Help With Email Groups in Google Apps

[Joe Peacock]

I'd really appreciate it if someone could give me a clear explanation of groups in Google Apps.  My impression is that when you create groups in the Admin dashboard, you are creating Google groups of the type that function (or can function) as a listserv (like this Google Group, for example).  

I don't really want to set up that kind of group for our school -- I want the equivalent of "global mail lists" in our current email system, which give users the ability to type in the address of the list (group) and have their message go to all the members of the group/list (an admin-created list, not a personal list).  I think groups in Google Apps can function that way, though I am not sure.  (Since we are still routing mail to our current email server, I don't have a good way to test this.)  I also want outsiders to be able to use the same address to send mail out to that list/group, because that is something we do now and parents really like it.

Thanks for any advice on how to set up that in Google Apps.  -Joe Peacock

[John R. Sowash]

Hi Joe, 

You are on the right track. Google Groups can be accessed either via the Apps Dashboard or via groups.google.com. A user can send a message to the group email address (i.e. st...@myschool.com) and everyone in the group will receive the message. 

One of the benefits of groups is that you can assign a group manager who can curate the group without having access to the full Apps control panel. 

Groups that are created for the domain will be automatically available in the global address book as long as you have enabled contact sharing. This is an easy way for staff to communicate with your various user groups. 

Regards, 

         John

John R. Sowash
(231) sowash1 (769-2741)

Twitter | Blog | Profile

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[Curts, Eric]

We use Google Groups for all our mailing lists (staff, students, and parents).  You have lots of control over the settings of the groups in your Google Apps control panel, including how people get added to the group, who can send email to the group, if the group is moderated, and more.

You can see a list of our staff email groups here:

http://tech.northcantonschools.org/files/NCCS_Staff_Group_Mailing_Lists.pdf

And a description of our student and parent email groups here:

http://tech.northcantonschools.org/files/Student_and_Parent_Groups.pdf

See below for a sample screenshot with just a few of the available settings:

* Eric Curts

* Technology Director, North Canton City Schools

* 525 - 7th St NE, North Canton, OH 44720

* te...@northcantonschools.org

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[Brian....@greece.k12.ny.us]

Hello all,

Just another question we had in setting up our GAFE pilot project.  We have one organization (greeceschools.org) that is currently being archived by Postini.  We have chosen not to archive whatever student email we will be providing.  In order to do this we would need to purchase and register a new domain (possibly students.greeceschools.org) without Postini services and place all student accounts in this domain, correct?  This domain would also need to be registered with Google (for GAFE) and email address aliases would need to be created for the student accounts to point them to the existing greeceschools.org I believe.  Any thoughts or comments always appreciated!

Brian K. Palmer
Information Technology Security Specialist
Lotus Domino Administrator
Technology Support Services
Greece Central School District


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[joe_p...@burgundyfarm.org]

Thanks, Doug.  I particularly appreciate the heads-up about the visibility of the group mail archives.  I assume that this would not be the case if you set up the group with the setting "Only members can view group content," correct? We give email accounts to our middle school students, and I would definitely want them to not have access to some groups, while still allowing access to outsiders (parents). -Joe

Joseph E. Peacock

Director of Technology

Burgundy Farm Country Day School

3700 Burgundy Road

Alexandria, VA 22303

tel. 703-842-0467

fax: 703-960-5056

jo...@burgundyfarm.org

Doug Sawyer <dsa...@bv119.net> writes:

Hi,

I use groups like a list serve.  I have set up groups for each grade level and one for the elementary and the middles school.  Only members that receive the messages are added to the group.  I think you can post to them in the group listing but we use them as e-mail addresses.  For example fi...@bv119.net goes to the first grade teachers.  There is a place in Group Settings that allows you to choose if you only want to allow people from your own domain to post or if you want people outside the domain to post as well.  There is a check box there that will allow you to moderate outside messages before they are posted as well.  I caution the teachers in my district that Groups are very public within the domain.  If a teacher clicks on groups and chooses a group listing there is a list of all the messages that have been posted/e-mailed. 

-- 

Doug Sawyer

Technology Facilitator

Belle Valley School District # 119

618-236-4516

dsa...@bv119.net

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose." 

- Dr. Seuss 

[Curts, Eric]

Another key issue to remember with Google Groups is who can send email to the group.  Take for example a listserv that sends email to all middle school students.  Chances are your intention is to allow staff to send email to the middle school students using this Google Group, but you probably do not want students to be able to send email to the entire group.  Your options for who can send email to this group are controlled in the Apps control panel and are:

Managers only

Members only

Anyone from [your domain] can post

Anyone can post

Here's the problem...

If you choose "Managers only" then you have to make every staff member a manager of the group to be able to send to it.

If you choose "Members only" then only the students themselves can send email to the group, and the staff cannot send (since they most likely are going to be members of the group)

If you choose "Anyone from [your domain] can post" then the staff can now email the group, but so can the students as well, which is usually not what you want (students spamming the student mailing lists)

So what we do is choose "Anyone from [your domain] can post" to give staff the ability to send email to the group, but then use the Google Apps Email Security settings to add email filters to the student organizations restricting their ability to send email to the mailing lists.  The key here is naming the mailing lists in a unique way so that the regex in your filter can match them.  That is why we name all our staff listservs "list-[something]@northcantonschools.org" and our student listservs are "stu-[something]@northcantonschools.org" and our parent listservs are "par-[something]@northcantonschools.org".  By naming them something predicable, we can now match them with filters and limit who can send to them.  I can give more details if needed.

There may be other solutions to this issue (which I would love to hear about) but this works well for our particular situation.

Eric

* Eric Curts

* Technology Director, North Canton City Schools

* 525 - 7th St NE, North Canton, OH 44720

* te...@northcantonschools.org

* (330) 497-5600 x377, FAX (330) 497-5618

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* http://www.thestateoftech.org

[joe_p...@burgundyfarm.org]

Eric,

Thanks for your reply.  I am really impressed with what you are doing with Google groups in your district -- you have taken what we are doing with mail lists to a much higher level.  I can imagine there's a lot of group membership management in all of this, but you've really made this easy for parents -- I hope they appreciate it!

For your parent groups, do you use their addresses (as opposed to creating accounts for them in Google Apps)?  Do you put in their addresses or have them sign up for group membership?  If the former, are you able to import the addresses as a .csv?  

Thanks again, Joe

Joseph E. Peacock

Director of Technology

Burgundy Farm Country Day School

3700 Burgundy Road

Alexandria, VA 22303

tel. 703-842-0467

fax: 703-960-5056

jo...@burgundyfarm.org

[JD McKeel]

If you're using Postini Directory Sync, you could programmatically place your students into an suborganization within Postini that is not subject to archiving.  If you want to avoid having a separate domain for students, this might be the way to go.  If your students have a unique username convention or are in unique OUs in your directory service, this should be doable.

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[joe_p...@burgundyfarm.org]

Eric,

Thanks so much for those insights!  This is precisely why listservs like this one are invaluable!  -Joe

"Curts, Eric" <elc...@northcantonschools.org> writes:

Another key issue to remember with Google Groups is who can send email to the group.  Take for example a listserv that sends email to all middle school students.  Chances are your intention is to allow staff to send email to the middle school students using this Google Group, but you probably do not want students to be able to send email to the entire group.  Your options for who can send email to this group are controlled in the Apps control panel and are:

Managers only

Members only

Anyone from [your domain] can post

Anyone can post

Here's the problem...

If you choose "Managers only" then you have to make every staff member a manager of the group to be able to send to it.

If you choose "Members only" then only the students themselves can send email to the group, and the staff cannot send (since they most likely are going to be members of the group)

If you choose "Anyone from [your domain] can post" then the staff can now email the group, but so can the students as well, which is usually not what you want (students spamming the student mailing lists)

So what we do is choose "Anyone from [your domain] can post" to give staff the ability to send email to the group, but then use the Google Apps Email Security settings to add email filters to the student organizations restricting their ability to send email to the mailing lists.  The key here is naming the mailing lists in a unique way so that the regex in your filter can match them.  That is why we name all our staff listservs "list-[something]@northcantonschools.org" and our student listservs are "stu-[something]@northcantonschools.org" and our parent listservs are "par-[something]@northcantonschools.org".  By naming them something predicable, we can now match them with filters and limit who can send to them.  I can give more details if needed.

There may be other solutions to this issue (which I would love to hear about) but this works well for our particular situation.

Eric

* Eric Curts

* Technology Director, North Canton City Schools

* 525 - 7th St NE, North Canton, OH 44720

* te...@northcantonschools.org

* (330) 497-5600 x377, FAX (330) 497-5618

*  Google+ Profile - Click here

*  Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/ericcurts

*  Find me on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/ericcurts

[Curts, Eric]

We use the parents' personal email accounts.  (We do have Google Apps accounts for the parents on a different domain that we use for parent-teacher conference scheduling, but that is unrelated to the Google Group listservs.)

Basically we collect their personal email addresses through a few methods including a Google Form on our website, and on most of the paperwork they turn in for their students when they enroll them or when they update their info each school year.  We store the parent email addresses in our student information system (we use one called DASL).

We then use some custom Python scripts and the Google API's to write the parent email addresses to the Google Groups they should be on based on the student schedules and such.  By using the API's we can add the parent emails directly to the groups and avoid the need for them to go through the verification process you normally have to do when adding an external address.

Eric

* Eric Curts

* Technology Director, North Canton City Schools

* 525 - 7th St NE, North Canton, OH 44720

* te...@northcantonschools.org

* (330) 497-5600 x377, FAX (330) 497-5618

*  Google+ Profile - Click here

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[joe_p...@burgundyfarm.org]

Eric,

These access setting suggest that you have enabled Google Groups for Business for your domain, correct?  Am I right in thinking that the main advantage of Groups for Business is that it allows you to create groups that users can control themselves (and if we don't want that we don't need Groups for Business)?  Thanks again, Joe

"Curts, Eric" <elc...@northcantonschools.org> writes:

Another key issue to remember with Google Groups is who can send email to the group.  Take for example a listserv that sends email to all middle school students.  Chances are your intention is to allow staff to send email to the middle school students using this Google Group, but you probably do not want students to be able to send email to the entire group.  Your options for who can send email to this group are controlled in the Apps control panel and are:

Managers only

Members only

Anyone from [your domain] can post

Anyone can post

Here's the problem...

If you choose "Managers only" then you have to make every staff member a manager of the group to be able to send to it.

If you choose "Members only" then only the students themselves can send email to the group, and the staff cannot send (since they most likely are going to be members of the group)

If you choose "Anyone from [your domain] can post" then the staff can now email the group, but so can the students as well, which is usually not what you want (students spamming the student mailing lists)

So what we do is choose "Anyone from [your domain] can post" to give staff the ability to send email to the group, but then use the Google Apps Email Security settings to add email filters to the student organizations restricting their ability to send email to the mailing lists.  The key here is naming the mailing lists in a unique way so that the regex in your filter can match them.  That is why we name all our staff listservs "list-[something]@northcantonschools.org" and our student listservs are "stu-[something]@northcantonschools.org" and our parent listservs are "par-[something]@northcantonschools.org".  By naming them something predicable, we can now match them with filters and limit who can send to them.  I can give more details if needed.

There may be other solutions to this issue (which I would love to hear about) but this works well for our particular situation.

Eric

* Eric Curts

* Technology Director, North Canton City Schools

* 525 - 7th St NE, North Canton, OH 44720

* te...@northcantonschools.org

* (330) 497-5600 x377, FAX (330) 497-5618

*  Google+ Profile - Click here

*  Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/ericcurts

*  Find me on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/ericcurts

[Curts, Eric]

Yes, we have Google Groups for Business enabled.  And yes, the main difference that users can create their own groups (if you want to give them that ability).  Other key differences can be seen here:

http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=167092 

Eric

* Eric Curts

* Technology Director, North Canton City Schools

* 525 - 7th St NE, North Canton, OH 44720

* te...@northcantonschools.org

* (330) 497-5600 x377, FAX (330) 497-5618

*  Google+ Profile - Click here

*  Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/ericcurts

*  Find me on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/ericcurts

* http://www.ericcurts.com

* http://www.northcantonschools.org

* http://www.ohiotreasurechest.org

* http://www.appsusergroup.org

* http://www.thestateoftech.org

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 2:41 PM, Joe Peacock <jo...@burgundyfarm.org> wrote:

Eric,

These access setting suggest that you have enabled Google Groups for Business for your domain, correct?  Am I right in thinking that the main advantage of Groups for Business is that it allows you to create groups that users can control themselves (and if we don't want that we don't need Groups for Business)?  Thanks again, Joe

"Curts, Eric" <elc...@northcantonschools.org> writes:

Another key issue to remember with Google Groups is who can send email to the group.  Take for example a listserv that sends email to all middle school students.  Chances are your intention is to allow staff to send email to the middle school students using this Google Group, but you probably do not want students to be able to send email to the entire group.  Your options for who can send email to this group are controlled in the Apps control panel and are:

Managers only

Members only

Anyone from [your domain] can post

Anyone can post

Here's the problem...

If you choose "Managers only" then you have to make every staff member a manager of the group to be able to send to it.

If you choose "Members only" then only the students themselves can send email to the group, and the staff cannot send (since they most likely are going to be members of the group)

If you choose "Anyone from [your domain] can post" then the staff can now email the group, but so can the students as well, which is usually not what you want (students spamming the student mailing lists)

So what we do is choose "Anyone from [your domain] can post" to give staff the ability to send email to the group, but then use the Google Apps Email Security settings to add email filters to the student organizations restricting their ability to send email to the mailing lists.  The key here is naming the mailing lists in a unique way so that the regex in your filter can match them.  That is why we name all our staff listservs "list-[something]@northcantonschools.org" and our student listservs are "stu-[something]@northcantonschools.org" and our parent listservs are "par-[something]@northcantonschools.org".  By naming them something predicable, we can now match them with filters and limit who can send to them.  I can give more details if needed.

There may be other solutions to this issue (which I would love to hear about) but this works well for our particular situation.

Eric

* Eric Curts

* Technology Director, North Canton City Schools

* 525 - 7th St NE, North Canton, OH 44720

* te...@northcantonschools.org

* (330) 497-5600 x377, FAX (330) 497-5618

*  Google+ Profile - Click here

*  Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/ericcurts

*  Find me on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/ericcurts

[Demetri Orlando]

Eric- Brilliant work-around! Thanks for sharing! Never would have thought of using the email RegExs as a way to manage who can send to groups.

Joe- We have been in a similar pilot phase to what you describe, and in order to test out using google groups you can get them to work while running on your legacy email system if you create an identically named user within your legacy email system and set up auto-forwarding of mail for that user to the google group email address temp address. For example, we have a group in google named "all_us_...@myschool.org". So in our legacy system I created a user with this email address and then forwarded to our google back door address "all_us_...@temp-myschool.org". The result is that any message [from an upper school faculty group member] sent to that address goes to all upper school faculty in-boxes. 

thanks,

Demetri

BB&N

[melissa benson]

Thanks, Eric, great work around. Adding the "list" in front is a good idea too. So, can I ask what your regex looks like?

On another note we've got some groups already set up, building staff lists, if I wanted to change it from wb-s...@isd271.org to staf...@isd271.org could I do that, does anyone know? Will that create problems with docs, calendars that were already shared with the original group name?

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[Curts, Eric]

Sure, below is the regex we use to prohibit students from sending email to the mailing lists. It is probably more complicated that it may need to be for other schools because I am accounting for three different possible domains that are all valid for our email, being northcantonschools.org, northcanton.sparcc.org, and viking.stark.k12.oh.us.

-----

Filter title: Block to staff, student. and parent listservs
Filter description: This filter applies to all student accounts.  It prevents students from sending email to our Google Groups (email distribution lists) which includes staff, student, and parent lists.

• Messages to affect
• Internal - sending
• Conditions
• If ANY of the following match the message
• Location = Envelope recipients
• Match type = Matches regex
• Regexp = (?i)(list|stu|par)-[a-z0-9-]{1,25}@(northcantonschools\.org|northcanton\.sparcc\.org|viking\.stark\.k12\.oh\.us)
• Consequences
• Reject message

-----

 Basically the regex breaks down as follows:

(?i)  This tells the regex to ignore case so that upper or lower case will match

(list|stu|par)  This matches the beginning of our three different mailing list type, "list" for staff, "stu" for students, and "par" for parents

-[a-z0-9-]{1,25}  This matches what follows the list, stu, or par, which would be a dash "-" followed by letters and/or numbers up to 25 characters long

@(northcantonschools\.org|northcanton\.sparcc\.org|viking\.stark\.k12\.oh\.us)  And finally this matches each of our three possible email domains

Eric

* Eric Curts

* Technology Director, North Canton City Schools

* 525 - 7th St NE, North Canton, OH 44720

* te...@northcantonschools.org

* (330) 497-5600 x377, FAX (330) 497-5618

*  Google+ Profile - Click here

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* http://www.ericcurts.com

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* http://www.ohiotreasurechest.org

* http://www.appsusergroup.org

* http://www.thestateoftech.org

k12appstech...@googlegroups.com

[melissa benson]

awesome, thanks!

[Chris Franzen]

Just throwing this out here and I do like Eric's technical solution, but here I just add myself to a member of almost every group and if an inappropriate email comes through from the students to a list then I forward the email to that student's principal.  

I realize my district is smaller in size and that makes this a little more manageable, but its a thought if you don't want to create all of the email filters.  We are in are 2nd year of having students in grades 6-12 use email and I have only had to forward an email to an administrator twice and both instances created good learning experiences.

Chris Franzen
Technology Coordinator
Nokomis School District
511 Oberle St.
Nokomis, IL  62075

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