Mailing Lists (Distribution Lists)

What the general GroupWise user refers to as a public mailing list is known as a Distribution List under NWAdmin. There are two ways to put an individual in a mailing list. We'll get to those methods in a moment. But first we need to talk about where mailing lists reside, both in GroupWise and in NDS.

A Distribution Lists is created just like any other NDS object. Where it is created does not have to have any association to any of the post offices to which it can be assigned. In order to cut down on the clutter we've taken to placing the Distribution Lists in the same container in which the post office with which it is associated resides. Each Distribution List also has an associated post office that is defined within the Distribution List object itself. As a rule, any District Distribution Lists are maintained in the same container as DSC1. Those Distribution Lists that are pertinent to a specific campus are stored in the po containter under their own context. For example, a Distribution List called SELECT for Eastfield would be .SELECT.po.efc.adm.dcccd . By following this design for where the lists reside we allow clerical types to create lists by limiting their rights in NDS to the one container. Anyone having the necessary rights in the .po. container has the ability to create lists and modify them.

All District-wide Distribution Lists will be handled by DSC personnel.

Creating a Distribution List

We're assuming the creation of a list that is being maintained at the campus level.

Highlight the po container in your container and either press INSert or right click it and select Create.

Select the GroupWise Distribution List object either by highlighting it and clicking OK or by double left clicking the selection.

Enter the name of the list in the Distribution List Name field. Keep in mind that the names are not limited to eight characters as they have been in the past.

Click the browse button to the right of the GroupWise Post Office field.
You should find your post office in the left hand window.

Double click the appropriate post office.

Back at the Create GroupWise Distribtuion List window click the Define additional properties box.

Click the Create button.

In the GroupWise Distribution List window enter an appropriate description for the group. This might include information on its purpose and who requested the list.

One of the primary concerns in this window is under the Identification tag. You'll see a field marked Visibility. By default this field is set to Post Office. There are four options for visibility. They control the scope in which the Distribution List can be seen by GroupWise users in the Address Book.

	System - Makes the Distribution List visible to all post offices in all domains. DCCCD has only one domain at this time so System is essentially the same as Domain.
	Domain - Makes the Distribution List visible to all post offices in the domain under which the list is being created.
	Post Office - This limits the Distribution List so that it is visible only to users in the post office under which it was created.
	None - Prevents the list from being seen in the address book anywhere.

Unlike users, Distribution Lists cannot be accessed just because you know the full path to the group.

You may now click the OK button to save the Distribution List settings or continue on to adding users to this group.

Adding users to a group

This is the first of two methods for associating a user with a Distribution List. With the GroupWise Distribution List window open for the specific DL:

Click the Membership button.

A list of users, if any, will appear. This may be slow.

If you have no need to see the list of existing users, click the Stop button.

The display may continue on for a time until it finds at least one user to display or until it runs out of users to look up.

When the Add button appears, click it.

A new window will appear that allows you to filter users.

Quickly click the Stop button or press ALT-S. Otherwise the display will attempt to run through all users until it uses up its memory resources.

Use the filters at the top of the input screen to limit the users from which you can select. The Filter attributes are:

Object ID - This is the user's ID as used internally by GroupWise. If you know the ID and you only have one user to add to the DL you can select on this alone.

Domain - The only domain available at this time is DCCCD, which makes this field useless to us.

Post Office - The post office in which the target user is defined. If you want to choose from all the users in one post office you can enter the name of that post office in this filter.

Last Name - You can filter on all users with the same last name.

First Name - You can filter on all users with the same first name.

Remember, you can use wild cards in any of the filters and you can use more than one filter at a time. So, if you wanted so show all the names of people in post offices starting with "DSC" whose last name began with the letter "B" and whose first name was "Bob" you would enter DSC* in the Post Office field, B* in the Last Name field and Bob in the First Name field.

Click the OK button to display the results of your filter.

Select the appropriate user(s) from the resulting list.

A single user may be selected by double clicking on the entry. A series of sequential users can be selected by single clicking on the first user in the series, holding the Shift key down and single clicking on the last entry to be selected. Individual entries can be selected by holding the Ctrl key down while clicking on each entry. For multiple selections you must click the OK button to finish the selection process.

The new entries to the Distribution List are written out when you click the OK button in the lower left corner of the GroupWise Distribution List window.

Method Two - The User

The second method involves pulling up a user's NDS account and adding the group or groups to his account.

Select the user from NWADMIN to bring up their information.

Find the GroupWise Distribution Lists tab on the right side and click it.

NWAdmin will display all the lists in which they're included.

Click the Add button.

Click the Stop button or press Ctl-S.

Place the cursor in the filter box over Object ID and enter the name of the Distribution List you wish to put them in or a mask that might specify several lists of similar names.

Press Enter or click the OK button.

Highlight the group or groups you wish to add to the user and click OK

This will select the groups.

Click the OK button in the lower left to write the lists out to the domain.

Removing List Members

This is a simple process.

	Select the Distribution List
	Click on Members
	Highlight the user to be removed
	Click the Delete button
	Click the OK button in the lower left.

Removing List Members - Alternate Method

Just as lists could be added to a user's account, lists can be removed from users also.

	Select user's account in NWAdmin
	Click the GroupWise Distribution Lists tab on the right
	Wait for the lists to be displayed
	Highlight the list or lists from which the user is to be removed
	Click the Delete button
	Click the OK button in the lower left

Afterword

When a user is removed from GroupWise, either as the result of removing his GroupWise attributes or deleting his NDS account along with GroupWise, he is automatically removed from all Distribution Lists to which he belonged. This will not remove him from personal lists under GroupWise 4.1.

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Questions or problems regarding this web site should be directed to tdewberry@dcccd.edu.
Last modified: Wednesday April 02, 2003.