Email management workshop

A. Email workshop

What email management

We can not let one member only, take care of all emails. This is to time consuming. So we all have to help out.
Email management is about: reading and answering emails; moving to folders or deleting emails.
This workshops main goal is to agree about how to do this work the right way as a team, without messing things up.

For all Board members

  1. We give you the password
  2. What kind of emails we get
  3. We look at the folder structure
  4. Your folder
  5. We learn how to delet and move emails.

For project managers only

  1. We look at node alerts
  2. and comment alerts
B. Email interface

We have two main emails: info@kidlink.org and info@kidlink.net. Emails sent to info@kidlink.org are forwarded to info@kidlink.net.

  1. To open the info@kidlink.net emails navigate to http://mail.kidlink.net  
  2. Write the correct email address: info@kidlink.net and the password you have been given.

Figure 1: the webmail interface.

Useful webmail tools

  • Help. At the right side you find a [HELP?] button that contain most of the information on how this webmail works. Navigate and read this help page!
  • Find. Suppose you want to delete all the emails with Subject containing "a-". To search for any message, enter a keyword in the search box at the top right of the message list, and click on "Go" or the "Enter" key. For expanded search criteria, click on "Edit", and then "Advanced Search" at the top of the folder list at left. (From Help)
  • Mark all emails in the list. You may mark all the emails and the delete a list of emails, like all the emails found with "a-" in the subject.
  • Create folder. Click on EDIT in the Folders area and you find all kind of folder options.
  • Move emails. To move any selected message(s) to another folder, (1) click on the checkbox to the left of the destination folder in the folder list, (2) click on the checkbox to the left of the message(s) to be moved, and then on "Move" at the top of the message list. (From Help)
  • Add to email the white list. At the left of the senders email you find a checkbox button (at the right of the + button). Click on it to add the email to the white list. (*)

With "email management" we mean reading, moving emails to folders or deleting emails. This must be done together by all board members.In this page we talk about key features that makes collaborative management easier and faster.

How can we manage email together without loosing important emails and dialogs with customers? Read below!

C. Email folders

System folders

Inbox All the new email arrive here. LOOK HERE!

Flagged

Sent

Drafts

Templates: where you can find standard answers to some frequent requests e.g. removal requests.

Deleted: here you find deleted emails. They disappear after a week.

Spam: to be checked! Users may be added to white list.  LOOK HERE!

Kidlink folders

Alerts Move all alert emails to this folder.

Dialogs Important dialogs with people that must be followed up and documented are moved to this folder.

Documents Important emails that we must save are saved here

Managers You save your email correspondance here. Keep your folder clean! We may move emails to managers folders if we thing that manager should look at it.  LOOK HERE!

Removal_requests Special requests to remove content in our sites or in google and have been answered to, are moved to this box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2: the webmail folders. ALERT - WORDPRESS was missing when this picture was tooken.

D. Collaborative email management

  1. DONT READ EMAIL if you do not have time to take care of it. NB. If you by mistake open it, MARK AS - UNREAD.
  2. DELETE OR MOVE EMAILS you have taken care of.
  3. BE SURE about what you are doing. If not talk about it with other board members.
  4. REMOVAL REQUESTS are important to be taken care of. To document it move these email to the removal request folder.
  5. LOOK IN THE SPAM FOLDER and check if there are emails that should not be there. Move these to the inbox or deal with these emails. NB. Add the users email to the white list! (checkbox button at the left of the email address) 
  6. KIDSPACE_ALERTS. Look in this folder what is going on in Kidspace. Delete emails that are older than one (1) week.
  7. LOOK IN YOUR FOLDER for email you are dealing with or someone thought you should deal with
  8. LOOK IN ANSWERNEEDED. In this box you find emails that must be answered by us.

E. Emails to be moved

  1. Invoice emails should be moved to the folder "Document" "Invoices"
  2. Emails that are taking care of but can not be replied to yet, should be moved to the folder "2_AnswersNeeded"
  3. Info requests, should be moved to the folder  "2_AnswersNeeded (if you are not able to reply)
  4. Alerts from Linode should be moved to "Alerts - LINODE"
  5. New release(s) available for Science math language school project  must be moved to the folder Alerts-DRUPAl
  6. Wordpress email must be moved to Alerts-WORDPRESS
  7. Classroom Registration Emails should be moved to the folder "Classroom regi"stration
  8. Other email you think someone in the board should take care of must be moved to the members folder.

F. Emails to be deleted

  1. Alert-Kidspace emails can be deleted only by the project coordinators.
  2. "New subscriber to your site " from Wibiya can be deleted.
  3. "New adult approved" messages from Kidlink and from North Dakota University, can be deleted
  4. KA board mails can be deleted.
  5. Obvious spam emails may be deleted after they have been marked as spam.

G. Removal requests

People write now and then requesting to eliminate material they have shared, like eg response answers. We can eliminate any content except those out of our control like for the content in http://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/finet.freenet.kidlink.response If someone is requesting to remove content in this group refer to our message in http://www.kidlink.org/drupal/node/331

H. Project emails (node and new comment alerts)

  • We get node alert emails from Kidspace  with subjects starting with "Node "  about creation/activation/deactivation/editing made by managers and their pupils during the course of a project
  • We also get comment alert emails from Kidspace  with subjects starting with "New comment", telling about new comments sent from teachers and students.
 
Each project coordinator has to check and manage  alert emails related to own current projects.
 
Move emails to folder "alert" and "kidspace" If the coordinator prefer to save these Alert-emails for a while, he can move them to the folder Alert-Kidspace and delete them later. This allows  to keep control of the teachers' pages and support teachers if they make some mistakes. e.g.
- Teacher creates page in a wrong place
- Teacher doesn't receive alert in order to activate their students' page. (The teaches has registered with wrong email address or the teacher has not checked the "project node" option in the main project page)
 
Delete emails. When the coordinator is sure that the teacher receives alert emails and is activating pages and comments by themselves, the coordinator  deletes these alert emails. NB! Alerts made by board members are always deleted.
 
About nodes created by students not participating in projects. Always check that their nodes does follow Kidlink netiquette (link), before you delete the node alert email.

 

(*) WHITELIST is a list of emails that are approved. Emails in the whitelist will not end up in the spam folder. Look in the spam folder. You will maybe find that you must add yourself to the white list. Once you have add an email address to the whitelist, the emails will be sent to the normal INBOX folder.

Figure 3: click on the checkbox to add emails to the whitelist. This prevent emails from this address to end up in the spam box.

(**) ALERT EMAILS are emails sent from Kidspace to inform about changes made in Kidspace. Alert emails from Kidspace normally have a subject beginning with "Node" like in "Node "El amor (Jennifer Peña)" editted on the "Poemes 2013" project by JenniferP "