Mailing List

[MBNH]

Does Zimbra support mailing lists? Our old system has something like a distribution group, a set of emails of people have subscribed to our mailing list. Users who generate the monthly newsletter the simply put the group into the "To:" field, and away it goes.

The critical part is that when the recipient gets the mail, it does not contain the email addresses of other members of the mailing list. A distribution list is just a short-cut - it will show the addresses of the other recipients.

Does Zimbra allow you to mail a group of people in the "To:" field WITHOUT all email addresses being displayed?

[lytledd]

Distribution lists and mailing lists are different beasts.

Zimbra natively support distribution lists, mailing lists on the other hand are best handled with something like mailman, where the end user has come control.

Distribution lists in Zimbra are handled by the system administrator(s)

Doug

[MBNH]

Originally Posted by lytledd

Distribution lists in Zimbra are handled by the system administrator(s)

Doug

Thanks, Doug!

Do distribution lists act the same as in Exchange? The recipient will see all other members of the distribution list?

We don't need a mailing list, per se. A true mailing list will allow automatic sbscription/unsubscription, and so forth. All we really need is our users to be able to send a group an email while the individual membbers of the group that receive the email only see their name in the "To:" Can Zimbra do something like this, or must one resort to an additional product?

[lytledd]

Can Zimbra do something like this

Yes it can.

Doug

[MBNH]

Originally Posted by lytledd

Yes it can.

Doug

And how? I don't need a step-by-step answer, just broad strokes. For example, do they have to use the BCC field (which then won't work in this scenario.)

[lytledd]

I've never managed an Exchange server, so don't know if it's exactly the same. I do know that distributions are the same when it comes to sending mail to them.

We have 1 distribution list called m&msales@domain.com that has around 65 addresses in it.

People send to the distribution list and when it comes in to the list subscribers, it's to m&msales@domain.com, not their personal address.

Doug

[MBNH]

Oh, wonderful! Thank you, Doug. I was hoping it was something like that. It's one of my first projects here, and I've only barely cracked Zimbra's capabilities.

[ewilen]

It's easy in the admin console. Just below where you create accounts, you can create distro lists. They can be included in the GAL or not, based on a checkbox.

Also note, work is going on to allow delegation of distribution list administration. See Bug 42916 – End users should be able to provision/manage distribution lists

While this doesn't give you all the benefits of letting end-users subscribe/unsubscribe themselves, with confirmation emails, etc., it should hopefully remove some burden from admins.

[MBNH]

Originally Posted by ewilen

It's easy in the admin console. Just below where you create accounts, you can create distro lists. They can be included in the GAL or not, based on a checkbox.

Also note, work is going on to allow delegation of distribution list administration. See Bug 42916 – End users should be able to provision/manage distribution lists

While this doesn't give you all the benefits of letting end-users subscribe/unsubscribe themselves, with confirmation emails, etc., it should hopefully remove some burden from admins.

I'm very excited about this deployment, and it seems only good news so far. I've worked with Exchange, but Zimbra seems to much of the same, and some things even better. Thank you for your advice!