WiscList:

Email List Management

Last Updated - 4/5/17

“WiscList” is a centrally managed service by campus Information Technology (DoIT) that offers a suite of email list services to meet most email distribution needs. This is the campus solution for Office365 email system and replaced the “Global Distribution Lists” of Housing’s Exchange email system. Technology Services (TS) supports the WiscList system for all Housing staff via a delegated administrative access and rights to individual departments.

Roles and Responsibility:

Department Director: Each Housing department director assigns a staff member as their “WiscList Administrator” to maintain and manage their department’s WiscLists.

WiscList Administrator: Each WiscList Administrator is responsible for maintaining and upkeep of their department’s WiscLists. This includes the creation and deletion of WiscLists, maintenance of membership and the ability to send/receive emails, on a regular basis. TS recommends updating both the WiscList and SharePoint Excel document as required due to staffing changes and on a monthly basis to keep lists and spreadsheet valid.

Following are the current departmental WiscList Administrators: Administration Michelle Sloniker

Assignments, Communications & Conferences David Swiderski

Business Services Laura Morris

Dining & Culinary Services Kris Runge

Human Resources & Payroll Rachel Stieve

Residence Hall Facilities Tonia Pittman

Residence Life Dani Joens-Tuttle

Technology Services Mike Crawford

University Apartments Maggie Higgins

Custom WiscList Administrator: A custom WiscList is essentially an automated email distribution list pre-populated with Housing UDDS numbers from campus. In addition, membership level send and/or receive rights are customized. A typical example is the “hsg-careerstaff@lists.wisc.edu”. Jeff Ritchey, Windows System Administrator in Technology Services administers these custom WiscLists, with additional backup support.

Technology Services Support FAQ

Directory of WiscLists: What all WiscLists exist today?

• The names of all WiscLists and corresponding WiscList Administrators are at: http://projects.housing.wisc.edu/wisclists/_layouts/15/start.aspx#/SitePages/Home.aspx

  Membership Inquiry: Who all are on a list? What list is this “staffer” on?

• Search for membership by Department folders in SharePoint at: Membership Files

  Change (Add or Remove) Departmental WiscList Administrator Inquiry:

• The names of all WiscLists and corresponding WiscList Administrators are at:

  http://projects.housing.wisc.edu/wisclists/Lists/Wisclist%20Directory/AllItems.aspx

• Contact department WiscList Administrator for updating membership

• Submit a Supportal ticket for help in changing Departmental WiscList Administrator

  New WiscList Creation Inquiry:

• Contact your departmental WiscList Administrator first

• WiscList Administrator may then create and administer their departmental WiscList by strictly following the Housing standards for naming WiscLists

  (see below section titled: Housing WiscList Naming Convention Standards)

• SharePoint WiscList Directory and new membership files must be updated or created

• Submit a Supportal ticket for help in creating new WiscLists

• If you want the new WiscList to appear in the Housing Address Book (available in

  the desktop version of Outlook), just submit a supportal request. Make sure to include the WiscList name and that you want it added to the Housing Address Book.

  Custom WiscLists (UDDS # based):

• Custom WiscLists use campus UDDS #s. These lists are updated nightly from the HRS system. This process works very well for three of our biggest lists:

  • Hsg-careerstaff (all career staff in housing)

  • Hsg-allstaff (every employee in housing student and career staff)

  • Hsg-studentstaff (every student employee in housing –even those without an

    @housing service account)

• A very small number of staff can send to the “hsg-allstaff” and “hsg-studentstaff” lists.

• Submit a Supportal ticket to add or remove a staff member’s ability to send email to a custom WiscList

• Submit a Supportal ticket to add or remove a guest membership (non-Housing employee) to/from a custom WiscList

• Custom WiscList memberships via UDDS #s can be tricky for some staff as they may have a different UDDS # affiliation from the rest

• UDDS lists containing students on them only pull in their @wisc.edu address since a service account address is not in an HRS directory

• Current UDDS lists are:

  

  For WiscList Administrators Only:

• https://admin.lists.wisc.edu/?login=Login

Housing WiscList Naming Convention Standards:

It is important for Housing to be able to easily identify and group WiscLists together from rest of the campus. The following WiscList naming convention is used:

<Division-Department-specialty>@lists.wisc.edu is used

• Division name : HSG

• Department: department “acronym” For example

  dcs – dining & culinary services	hr – human resources & payroll	alerts – alerting info	reslife – residence life
  rhf – residence	ts – technology	ua – university	cca –
  halls	services	apartments	communications,
  housekeeping			conferences and
  			assignments

  Busserve – business services

  admin - administration

• Specialty: specific name for the list: like mechanics, or fire alarms, etc. Example: “hsg-dcs-pci-compliance” is the DCS PCI compliance WiscList

Additional Notes on WiscList Administration settings and functions:

Here are the List Options and Preferred defaults (*as found on WiscList Admin)

Posting Security

Anyone may post (including non-members)

Moderation

List messages are not moderated

Subscription Security

Only list administrators may add new members

Member Subscription Options

Members cannot change their subscription options

Subscription Confirmations

Members must verify their email addresses when subscribing

Members must confirm unsubscribe requests

Archives

Enabled - Members Only

Public List Directory

Publish in Public List Directory

Prepend Listname

Prepend List Name in Message Subject

• Service accounts can be members on a WiscList, but cannot be a WiscList Administrator.

  WiscLists have several limits related to message size (3.5mb), message headers, and a few other things. Refer to DoIT KB for more information at: https://kb.wisc.edu/wisclist/page.php?id=5591

• Most of Housing’s WiscLists are open to anyone to post a message. This is because if we limit, for example the hsg-ts-careerstaff@lists.wisc.edu, only members may post and nobody from another department can post to the list

• Special note for nested lists (lists within a list): If a list is part of a different list then an advanced setting change is required in the ListManager. This change is required for nested lists to work properly. For example, the purchasing list is part of the broader “business services” list. To enable this feature, refer to DoIT KB: https://kb.wisc.edu/wisclist/page.php?id=7187

• Below is a suggested list of keywords TO AVOID in the “Subject” of WiscList. “Out of the Office”, “On Vacation”, “Out of Town”, etc.

• As an “anti-spamming” measure, when an email is sent with any of the keywords it will be rejected and not delivered to the WiscList/s recipients

• A more complete listing of keywords to avoid can be found here at: https://kb.wisc.edu/wisclist/page.php?id=18373

Prepared by: Jeff Ritchey, Systems Administrator, Technology Services