This article gives an overview of the University’s mailing list management software Sympa and its interface.

What is Lists.soton.ac.uk

Lists.soton.ac.uk is the University mailing list server.

From “Mailing lists ” you can:

• access to your environment
• perform subscription options
• unsubscribe from lists
• archive list and emails
• manage your lists

 

Types of mailing lists – summary

A mailing list is a distribution list allowing a group of subscribers to all emails sent to a list. All subscribers will receive every message sent to the list by a subscriber.

People subscribe to a mailing list (sometimes abbreviated in ML) to be informed about a particular topic and to take part in exchanges about it.

We can distinguish between 2 types of lists:

• Announcement lists: these lists allow subscribers to receive messages without being allowed to post some themselves.
• Discussion lists allow all subscribers to take part in exchanges. Those lists can be moderated or not.

You can find more details about this topic on the following pages:  

1. “Mailing lists – General introduction”
2. “How the mailing list service works: roles and responsibilities”

 

Mailing list roles

Reminder: a mailing list service involves four types of roles:

• Listmaster
• Owner
• Moderator
• Subscriber

Please note: there is no limit to the number of privileged owners you can add to a list.

Find more details about the roles in the article “How the mailing list service works: roles and responsibilities”.

 

Differences with All.Soton

The all.soton mailing list service was created to provide a straightforward way for staff and students to communicate with specific groups within the university. 

Mailing list memberships are built automatically on a nightly basis using a combination of data sources. This ensures that All.Soton mailing lists stay up to date, saving time and accuracy over traditional mailing list systems.

Know more about All.Soton

 

Note for former ECS Mailman users

The ECS (Electronics and Computer Science) Mailman mailing list server has been migrated to our Sympa list service.

As part of the migration, iSolutions have archived all lists that has not been used since January 2018. If you own one of those lists and wish it to be reinstated, please contact ServiceLine.

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What is new

User interface

Launched in December 2022, the new Mailing List presents a clear user interface with 2 main areas:

1. The menu bar. There you can find the following buttons:
   1. Home
   2. Listmaster Admin (if you are a Listmaster)
   3. Request a list: it opens the form you need to request a new mailing list
   4. Search for List(s): the search form and the index of lists
   5. Support: here you can find documentation and a list of Frequent Asked Questions (FAQs)
   6. Your account section with your preferences and lists
      
      
2. The main area. There you will find the following buttons:
   1. My lists – it allows you to manage your lists and view the lists that you are subscribed to
   2. Request a list – select it to start creating your mailing list
   3. Search for list(s) – find a particular mailing list of interest 

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Guide for users and subscribers

Checking your list and / or your subscriptions

1. Select the button ‘My list’ to view and manage the lists you are subscribed to

2. Select the list you are interested in.

3. It will appear a new window containing:

1. The name of the list
2. The subject
3. A short description

4. Use the control panel on your left to:

1. View the number of owners and moderators
2. Contact the owners
3. View your list options, selecting ‘Subscriber option’
4. Unsubscribe from the list, selecting ‘Unsubscribe’ and then follow the instructions

Send a message to the list, selecting ‘Post’

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Subscribing to a mailing list

1. Select Search for Lists

2. Enter the name of the list you are interested or the keywords

3. Select the right list

4. Go to the List Options menu and select Subscribe

5. Add your email address (if the field is not filled automatically) and your name in the fields

6. Subscribe to the list by selecting the button I subscribe to list “name-of-the-list” (in this example, “I subscribe to list it-knowledge-base-weekly-update”)

 
7. Select the button Confirm to confirm your choice

 
8. After a couple of minutes, you will receive a confirmation email asking you to confirm your choice. Select Confirm to confirm it and to add your address to the mailing list.

 

Find more information on this topic in the page "Mailing list service Subscribing to mailing lists".  

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Unsubscribing from lists

You can unsubscribe from a mailing list following 2 ways – both are correct:

Way 1

To unsubscribe from a list, do as follows:

1. From the address with which you subscribed to the list, send a message to sympa@lists.soton.ac.uk

2. In the subject line of your email, type in: unsubscribe ‘nameofthelist’ (replace 'nameofthelist' by the name of the list you want to unsubscribe from)

3. Leave the message body blank

To save some time, you can also send several commands in a single message. To do that, follow the instructions available in the "How the mailing list service works section".

 

Way 2

You can unsubscribe through the mailing list web interface. Please remember that you will need to repeat the operation for each list you want to unsubscribe from.

Instructions:

1. Go to the list environment homepage and log in

2. Go to the information page of the list you want to unsubscribe from.

3. In the left menu, click on the Unsubscribe link.

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How to create/ request a list

1. Go to lists.soton.ac.uk

2. Login with your university username and password

3. Select “Create list” from the central space 

 
or “Request a list”  from the menu bar

 

4. It will appear a form requesting:

1. The type of list you want to create
2. The name of the list. Please remember to avoid using spaces in the name of the list; if necessary, use hyphens (for example: “Awards-and-progression”)
3. The subject of the list
4. The main topic
5. A description of the list

5. Once you have filled all the fields, select the button “Submit your creation request”.

Please note:

• You cannot submit a request form with empty fields. If you accidentally submit a request containing blank fields, it will appear an error message saying "Error banner saying: "ERROR (create_list) - Missing argument info)":
  
   
  
  
• Once you close the error banner above, you will an empty page. This is due to a bug in Sympa – iSolutions technicians are working to solve it. To request a new list, select the button ‘Request a list’ from the menu bar and start again the procedure.

What’s next:

1. Your list will appear under ‘My lists’ as “list not yet activated”
2. As soon as the Listmasters approve your request, you will receive a confirmation email.

Find more information on creating a list in the article “Requesting the creation of a mailing list”.

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Searching for a list

You can search for one or more lists by selecting the button ‘Search for list(s)’ on the homepage or by selecting the button with the same name in the menu bar.

Selecting this last, a drop-down menu will appear:

 
Use this menu to:

• Search for a specific list
• View the index of mailing lists
• Browse lists by categories

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Changing preferences

From your account page you can change:

• Your name
• The language used
• How long you will stay connected before logging in again
• Your email address for all your list memberships

To access this area:

1. Select the button with your name

 
2. Select ‘My preferences”

3. Change the settings you want to and then

1. select ‘Submit’
   or
2. enter your new email address and select the button ‘Change email’

 

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Sending a message to a list from Lists.soton.ac.uk

You can send a message to a list following the steps below:

1. Select the button ‘My list’ to view and manage the lists you are subscribed to

 

2. Select the list you are interested in

3. Go to the user panel and select ‘Post’

 
4. A new window will appear. From there you can type your message and

1. send a message to a list
2. send a message to your inbox – this could help you testing an HTML email work properly before sending to the list

Before sending a message to a list

Sending messages to a list makes you liable as an author. If you send a message to a list:

• all the subscribers will receive it
• you are likely to strike up conversations with them.

Read our list of (few) rules and best practices to better interact with other receivers on the page “A few rules”.

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Sending a message to a list from an email client 

To send a new message, it is very simple. You only need to:

1. Open your email client (for example Outlook, Gmail, Thunderbird, or Apple mail) or a webmail

2. Send a message to the list address. This address consists of the list name followed by the suffix '@lists.soton.ac.uk' (for example: psycho_cognitive(@)lists.soton.ac.uk).

Please note: you need to send the message from the address with which you subscribed to the list, otherwise, your message might be rejected.

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Replying to a message sent to a list

To reply to a message sent to a list, do as for any message that would have been sent to you in private. However, be careful: some lists are configured to send any reply to the list by default, for example to all the subscribers.

If you only want to reply to the message sender, make sure the recipient of your message is the right one.

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Suspending or resuming your subscription

Suspending your subscription

1. Open the list you are subscribed

2. Select “Subscriber options” from the list menu

3. Go to the “Suspend subscription”

4. Select a starting and ending date

5. Select the button “Suspend my subscriptions” to confirm your choice

Please note: you will not receive any notification for this action. 

 

Resuming your subscriptions

To resume your subscription to one or more lists, follow these steps:

1. Select the list(s) you want to reactivate.

2. Select “Subscriber options” from the list menu

3. Go to the Restore subscription section

4. Click "Resume my subscription"

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Admin guide

Changing your list configurations

You can change the settings of your list before and after its publication.

How to admin your list

1. Select ‘My lists’

2. Select your list

3. It will appear a new window with direct access to:

1. The navigation menu
2. ‘View and manage subscribers’: use it to manage pending subscriptions, blocklist, bounces and many other options
3. ‘List configuration’: use it to edit the list’s configurations, manage archives, remove the list and other options
4. ‘List archives’: use it to change your archiving settings or to download your mailing list archives
5. ‘Data Source Configuration’: use it to set up your data sources

 

How to access full administrative options

1. Go to the section ‘List home’ and select ‘Admin’ to have access to full administrative options

2. From there, you can select:

1. ‘Edit list config’ to change some of the list parameters
2. ‘Users’  to manage the members of your list, the subscriptions and other settings
3. ‘Blocklist’ to reject a list of users
4. ‘Manage archives’ to download and delete list archives
5. ‘Bounces’ to manage non-delivery reports
6. ‘Logs’: It is a system admin only feature and should not be changed. Most users will not see it except whoever becomes responsible for mailing list request
   
   

 

Who can send messages

Please find here below the list of options available in Lists:

• Closed: no one can send
• Restricted to subscribers:
  • if the sender is on the subscribers list allow, if the sender is an editor/owner allow,
  • if sender is from soton.ac.uk or southampton.ac.uk allow editor DKIM - if the sender is an moderator and has a DKIM signature allow the message or if the sender is a moderator and sends via email require authentication otherwise moderate the message
• Moderated: is the sender an editor allow otherwise moderate
• Moderate, even for moderators: any message is moderated
• Moderated, need authentication form moderator: moderation must been authenticated in some way otherwise moderate message
• Newsletter restricted to moderators: only moderators can send to the list
• Newsletter restricted to moderators after confirmation: only moderators can post, but message is moderated before sending
• Restricted to list owners only: only the owner of the list can send anyone else is rejected
• Restricted to list owners only with MD5 auth: confirmation/approval with the authentication key in the message, without it authentication will be requested otherwise reject
• Restricted to subscribers: only list subscribers can send anyone else is silently rejected
• Restricted to subscribers and checked smime signature: must be a subscriber with valid S/MIME signature of the message
• Moderated, restricted to subscribers: if sender is an editor allow, if sender is a subscriber moderate otherwise reject
• Moderated, for non subscribers sending multipart messages: messages that are mixed types e.g. text and an image moderate, if the send is a subscriber and it's not multipart allow otherwise moderate.
• Restricted to subscribers with previous md5 authentication: if subscriber confirmation/approval with the authentication key in the message, without it authentication will be requested otherwise reject
• Moderated for subscribers and moderators themselves
• Private, moderated for non subscribers
• Private, confirmation for non subscribers: non subscribers receive an email with a confirmation link before message is sent
• Public: anyone can send
• Public list, Bcc rejected (anti-spam)
• Anyone no authentication if DKIM signature is OK
• Public list multipart/mixed messages are forwarded to moderator
• Public list multipart messages are rejected

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Renaming the list

1. Open your list

2. Go to the list menu and select “Admin”

3. From the Drastic operations section, select the button “Rename list”

4. Enter the new name into the field.

5. Select the button “Rename this list”

6. Confirm your choice

Please note:

• Everything related to the list will be renamed, including the mail aliases and the web archives.
• Be careful: when you rename a list, you have to let the listmasters know; otherwise, the change will not be effective.

A few tips to name your lists

• Do not use any spaces, accents or specials characters in list names: those characters might cause problems.
• Choose an explicit yet short name: think of the subscribers who will have to type this name every time they will send a message to the list.
• If you manage a set of lists, you can prefix your lists' names with a common prefix; thus they will be sorted together and will be easily recognizable (example: xx-users@lists.soton.ac.uk, xx-hotline@lists.soton.ac.uk.fr, etc.).

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Adding or deleting a list owner

Adding a new list owner

1. Open your list

2. Go to the list menu and select “Admin”

3. Select the tab Users, then Owners from the drop-down menu

4. Go to the section Add owners and fill out the blank fields

5. Select the type of owner you want to assign:

Privileged list owners

• The first defined privileged owner is the person who requested the list creation. Later it can be changed or extended.
• They inherit (basic) owner privileges and are also responsible for managing the list owners and moderators themselves (through the web interface).
• Privileged owners can edit more list parameters than (basic) owners can do.

(Basic) list owners

They are responsible for:

• Managing the members of the list
• Editing the list configuration 
• Editing the templates

6. Enter the owner's email address

The "email address" field must contain the owner's primary email address (for example: a.surname@soton.ac.uk), not an alias (such as the email address with your university username - for example: ab1c23@soton.ac.uk).

7. Enter the owner's name

8. Set up the reception mode

9. Set up the visibility

10. Select the button Apply modifications to submit your changes

 

Deleting a list owner

1. Open your list

2. Go to the list menu and select “Admin”

3. Select the tab Users, then Owners from the drop-down menu

4. Tick the box close to the list owner you want to delete

5. The field selected will change color

6. Select the button Apply modifications to submit your changes

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How to send emails to your list

1. Open your list

2. Go to the list menu and select Post

 
3. A new screen will appear. There you will see:

• The sender address. Recipient will not view this address
• The recipient – it will appear as "NameOfTheList@soton.ac.uk"
• The subject field
• The button “Send to list” – use it to send your message to the list
• The button “Send to me” – use it whether you want to check your email before sending it to the list 
• A blank field where you can type or paste your message
  
  

4. Enter the content of your email into the blank field. The lists should accept HTML for formatting and links but it should also work using Outlook to format the message.

5. Once you are happy with it, select the button “Send to list”

Find more information about this topic in the page "Mailing lists service - Sending a message"

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Replying to a message

To reply to a message sent to a list, do as for any message that would have been sent to you in private. However, be careful: some lists are configured to send any reply to the list by default, for example to all the subscribers.

If you only want to reply to the message sender, make sure the recipient of your message is the right one.

You can also reply to a message directly from the mailing list environment. To do this, click on the 'Reply' button on the top right of the message.

Be careful: after clicking on the 'Reply' button, you will not be able to change the recipient anymore; thus, be careful when choosing between the message's sender and the list (all subscribers, for example)

This method is not very flexible: from the mailing list web interface, you can not add or change some recipients, add an attachment or format the messages you send. 

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How to moderate your list

Select ‘Moderate’ to open the drop-down menu that allows you to:

• View the list of messages to moderate, edit the list’s blocklist and the rejection messages
• View the list of subscriptions to moderate
• View the list of unsubscribe requests

You can find full guidance on moderating messages in the article “Moderating messages sent to the list”.

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How to change maximum email size

Listmasters can change the maximum size of the emails sent from your mailing list,  along with including subscribers from another list. List owners and moderators will not be able to change this setting.

Please note: there is not a maximum number of messages that can be sent. Although, larger lists will take longer to send to prevent being classed as spam

If you need to change your maximum email size, please get in touch with ServiceLine.

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Click List Home in the left hand side menu
2. Click on Change who can post to this list
3. Use ctrl + f (or comand + f if you are using a Mac) to bring up "find" in your browser, then search for 'Maximum message size' or scroll until you see this field
4. The default maximum is 5 MB (or 5242880 bytes). To increase the limit to 10 MB or 15 MB, change the value in the box to:
   1. (10485760) for 10 MB
      or
   2. (15728640) for 15 MB 
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select 'Apply modifications' to confirm your choice

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Statistics

Select 'Statistic' to receive information regarding the activity of the list.

The statistics page contains a series of charts showing:

• When mailings were sent
• Additions to subscriptions, unsubscription
• Users deleted by admin
• Any automatic unsubscription

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Delivery and frequency

How to edit list configurations:

1. Open your list

2. Go to the list menu and select Admin

 
3. Open the drop-down menu Edit List Config

 
4. Select the option Sending/receiving setup 

From this page, you can decide who will be allowed to post messages on the list.

Digest frequency

In the 'Digest frequency' area, you can define how frequently compiled messages are sent (Digest and Summary delivery modes): in the list, select all the days for which you want digests to be sent. Then choose a delivery time for digests (please avoid choosing a time between 11 p.m. and midnight).

Available subscription options

In the 'Available subscription options' list, select all the subscriber options you want to offer to your subscribers. By default, all options are selected.

Reply address

The 'Reply address' area allows you to define the default recipients of any reply to a message sent to the list:
• With the 'All' value, the reply is sent to both the message sender AND the list.
• With the 'List' value, the reply is sent to the list.

Be careful:

• Experience shows that subscribers do not always check the address to which they send their reply. Thus, they might send private messages to the whole list when trying to reply to a single person.
• With the 'Other_email' value, the reply is sent to a predefined address. If you choose this option, you will have to indicate an email address in the 'Other email address' input box.
• With the 'Sender' value, the reply is sent to the message sender. This is the option you should probably choose.

Respect of existing header field

The 'Respect of existing header field' drop-down list allows you to choose how the 'Reply-To' SMTP header field will be processed in incoming messages. 

Respect

The 'Respect' option preserves that field while the 'Forced' option allows it to be overwritten.

Subject tagging

The 'Subject tagging' option lets you choose the text included before the subject of all messages sent to the list: this allows subscribers to sort their messages easily, to use message filters on them in order to process messages automatically, etc. By default, this text consists of the list name surrounded by square brackets (the square brackets are automatically added by the system, thus it is useless that you add them yourself).

Be careful: do not forget to click on the 'Apply modifications' button on bottom of page to save all your changes.

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Adding subscribers

You can add users as follows:

1. Enter into your list

2. Select Admin from the menu on the left

3. From the Basic operations menu, select Users

4. Select Subscribers

5. Go to the section "Add subscribers" 

 
6. From there you can add an individual user or multiple users.

From there you can add one or more emails. You can also decide whether you want or not to send a welcome email.

To know more about how to manage subscribers: Mailing lists service - Managing subscribers

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How to set up a welcome message

The Welcome message is a template which can be modified, though changing the template can cause problems if the template is modified incorrectly.

The best place to add additional content to the welcome message is to edit the list description as follows:

1. Go to the Admin link on the left-hand side
    
2. Select the Edit list config drop-down menu
3. Select the option Message templates
4. Go to the section Automatic messages, then select Edit Welcome message

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Downloading the list of the subscribers' email addresses and names

You can download the addresses and the subscribers' names from a list as follows: 

1. Open the list

2. Select Subscribers from left hand side menu

3.Go to the section Administrative options and select:

• The button Dump, to download a text file with all the subscribers email addresses
• The button Dump with names, to download a text file with all the subscribers email addresses and their names (where available)

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Full guidance - Shortcuts

Mailing list owners and moderators can find full guidance on managing their lists and messages in the following articles: 

• Requesting the creation of a mailing list
• Configuring the list
• Customizing the list
• Managing the shared document web space
• Managing subscribers
• Managing owners and moderators
• Managing bounces
• Moderating messages sent to the list
• Managing the message archive
• Renaming the list
• Deleting the list
• Good practices

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Common issues or questions

Former Majordomo controller to become owners in Sympa

It might happen that a controller of a list in Majordomo cannot find themselves as owners in Sympa, even if they previously had admin rights.

If this is happening to you, you can both:

• Contact the list owner, asking to add you at the list of owners, or
• Raise a ticket to ServiceLine asking the listmasters to add you

You may find you are already a list owner. That is because you might has previously been assigned to one the email aliases rather than your primary email. The Primary email for a logged in user is the email shown in the top right of the screen.

 

Managing a list if you are not an owner

Anyone wants to manage a list must be added as an owner, or use a shared account that is an owner.

The login option based on listname and password is no more in use.

 

Adding list members from one list to another dynamically

All list members of a list (List A, for example) can be added to another list (List B, for example) dynamically. This is a listmaster feature.

By doing that, it happens that:

• When A gets a new member, they should automatically receive emails sent to B.  
• When someone is removed from A, they should no longer received emails from B.

If you need to add a list dinamically, please raise a ticket to ServiceLine.

 

How to include subscribers from other lists

This feature is restricted to Listmasters. To get it setup for your list please raise a ticket to ServiceLine.

 

Making a subscriber able to send an email from within the list

In most cases lists have been setup, so owners and subscribers can send emails. There are a few occasions where this may be restricted to list owners only.

The setting can be changed by privileged list owners by following the instructions below:

1. Select Admin from the left hand side menu
2. From the Edit list configuration drop-down menu, select Sending/receiving setup
3. Choose an alternative option

 

Allow an address to send messages to a list without being an owner or subscriber

There are some cases where a particular email address needs to send messages to the list but this address should not be an owner or a subscriber.

You can do this action can using the AllowList feature:

1. Go to the left-hand side menu
2. Select Admin
   
3. From the list of options select AllowList
   
   
   
4. On the new screen, add one email address per row. Please note: to avoid any further issues, we recommend adding subscribers / senders using their email in the form mailname@soton.ac.uk (for example: A.Surname@soton.ac.uk) 

You can allow anyone using a university email to send emails to your list  by adding one of the following options:

• *@soton.ac.uk
  or
• *@southampton.ac.uk

 

Sending out regular newsletters to recipients from and outside the University

You can use Lists.soton.ac.uk application to send emails to a mailing list that contains staff and external emails. The mailing list will mostly do what you need, though the integration with other services may be limited.. 

Ownership

You would be an Owner, which gives you access to the various settings for the list and general management of the your list.

Any Owner is a moderator, though you can also choose to have specific people as moderators. If you want some else to be able to administer the list, they can be added as an owner. 

How recipients can unsubscribe

Recipients that are part of the University ("internal users")  can subscribe by logging into lists.soton.ac.uk and unsubscribing through the portal. External recipients will need to unsubscribe via email command. 

List owners can set up automatic unsubscribe options:

• Open will allow anyone to unsubscribe
• Open_confirm which will send the person an email to confirm they want to unsubscribe, owner is also notified of unsubscription.
• Owners approval
• Closed - unsubscribe disabled

Please note: if someone unsubscribes from an email address different to the one they want to unsubscribe from, the unsubscription request will go to the list owner for approval.

Sending emails

Depending on your needs, iSolutions can set up the list so only the owner can send emails. Most settings are available to you as an owner and some are restricted to listmasters.

If you need help or guidance, please raise a ticket to ServiceLine.

 

Changing settings for subscribers that do not want to receive any mail from a list

There might be subscribers that do not want to receive any emails from specific mailing lists (for example alerting lists). To change their setting, please:

1. Go to the left-hand side menu
2. Select Subscriber
   
3. Find the subscriber you want in the table
4. Select the email address (not the check box)
5. Go to the Receiving field and open the drop-down menu
6. Change the receiving to no mail
   
   
7. Select the button "Apply modifications" to confirm the settings
   

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Features

If you want to perform a particular task, have a look at the list of all available features in the mailing list management software Sympa.

Find full guidance within the article “Features”.

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Related content

All.Soton mailing list application

All.Soton