or simply encourage subscribers to visit the list and set themselves to Digest when they are going away. Be sure the welcome message to the list explains what you may do, and how to change the setting back to receive messages as they are contributed.
Note: before setting anyone to receive the digest or encouraging people to do that for themselves, block HTML, untrimmed posts, attachments, and messages with "digest" in the subject.
- If the subscriber is set to receive the Digest, Mimedigest, or Index, that subscriber's out of office message is sent back to the list. The list rejects most out of office messages. On rare occasions, depending on the subscriber's mail server configuration, the out of office message may actually reach the list. As the administrator you should set a member whose out of office message reaches the list to "Nomail," and notify the member you have done so. Advise the person to visit the list website to see the messages, or resubscribe from another account, such as a free email account. The problem is with the subscriber's mail server.
- If the subscriber is set to receive Nomail, the person receives no mail from the mailing list, but can read the messages on the list website. Because the subscriber receives no mail, no out of office messages are sent. On rare occasions, the autoreply of a member set to Nomail does reach the list. In that case, delete the member from the list and advise the person to resubscribe from another email account. Free email accounts work for this purpose. The problem is with the subscriber's mail server.
How to change a subscriber to Digest or Nomail
- Go to the website for your list, and login.
- Click List Admin.
- Click Members > Find the email address of the subscriber whose record you want to edit.
- Highlight the email address > Click Edit Member.
- Under Subscriber Settings, change Kind to either “digest” or “nomail” > Click Save.
Acknowledgements
Much of this training was developed by Michele Marques, manager of the STC Single Sourcing SIG and long time list manager for that SIG.