Every Higher Logic community can automatically send "Digest" email messages to members of the community. Digest emails are a convenient and easy way to keep community members informed of what is going on in the community.

NOTE: This article describes in which communities auto-subscriptions can be set for Digest emails, and the affects on these settings if a community's Community Type is changed.

Digest emails notes

Digest emails are available in:

• HL-managed communities and
• AMS-managed communities

...but they are managed differently in these scenarios. For example, Admins of AMS-managed communities can configure default auto-subscription settings, per community, based on a community's Community Type, as described below.

Auto-subscription availability

Let's first look at Digest emails in HL-managed communities.

HL-managed communities

You cannot configure default auto-subscription settings for Digest emails in these communities because, as users voluntarily join HL-managed communities, they are prompted to select their own email-notification preferences.

AMS-managed communities

When a community is AMS-managed, it's members are managed in the integrated database. These members are not prompted to join and, therefore, are not presented the "select notifications" dialog that is shown above.

Rather, you configure the default Digest email-notification settings (i.e., default auto-subscriptions), which are:

• based on the community's Community Type and
• automatically applied to all members of the community.

You can navigate to Community > Communities > Types and check a community's setting in the Auto-subscription column.

• A value in the Integration Key column confirms that the Community Type is AMS-managed.
• Auto-subscription = No Email indicates that auto-subscription has not been set for that Community Type.
• If you change a community's Community Type, you might also change the auto-subscription for new members. Refer to the next section for information.

Affect of changing a community's Community Type

You can change a community's Community Type. However, it's important to understand that this action might also change that community's auto-subscription setting because a community automatically inherits a Community Type's settings.

This section describes how this change will affect existing and new members of the community.

If you change a community's Community Type, the "new" Community Type's auto-subscription setting:

• is not applied to (i.e., it does not update) the auto-subscription setting of existing community members; they retain their existing auto-subscription setting.
  • TIP: If you want to change the auto-subscription setting for multiple existing members of a community, create a case with Higher Logic Support and request a "bulk task."
• is automatically applied as the default auto-subscription setting for any members who are added to the community (in the integrated database) after the Community Type was changed.

Auto-subscriptions in an HL-managed community

There are only two ways to set a default auto-subscription setting for an HL-managed community.

• Convert the HL-managed community to an (integrated) AMS-managed community

NOTE: The "convert" option is either not applicable or not feasible for most HL-managed communities. However, the process is described in Transition an HL-managed Community to an AMS-managed Community.

• Use an Automation Rule that applies a default auto-subscription setting to users who are added

NOTE: In an HL-managed community, the only way to manage user subscriptions is manually within the community's subscription settings. This will bulk update existing users' subscription settings but it will not apply to new users, so you must use an Automation Rule in order to include them in the updated settings.

Use an Automation Rule

You can use an Automation Rule to automatically apply a default auto-subscription setting to users who join or are added to an HL-managed community.

Check your Automation Rules

The first thing to do is to determine whether any of your existing Automation Rules can be used to add users to the community.

• If there is one, you can edit the rule so that (in addition to automatically adding users) it also automatically applies the default auto-subscription setting.
• If there is not one, you must create a rule that does both: automatically adds users and applies the default auto-subscription setting.

To set a default auto-subscription setting:

1. In the Admin Toolbar, click Admin.

2. Navigate to Automation > Automation Rules.

3. Create an Automation Rule or edit an existing one.
4. Configure your preferred settings for the Rule.
5. Click the Subscribe the contacts to the Discussions as dropdown and choose Real Time.
6. Give the Rule an appropriate name.
7. Click Save and review the list to confirm your Rule is listed.

Related articles

Community members' auto-subscriptions are automatically applied upon joining an integrated AMS-managed community, but they can manage their own preferences as described in Manage Your Community Notifications.

To learn how to create an Automation Rule that will automatically add users to an HL-managed community, see Create Automation Rule - Add Users to an HL-managed Community.