Communications
You can use the Communication section to contact your members, rather than holding a separate mailing list. When you click on it, you’ll see two tabs: Communication and Groups.
Under Communication, you can email your members, and see the emails you have already sent out. We recommend using this system in the first instance as it is extremely secure in terms of data protection as you won’t be holding a mailing list anywhere else. The emails are also plain-text, which makes them more accessible. To compose a new email, click the purple New Communication button on the right.
Emails you send through SUMS won’t appear on your Sent emails through your student group York SU Gmail account, but you will receive replies to them directly to your York SU Gmail account and be able to respond there.
Sending Emails
Select which Group of members you’d like to send the email to from the dropdown and press Next. You’re likely to see the following options:
All members: Send an email to everyone who has purchased a membership to your student group.
Committee: Send an email to students listed as a committee member on the SUMS system (this will only be your signatories and not your whole committee.)
Interested Members: This is a development we are hoping to make use of in future, where an individual can sign up as an Interested Member and receive emails for a set amount of time without having to join the group first; you currently won’t have anyone on this list.
Communication Group: You can create a separate group of members of your own, for example everyone who is participating in a particular project or an event. Once the group is created you can select this option and then select the group you wish to contact. See below for details on creating a new group.
Product Purchasers: Contact those who have purchased a product/event ticket.
Write the subject and content of your message in the boxes provided. You can include different styles of text, links, and images in your message.
There are two methods for including images, embedding and attaching.
Embedding an image needs the URL of an image and you can do this by right clicking on an image and selecting "Copy image address" on Chrome (other browsers may vary).
Attaching will include a link at the bottom of the page to a website where the image is stored on our systems.
3. If you’d like to include an attachment to your email, such as a timetable for an event or a menu for a social, click the slider below the message box.
4. Press next. If you’re including an attachment, upload it here. You can currently upload up to two.
5. Press Finish. This will send your email!
Groups
Here you can create a specific group of members to email. If you’d like to send an email to your whole committee, or a particular cast or team, for example, you can create them as a Group. Click New Group, give it a name and then type in the names of the members you’d like to add. It might be useful to open the Members section in a new tab! This group will then be added to your Communication Groups.
Interested Members
As part of Freshers’ Fair, there is an option for students to register interest in your activity. They do this by clicking the "Register Interest" button on your virtual fair webpage. The student will be able to see a list of all the activities they’ve registered interest in on the wishlist page as part of the fair.
On the student dashboard once they’ve added it to their wishlist their name will be displayed under Members->Interested Members, for 3 weeks. It is then possible to send out communications to those members to let them know what’s going on or if there are any taster sessions.
We are currently working on extending this feature beyond Freshers' Fair, so stay tuned for updates!
Alternative Options
If you wish to send an email that is not just plain text, or you wish to hold a mailing list of individuals who are not members (for example alumni of your group or those thinking about joining), we recommend using Google Groups or MailJet.
We do not recommend using Gmail for bulk emails, because of the risk of accidentally revealing the names and email addresses to all the recipients. If you use Gmail, you must ensure that all the recipients are in BCC. Contact your link staff member immediately if you send a bulk email without BCC-ing, as this may need to be treated as a data breach.
Questions?
Contact your link staff member or our IT Team (it@yorksu.org)