Higher Logic's default Email Community Members feature allows Community Admins and Super Admins to send emails to all members of a community. Group Manager is an optional module your organization can license to gain additional messaging features and more control. Refer to the table below for a feature comparison between Email Community Members and Group Manager.

Feature comparison

In this article, you'll learn how to use Group Manager's enhanced email features, which enable Super Admins to:

1. Enable/disable additional community messaging features at the Community Type level, including limiting the number of emails Community Admins can send per month, allowing meeting invitations in emails, and allowing file attachments in emails.
2. Create unlimited email templates and apply a template to a List.
3. Create Lists to define segments of users, allowing you to target specific members within a community.

NOTE: These messaging enhancements build on the default Email Community Members feature. If you're not already familiar with the baseline functionality, see Email Community Members to learn more.

Enable additional community messaging features

Super Admins can enable/disable Group Manager's additional features at the Community Type level, allowing them to set specific permissions for specific communities.

1. In the Admin Toolbar, click Admin.

2. Navigate to Community > Communities > Types.

3. Select a Community Type, followed by Edit.

4. Scroll down to the Emails section, which provides the following options:

1. Limit the number of emails sent to members - If enabled, two new fields appear where you can define the maximum number of emails that can be sent per month per community by your Community Admins. The maximum is determined by multiplying the number you enter by the number of members. For example, if you enter 5 and a community has 10 members, 10 x 5 = 50 emails per month for that community. You likely don't need to limit emails for most communities, but if there is an instance where an overzealous admin is spamming their community's members, this is a great way to limit their ability to do so.
2. Enable sending meeting invitations - Controls whether meeting invites (ICS files) for existing community events and/or volunteer opportunities can be included in emails sent from these communities. (Only volunteer opportunities with an end date can be selected. Open-ended opportunities will not appear in the list.)
3. Enable sending attachments - Controls whether file attachments can be included in emails sent from these communities.

5. After you've configured your community messaging features, click Save at the bottom of the page to apply them to this Community Type and its associated communities.

Create new email templates

While only a single template can be set up with the baseline Email Community Members feature, you can create unlimited email templates with Group Manager. If you don't need any additional templates, you can continue to use the default Community Bulk Email template and skip to the next section; if you do want to create new templates, follow the steps below:

1. In the Admin Toolbar, click Admin.

2. Navigate to Email > Email Management > Email Templates.

3. Select Community Messages from the Category menu.
4. Click Create at the top-right of the resulting page.

5. Complete the fields as desired.

IMPORTANT: You must include the [CommunityAdminMessage] and [CommunityAdminHyperlinks] variables in any new email templates you create for them to function properly. These variables will be populated with the Community Admin's message and hyperlinks to any attached files/meeting invitations, respectively. These two variables are not selectable via the mail merge variable selector interface, so the best way to add them is to edit the Community Bulk Email template and copy and paste them out of the HTML Message field.

Create Lists

Lists are segments of users meeting specific criteria, and you can use them to target specific members within a community (e.g., only those members who've joined the community in the past 30 days, etc.). There are dozens of segment options available, giving you the flexibility to target just about any group of members within a community you want.

Lists are also important because they are what you assign a custom email template to.

These Lists are selectable in the To line when creating a community email (see the image at the bottom of this section).

1. In the Admin Toolbar, click Admin.

2. Navigate to Users > List Builder.

3. Select Community Member Email List from the menu highlighted in the image below. This will list all of the default BP (Best Practice) lists, along with their Community Type, email template, and description. You can update any of these, if desired.
4. To create a new list, click Create at the top-right.

5. On the resulting page:

1. Select the desired Community Type from this menu to allow those Community Admins to:
2. Send the email template selected here (this can be the default Community Bulk Email template or one of your custom templates):
3. To those community members meeting the criteria you add from this menu (you can add multiple criterion by repeating this step). The subset of users defined by your criteria will be selectable in the To line when creating a community email.
4. Lastly, give your List a name. Make sure it's descriptive: This will help Community Admins understand who the To line will target (e.g. "Community Members who joined in the last 30 days").

6. Click Save when finished to create your List.

EXAMPLE: You could configure a List like:

"Allow [Chapter] Community Admins to send the [Custom Email Template] email to their community members who [joined the specified community within the last specified number of days]"

Once this List is created, Community Admins of communities associated to the List's Community Type can select the List, "Community Members who joined in the last 30 days," as an option in the To Line: