As I understand it, the current blog feature does not send the posting out to the members unless we use another program such as Mail Chrimp. Also, the current blog feature brings hundreds of spam postings that must be deleted one by one so we had to disable the comment section. A separate, monitored Listserv would get the conversation to the members and increase participation.

No update so far. When we have one, we will update the status.

Is there an update on the progress of this? We need this badly.

The proposal above is perfect for my need. The only change I would like to add is the ability to add a file at the same time. For instance the scenario is to report a maintenance issue and add a photo of the issue.

You say above:

"The biggest challenge is how to enable this without overloading our servers with email traffic. This can ramp up quickly."

There are two ways you can reduce this load:

1) Require the user to click a link in the email and go to the forum in order to reply, rather than allowing them to just reply to the email.

2) If you do allow reply via email, let the admin optionally set the forum so that email replies go to just the sender of that email, rather than to the whole forum.

I've mentioned both of these before, but want to highlight that they will help solve the server load problem.

We just moved to Wild Apricot and our members are up in arms about not getting the full post content in the email deliveries. Our previous system did this. They could open the email, and easily see the full messages and not have to go to the website, login, and get to the right page to see the message. I'm not sure this is the right wish list to comment on, but it seemed related to my concerns.

Instant notification option for Forum is very badly needed. You have been evaluating the idea since 2014. Please just do it!!!!
Thank you :-)

Add our voice to the chorus of requests for this feature. Immediate and easy mass communication is very important to community organizations.

Those needing this as a critical function may be interested in our interim workaround. Our old website used GNU Mailman. When we switched over to WA, we didn't want to lose that functionality and have people complain that the new site was worse than the old one.

So we still use the Mailman listserv. My co-webmaster implemented a nightly API task which keeps the mailing list synchronized with our member list in WA.

I also have a couple of organizations I would like to bring on board, but the listserv function is critical for them deciding to sign up. Just trying to keep the pressure on!

Almost a year ago we were told this forum feature would be available in January 2016. We signed up two associations and they are still waiting. We'd like to sign up a third association, but it is critical that they have the capability of receiving and replying to forum messages via email. When is the anticipated date of release for this feature?

1.Speed it up. Have to wait too long for changes to save, even though I have a 75 Mbps connection.
2. Add a more fully integrated listserv module that can be used from outside email clients (a unique email address for each "Group" that I have set up in WA that will send from any email client to all members within that group).

Exactly what we need! Please put on the Roadmap to happen soon.

Having this functionality is a necessity for us. This dialogue, including the ability to allow for attachments to related articles, etc., is a core element of our communications program. If we can't get this through WA, we'll have to go outside the family to continue using this. We hope you can upgrade your server capacity to make this possible. Thanks

Brian - no update yet. I can share that we're not going to have it in H1 of 2016 as no development has started yet. But this is the top thing in email roadmap, for sure.

The mode details you can share on what you really want here, the better solution we can provide. So if there is anything you can add, please do.

Walt - thanks for the feedback, we will use it when we start development. I have shared your notes with developers.

Another important detail (if it hasn't already been mentioned):

The Forum gadget needs to have settings for the default notification (immediate, daily, weekly) for subscriptions to (a) the forum and (b) individual posts. Currently the default is "daily" but for a good discussion listserv or forum it should default to immediate.

Note that a thorough implementation of this would actually have four notification settings in the Member profile: immediate, daily, weekly and default. So changing the forum default would change any subscribed member unless they had selected something else.

Reviewing the latest design (1/14/16):

I don't see the ability to specify whether replies go to (a) everyone and post on the forum, or (b) only the author of the post, and not be posted on the forum. As mentioned below, if you don't provide this then you have not provided listserv functionality.

You don't say that the subject line of the email notifications will be improved as Oleg and I discussed last year, down this thread. This is also important to get the users to pay attention to the emails.

I again note that if you implement everything in your design except the ability to respond by email, you will have 90% of the benefit of this feature with maybe 25% of the work. The message recipient will still have an easy way to respond using the link in the email. So if that can make this happen faster, I urge you to do it that way first and add email response (if it is needed) later.

The lack of this feature is the only thing preventing me from recommending Wild Apricot to other organizations I work with. I hope it can be prioritized.

Analysis/design looks solid. This combined with wishlist thread "Managing email subscriptions to forum updates" would be so huge. Looking forward to all of this future releases!!

It is not being developed yet and I cannot say when it will be. As soon as we start development, I will post an update