DotAdmin User Guide

Mailing List

dotAdmin's integrated mailing list system option allows site administrators to send broadcast email newsletters to groups of dotAdmin CMS and site users, or to the website mailing list.

The mailing list system can be found in the dotAdmin system at CMS > Communications > Mailing List

the mailing list manager screen
The Mailing List Manager.

The Mailing List Manager screen is divided into two main areas under the following headings:

Mailing List Subscribers

Under the first heading, we see a message stating how many email addresses are currently on the site mailing list. In this case, the message reads “There are 2 mailing list subscribers”. Next to this message is a download icon (an orange arrow pointing downwards). Clicking on this arrow will allow us to download the mailing list for use elsewhere.

Important! Unless the all the owners of the addresses on this list have expressly agreed otherwise, you cannot pass this list of addresses on to a third party. To do otherwise is likely to be in contravantion of data protection and / or anti spam legislation.

Mailing List Outbox

This is where we see a history of past emails sent from the mailing list manager to your users, and also create new emails.

Immediately above the heading on the right hand side is the “New Mail” icon followed by links to start either a new Plaintext or HTML email:

create a new email
“New Mail” icon and links.

To open a brand new blank email, click either the “Plaintext” or “HTML” to choose which format email you wish to create. The main differences between the two types are described below:

Plaintext: Plain text is the base standard format for email. All email software will be able to display a plain text email correctly. Plain text email is small in filesize, and thus will be delivered and stored using less system resources both on your mail hosting server, and on the recipients server(s); it will also download quicker when collected by the recipient's email software. It is far less likely to be rejected or trashed by any mail filters which the recipient has in place. On the downside, you cannot embed images in a plain text mail, and links must be displayed in their original form (eg: <http://www.dotadmin.com/content/home>), not embedded into other text (eg: dotAdmin Homepage).
HTML: HTML is the language used for creating web pages, and has since been adopted for use in email by certain software developers. HTML email is not an established standard for email formatting, and therefore cannot be guaranteed to display correctly on the recipient's computer. HTML emails can be laid out just like a web page, with embedded images and links. Because of the HTML code required to create these emails, HTML emails are typically many times larger files, taking longer to download when collected by the recipient, and using more system resources both on your mail hosting server, and on the recipients server(s) in delivery / storage. Some recipients do not like receiving HTML emails, and may either have filter in place to send HTML email to junk, or may delete it manually when it arrives. When creating HTML emails, try to keep things simple, as more complex HTML is less likely to display properly on the recipient's computer.

Finally, below the “Mailing List Outbox”, we see a list of recent emails sent from the mailing list system. The system will store the last 10 emails which were sent, and they are listed here. Clicking on the edit icon (the pencil) next to any of the items in the list, will open that email as a new email.

For more details on using the email editor see: Editing and Sending mailing list E-Mail.