LS email Contact

• Primarily for CBS based Projects for Learning Solutions but try to support non-project codes for all of ATS use.
• All project correspondence would be coded.
• All project correspondence would be copied to Julian and the Project Manager
• The process should fit in with normal work flow
• Email programs in use by ATS will allow filtering

1. Get a list of email programs in use in ATS
2. Briefly examined the programs to determine what filtering capability exists.
   • All could handle some level of string filtering
   • However. per Jeanne, the Unix Procmail users cannot filter on "body"
3. Propose this encoding scheme:
   • Use "%CBS nnnnnnn" for CBS Projects
   • Use "%whatever" for other non-CBS subjects
     • Whatever may be any agreed upon subject matter label
   • Place the string first on the "Subject" Line
     • Subject line supports Procmail Unix users in Lira
     • allows sorting the subject line by project for those who don't want to filter to folders
4. Dave and Dirk balked at this scheme as cumbersome and error-prone (see below) both suggested the use of list servers instead of filtering.
5. Julian is skeptical of list servers for his requirements
6. I asked John Nagler if a list server could do the following:
   • An easily created email address which Julian can create for each project as he sets up the CBS and other info.
   • Ability for multiple people to send to it (perhaps limited to DoIT staff and customers to eliminate spam)
   • The emails may not necessarily get forwarded on to anyone (except possibly Julian)
   • The emails should be saved in an archive
   • Best if the emails could be browsed on the web by anyone or alternatively retrieved as a digest (say the last months worth for a project, or all of them for a project)
7. John indicated that it would and gave this URL of the MADLIST

1. Do all correspondences go to Julian and Project manager?
2. Looking up Project numbers in order to send an email is a pain and error-prone. Can this be simplified? What about misfiltered emails?
3. Alternative suggestion from Dave: It is easy enough to set up HTML mailto URLs that include subject lines. It appears (I tried it) that you can even create a mailto without a recipient and JUST a subject line designation. So one could create a static HTML page with all the project names linked to mailtos with appropriate project numbers in the subject field (the percent sign poses a mild inconvenience because it needs to be URL encoded...). A slicker solution would be to create a simple mailto-generating jsp page - that would allow anyone to select from a list of CBS (or non-CBS?) projects and a list of recipients (Julian and PM would be added automatically) - click submit and have it check a simple database and generate the appropriate mailto. If updating the database was part of the new project set-up process, the whole thing would be painless and I could happily never have to remember the CBS numbers :-)
4. From Dirk: What we really need, I feel, are email lists. Lists that have all the members of the project on them and are managed by some single entity. Keeping any email filter in sync, for who is on the list, is going to be hard without having something centerally manageed. I see that as the core problem to be solved.
5. More from Dirk: Here's some more comments along the same lines, which you can also pass onto Julian... Asking users to use some convention, such at "%10002174" at the start of the subject line seems to push the onus for "getting it right" back to the end user. This is likely to both fail, that is not get done correctly, or to be ignored by the users. In short, it's not "user friendly". I've done systems like this in my own past. Email systems that required users to essentially bury commands into either the Subject or the Body of a message. This was circa 1993-5, when email was seen as a main vehicle for sending data over the Internet. The project was an online eJournal, one that was getting converted from print, The Journal of Extension. I had an existing system to parse and act on commands in email messages called Almanac. I added a bunch of commands and even logic to help with abbreviations and misspellings. In the end, only a very few commands ever got used, like 2 or 3 for the "average user". Part of the problem with the suggested convention of using Subjects like this will be training folks to use these convensions. It's what I what call a "new culture". Once folks are used to doing this, they will continue to do it, which is culture. It's not in our current culture of doing projects here at DoIT, so that means we'll have to change user behavior. If I saw more of it, like we might have seen 10 years ago, then this would have a better chance of succeeding. Folks are used to email lists and that is part of our culture. I see several projects doing this. ISIS, MUM, WebCT. These all have email lists that are used for communicating project information and discussing project matters. WebCT has wwbls-team@doit.wisc.edu and MUM as my-dev@lists.services.doit.wisc, just as 2 examples. It's also used, in some cases, for our customers to communicate with user, webct-support@doit.wisc.edu. On the Listening Assistant project, Clotho has setup and email list for project use. I let them do this since they could easily set it up, it's t4flp@clotho.com. I think this is just a straight email alias with sendmail, though it might be Majordomo. That's another example. These are all things that COULD be filtered, just use the To: line.
6. From Jack/Dave on Dirk's comments: Perhaps we set up lists and filter on the list name - thus eliminating the need for CBS number.

How to set up a filter

• Eudora
  1. From menu item Tools select Filters
  2. in match:
     1. Select box Incoming
     2. Header: "Subject"
     3. contains: %CBS theProjectNumber
  3. in Action:
     1. Select Transfer To
     2. Either select New to create the project folder or select it if it exists already

• Outlook
  1. From menu item Tools select Message Rules->Mail...
  2. In Item 1. Select box Where the subject line contains specific words
  3. In Item 2. Select the action Move it to the specified folder
  4. In Item 3.
     1. Select the area to enter the string and enter %CBS theProjectNumber
     2. Select the area to enter the folder and
        1. Either select New to create the project folder
        2. select it if it exists already
  5. In Item 4. enter the name you would like your rule to have