What are email distribution lists?
A distribution list is simply a collection of email addresses. When sending to a distribution list, the message is sent to one email address and delivered to everyone whose is included in the list. Individual recipient addresses cannot be viewed. There are two main types of distribution lists that PLNU maintains:
Managed Distribution Lists
PLNU has several thousand managed distribution lists. Membership is maintained either automatically or manually. ITS manages membership and send/receive permissions for all of these lists.
Automatically Managed Distribution Lists
As a part of the University, there are logical roles that all faculty, staff and students can belong to. These roles are used to automatically maintain membership in the vast majority of PLNU's distribution lists. The roles are based on system data in Workday and correspond to various classifications (e.g. employee department, student major, academic program, etc). The two broad membership categories for automatically managed distribution lists are:
Student Lists - this includes, but is not limited to, academic majors and major department
- Academic major lists start with the major code and are in the form of "-major@pointloma.edu" (i.e. bchm-major@pointloma.edu for BioChem majors).
- Major department lists start with the academic department code and are in form of "-dept@pointlioma.edu" (i.e. lml-dept@pointloma.edu for all LJML majors and minors).
Employee Lists - this includes, but is not limited to, employee department and employee type/location:
- The name and form of these groups is currently changing and this section will be updated with examples soon.
Manually Maintained Distribution Lists
Manually maintained distribution lists are generally more ad hoc in nature and are used only when there is no system data available that can be queried to automatically keep the list up to date. Membership updates for these lists require ITS be contacted with the membership update request. Use of manually maintained lists is avoided as much as possible due to the amount of time and effort it takes to keep them up to date.
How are send/receive permissions handled?
Send/receive permissions are handled differently depending on the nature and needs of the managed distribution list. Permissions are independent of the list membership, and can be very different for two lists of the same membership category.
- Public lists: Anyone, including non-PLNU accounts, can send email to a public list.
- Domain only lists: Only email addresses with the @pointloma.edu domain can send email to a domain only list.
- Members only: Only members of the list can send email to a members only list.
- Authorized Senders: Only those list members who have been designated authorized senders can send email to a authorized senders only list.
Most automatically maintained employee lists are "Members Only" or "Domain Only" lists, while most automatically maintained student lists are "Authorized Senders Only" lists. Most manually maintained distribution lists are Public lists.
Requesting to be a member or an authorized sender of a group
If you have need to send an email to a group that you do not have permissions to send to, you will need to submit a request to the Help Center. Please be sure to include written permission from the department head of the group that you are requesting to send to. For groups that do not correspond to a single department (i.e. undg-prog@pointloma.edu), you must include written permission for your corresponding cabinet member. Please note that if you are added as an authorized sender to a group, you will receive all email sent to the list.
Reporting an issue with a distribution list
From time to time, distribution lists are updated and or removed from service. If you feel that a distribution list has been decommissioned in error, or it is not being sent to the correct group of people, please use the Request Help button on this page.
Support
If further assistance is needed, please use the Request Help button on this page.