Bulk E-mail Procedures

SUNY Potsdam has implemented procedures and guidelines on the distribution of bulk email messages.

Approval Procedures

Bulk email messages for all students need prior approval from Carol Rourke in the President's Office.

Bulk email messages for all faculty and staff will be subject to approval by the Postmaster.

Targeted messages to subsets of students or staff will be subject to approval by the Postmaster.

Mailing Procedures

Send a copy of the message in plain text format to postmaster@potsdam.edu along with the following information:

  1. Requested date for the message to be sent
  2. Subject for the message
  3. 'From' address for the message
  4. The intended audience for the message: choose one of the following:

    1. One of the standard groups of users: all students, all faculty/staff, teaching faculty, faculty and professional staff
    2. Provide an email address list for a desired subset of users* (see note below for instructions)

Important Notes

Please draft your email message in plain text format. Any HTML formatting will be removed except in special circumstances.

Attachments are not permitted in bulk emails except in special circumstances. If you wish to distribute a formatted document, put the document on a web page and put a link to the document in the email message.

Hidden URLs are not permitted in bulk emails except in special circumstances. Type URLs in full e.g. http://www.potsdam.edu

Please allow at least one business day advance notice for sending messages. Messages may be sent after business hours depending on priority and server load.

*Requests for generating targeted subsets of email addresses need to be submitted by the CTS Request Form: http://www.potsdam.edu/cts/services/helpform.cfm  (Choose "Administrative Information Systems", then "Adhoc-one time").

Formatting Tips

Enhanced plain text features: Thunderbird and other e-mail clients support enhanced plain text features:

  • To make text bold, type an asterisk before and after: *this is bold*
  • To make text italic, type a slash before and after: /this is italic/
  • To underline text, type an underline before and after: _this is underlined_
  • Type URLs in full so that readers can use them as links, for example: http://www.potsdam.edu/

Contact: postmaster@potsdam.edu