E-mail Aliases

Contents

• Overview of E-mail Aliases
• Case Study: The NetAce High School
• Managing your E-mail Aliases
• Match the E-mail Alias
• Add Alias
• View Alias
• Modify Alias
• Remove Alias
• Notes about Managing your Aliases

Overview of E-mail Aliases

The E-mail Aliases tab provides options for administrators to manage e-mail aliases. An administrator may add aliases and search for aliases to view, modify, and remove.

An e-mail alias is a special kind of e-mail address. Like a typical address, you may send a message to it from your e-mail client and expect the message to be delivered to a recipient. However, unlike a typical address, an e-mail alias may have many recipients. Another difference is that an e-mail alias does not have a mailbox, so an administrator cannot use an e-mail client to view all of the messages sent to an e-mail alias. When an e-mail alias is set up, the administrator may specify multiple groups and/or individual e-mail accounts in its settings. When a message is sent to the alias, the message is forwarded to all of the accounts within those groups and any individual e-mail addresses defined in the alias.

When you add an e-mail alias, you pick the alias name, and associate it with groups and individual e-mail addresses at your discretion. You can can mix and match an alias definition in four ways, including:

• Assign the alias to a group and all of its subgroups. Messages are sent to all accounts within the group and any of its subgroups.
• Assign the alias to a specific group but not its subgroups. Messages are sent to all accounts within the group but not accounts within subgroups.
• Assign the alias to the "organization root group". Messages are sent to accounts within all groups in the organization.
• Assign the alias to 12 or less individual e-mail addresses.

The layout of the E-mail Alias screen follows the standard kinetic Manager screen layout. For a general description of the layout, refer to the Screen Layout section of the kinetic Manager Overview.

Case Study: The NetAce High School

Consider the following example, where the NetAce High School has the kinetic Service and the administrators have organized the accounts into groups with the following structure in kinetic Manager:

                                    /NetAce:/
                                    |
             +---------------------------------------------------+
             |                                                   |
             staff                                               students
             |                                                   |
+------------+----------------+----------+             +---------+----------+
|            |                |          |             |         |          |
facilities   school-admins    support    faculty       Tenth     Eleventh   Twelfth
                              |
                    +---------+------+ 
                    |                |
                    clerical         aides

The administrators would like an easy way to send mail to the entire organization, the staff, and the students. To do this, the following three e-mail aliases are added:

• The netace-all@netace.k12.mo.us e-mail alias is associated with the /NetAce:/staff and /NetAce:/students groups and all of their subgroups. To send a message to the entire organization, simply address a message to the netace-all@netace.k12.mo.us alias.
• The netace-staff@netace.k12.mo.us e-mail alias is associated with the /NetAce:/staff group and all of its subgroups. To send a message to just the staff, address it to the netace-staff@netace.k12.mo.us alias.
• The netace-students@netace.k12.mos.us e-mail alias is associated with the /NetAce:/students group and all of its subgroups. To send a message to just the students, address it to the netace-students@netace.k12.mos.us alias.

Managing your E-mail Aliases

E-mail aliases are convenient for communicating with various groups and individuals in your organization. As e-mail aliases become an important part of communication processes, it becomes crucial that administrators carefully monitor and review the settings for e-mail aliases. Please be aware of the following:

• Group Structure. A well organized group structure for your accounts is the key to success for using e-mail aliases. A group structure that matches the organization structure naturally leads to a manageable set of e-mail aliases for communicating with those groups. Before you begin creating aliases, review the groups and the accounts they contain in kinetic Manager, and adjust if necessary. Afterward, you'll find that matching the target audiences for communication with the groups in your organization's kinetic service will be a straightforward task.
• Group Modifications. Beware that if you reorganize groups for your organization, the audience for your e-mail alias may change. For example, if you rename a group, any e-mail aliases that referenced the original group name will reference the new group name. If you plan to reorganize groups, review your e-mail aliases for effects that the group modifications may have.
• Account Reorganization. If you change groups for a set of accounts, those accounts will receive any messages sent to e-mail aliases that reference the group. Likewise, account holders will not receive messages sent to e-mail aliases that reference the original group that contained the accounts. By changing groups for accounts, you may unknowingly change the intended audience of an e-mail alias. If you plan to reorganize accounts within the group structure of your organization, review your e-mail aliases for effects your changes may have.
• Expunged and Undeliverable Accounts. As you expunge accounts in your organization, references to the accounts are not removed from e-mail aliases. In addition, accounts outside your organization may be defined in an e-mail alias and those accounts may no longer exists or be undeliverable. You should occasionally review your e-mail aliases and ensure that they reference valid e-mail accounts.
  
  Important: If you send a message to an e-mail alias that references accounts that are undeliverable, you will receive a 'bounce' message for each e-mail address that is undeliverable.

Match the E-mail Alias

The primary screen for the E-mail Alias tab allows you to add an alias, or search for an alias to view, modify or remove. The View Alias, Modify Alias, and Remove Alias tasks use an e-mail alias that you specify in the E-mail Alias box. The Add Alias task does not use this box. Note that the Add Alias task is located in the menu bar below the tabs and above Match the E-mail Alias.

Important: You may type a partial or complete e-mail alias in the E-mail Alias box. As you manage your existing aliases with the view, modify and remove tasks, only aliases that match the partial or complete e-mail alias you specify in this box will be displayed.

Add Alias

You may use the Add Alias task to add a new alias for your organization. Do the following to add an alias:

1. Click Add Alias from the menu bar above the task title bar.
2. Type the complete e-mail alias, including the domain name, in the E-mail Alias box. For example, type aliasname@somedomain.
   
   Important: The alias cannot match an existing account in your organization and the domain that you specify must be deliverable for your organization. Most organizations only have one deliverable mail domain and it matches the domain used in the administrator's e-mail address.
   
   
3. Select one or more groups from the Groups list. Accounts within the groups that you select will receive messages sent to the e-mail alias. To select multiple groups, press and hold CTRL as you are selecting groups. Two items are displayed in the list for each group in your organization: one item with the group name and another item with the group name and '(include subgroups)'. If you select the name with '(include subgroups)', the group and all of its subgroups will be specified for the alias.
   
   Important: The groups must exist in one organization. If you administer multiple organizations, you cannot select groups from multiple organizations.
   
   
4. Type one or more individual e-mail addresses in the E-mail Addresses box. You may specify up to 12 individual addresses separated by commas or new lines. The addresses you specify will receive the messages sent to the e-mail alias.
5. Click Continue. To cancel adding the new e-mail alias, click Cancel.
6. Confirm your selections for the e-mail alias. If you are satisfied, click Yes. If you would like to edit your selections, click No, revise your selections and repeat the process.

View Alias

You may use the View Alias task to view the settings for an e-mail alias. Do the following to view an alias:

1. On the Match the E-mail Alias screen, type a complete or partial e-mail alias in the E-mail Alias box.
2. Click View Alias. Aliases that match the complete or partial e-mail alias are displayed.
3. Click an e-mail alias to view its settings.
4. When you are finished viewing the alias, click Previous to return to the list of search results or click Cancel to return to the Match the E-mail Alias screen.

Modify Alias

You may use the Modify Alias task to modify the settings for an e-mail alias. Do the following:

1. On the Match the E-mail Alias screen, type a complete or partial e-mail alias in the E-mail Alias box.
2. Click Modify Alias. Aliases that match the complete or partial e-mail alias are displayed.
3. Click an e-mail alias to modify its settings. If the alias you clicked is not the correct one, click Previous to return to the list of search results. You may click Cancel to return to the Match the E-mail Alias screen.
4. Modify the Groups selections if needed. To select multiple groups, press and hold CTRL as you are selecting groups. Two items are displayed in the list for each group in your organization: one item with the group name and another item with the group name and '(include subgroups)'. If you select the name with '(include subgroups)', the group and all of its subgroups will be specified for the alias.
5. Modify the individual e-mail addresses in the E-mail Addresses box if needed. You may specify up to 12 individual addresses separated by commas or new lines. The addresses you specify will receive the messages sent to the e-mail alias.
6. Click Continue. To cancel your changes, click Cancel.
7. Confirm your selections for the e-mail alias. If you are satisfied, click Yes. If you would like to edit your selections, click No, revise your selections and repeat the process.

Remove Alias

You may use the Remove Alias task to remove one or more e-mail aliases. Do the following:

1. On the Match the E-mail Alias screen, type a complete or partial e-mail alias in the E-mail Alias box.
2. Click Remove Alias. Aliases that match the complete or partial e-mail alias are displayed.
3. Select the checkbox next to each e-mail alias that you would like to remove and click Continue. You may click Cancel to return to the Match the E-mail Alias screen.
4. Confirm your selection of the e-mail aliases to remove. If you incorrectly selected an e-mail alias, click No to return to the list of aliases. To remove the e-mail aliases, click Yes.