In every Higher Logic community, Super Admins can choose to automatically send "Digest" email messages to members of the community. Being able to automate the sending of these messages via auto-subscription settings is a convenient way to notify community members of what is going on in the community—with less hands-on involvement for Admins.

Digest email messages notes

Digest email messages are available in HL-managed communities and AMS-managed communities, but they are managed differently in these communities.

The ability to manage auto-subscription settings (which are based on a community's Community Type), however, is generally limited to AMS-managed communities because, in HL-managed communities, users self-choose whether and when to join (and leave), and manage their own Digest-notifications settings.

NOTE: It is possible to manage auto-subscription settings in HL-managed communities. This is described below in Auto-subscription in an HL-managed community.

HL-managed communities - Digest messages prompt

You cannot configure default auto-subscription settings for Digest email messages in HL-managed communities because any user who joins any community is prompted to select their own email-notification preferences when they voluntarily join the community.

Conversely, members of AMS-managed communities are not presented a prompt to select their own email-notification preferences because they are automatically added to the community and the community's default auto-subscriptions settings are automatically applied.

Auto-subscription in AMS-managed communities

Admins of AMS-managed communities can manage the default auto-subscription settings. These settings are:

• based on a community's Community Type.
• applied to a Community Type only by request (create a case with Higher Logic Support and request a "bulk task").
  • Refer to Prepare a bulk-update spreadsheet, below, to learn how to prep a .CSV file for your request.
• automatically applied to the Digest email-notification messages for all members of the community.

Check your auto-subscription settings

You can check the auto-subscription settings for your communities in the Admin interface.

1. Navigate to Community > Communities > Types.

• A value in the Integration Key column confirms that the Community Type is AMS-managed.

2. Check the value in the Auto-subscription column.

• Daily Digest indicates that auto-subscription is activate for that Community Type.
• No Email indicates that auto-subscription has not been set for that Community Type.

You can navigate to a community's Settings page and change a community's Community Type but consider the consequences of doing so.

• If you change a community's Community Type, you might also change the auto-subscription setting 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." Also, refer to Prepare a bulk-update spreadsheet, below, to learn how to prep a .CSV file for your request.

• is automatically applied as the auto-subscription setting for any members who are added to the community (by being added to the AMS/CRM database) after the Community Type was changed.

Auto-subscription 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 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.

Prepare a bulk-update spreadsheet

If you want to manage the auto-subscription setting for multiple, existing members of a community, you have to:

• prepare a .CSV file with the member data,
• create a case with Higher Logic Support, and
• request a "bulk task" on which you include your prepared .CSV file.

This section provides instructions and best practices to help you prepare, populate, and format your bulk-update spreadsheet.

Notes

• This process is executed by an HL Staff-only tool.
• The bulk-update spreadsheet must be in .CSV format; other formats (including .XSLX) will be rejected by the tool.
• This process applies only to users who already exist in the community database. HL Staff cannot create accounts for new users with this tool.

The instructions in the next section provide guidance on how to format and populate the bulk-update spreadsheet.

Prepare the spreadsheet

1 - Choose an identifier

You must select one identifier to be used in the update file, either:

• Email address (the primary email address in the users' records in your community) or
• AMS ID (this could be the LegacyContactKey; it is in the Integration Key column of the Users > List page in Admin).

NOTE: Do not alternate between the two identifiers, or switch to the other after you've started.

2 - Format the spreadsheet

The bulk-update tool recognizes only a one-column sheet.

• All of your data must be in the first column only.
• Do not populate any other columns.

To format the spreadsheet:

1. Open a new workbook in your preferred spreadsheet application (e.g., OpenOffice Calc, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets).
2. In cell A1, input the case-sensitive column-header for the identifier that you are using. This must be either: Email or id.

NOTE: Cell A1 must be exactly one of these values or the tool will error.

TIP: At this point, it's a good idea to save the spreadsheet in the required format and to then do so periodically to preserve your work.

3 - Save the spreadsheet

Save the spreadsheet in the .CSV file format in your chosen spreadsheet application.

• Microsoft Excel: File > Save As > CSV (Comma delimited) *.csv.
• OpenOffice Calc: File > Save As > Text CSV (.csv).
• Google Sheets: File > Download > Comma separated values (.csv).

4 - Populate the spreadsheet

Start populating the spreadsheet by adding one value per row.

• Do not input multiple values in a single cell; this will cause the upload to fail.
• Make sure that there are no blank rows in the spreadsheet.

To populate the spreadsheet:

1. In cell A2, input <email_address> or <ID> for the first user record.
2. In cell A3, input <email_address> or <ID> for the second user record.
3. Continue populating the rows for the remainder of user records that you want to manage with this spreadsheet.
4. Periodically save the spreadsheet in order to preserve your work.

5 - Verify the data

Higher Logic recommends that you "spot check" a few records to be sure that they align with the entries in the Users > List page in Admin.

If you used the:

• Email identifier, verify a few values against the values in the Email column on the Users list.
• id identifier, verify a few values against the values in the Integration Key column on the Users list.

Related articles

• Community members' auto-subscriptions are automatically applied upon joining an 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.