The first version of Email to Groups was introduced more than twelve years ago, and it underwent a major revision in 2004. This month it will undergo another major revision.
Since October 1, 2009, about 12,000 messages have been sent using Email to Groups each to different groups of students and employees. Although they may not realize it, advisors and instructors use Email to Groups when they send messages to their students from myOleMiss. This past year, a modified version of the application was created to send messages to UM Medical Center employees and students. Email to Groups has become an important and environmentally-friendly way to quickly communicate campus announcements.
But even as successful as Email to Groups has been, there are some limitations with the current version:
- It can only send text-based messages without attachments.
- Messages arrive individually throughout the day resulting in what some view as “internal spam.”
- There is no coordination between messages sent using Email to Groups, myOleMiss portal announcements, and the UM Web bulletin board.
Email to Groups will be retired soon and replaced with a new service called “Ole Miss Today.” Ole Miss Today will consolidate the day’s various announcements into a single, visually-appealing message. This message will not only be sent as email but also will be displayed in myOleMiss. These messages will be customized to include only the announcements relevant to the individual student or employee recipient. Ole Miss Today will also support HTML content and PDF attachments, and it will allow announcements to be included for more than one day.
More details will be provided in two training sessions to be held on Friday, September 10, at 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. in Old Chemistry 134 (the auditorium). All current Email to Groups users are strongly encouraged to attend one of these sessions to learn about the new features.
Timeline for transition:
- Wednesday morning, September 15: Email to Groups will be retired.
- Friday morning, September 17: Ole Miss Today will be enabled for people to submit their messages.
- Monday morning, September 20: Ole Miss Today will deliver its first set of messages.
Instructors, advisors, and administrators will be given automatic access to submit messages in Ole Miss Today. Others should plan to attend one of these training sessions to have their current Email to Groups authorizations migrated to Ole Miss Today.
We appreciate your patience as we retire Email to Groups and roll out Ole Miss Today. Please direct any questions to it@olemiss.edu.
Tags: Email, myOleMiss