We have exactly the same problem, 30 activity group leaders who need to edit JUST their group page and email JUST their group members without access to anything else. We can't give full admin access to all these people so at the moment each group leader has to set up a mailing list on their private email account, which is not good as it means we can't keep track of the group membership and we are wasting a valuable database resource.. Recently one of our group leaders died and we lost his membership list.

That's what we do during analysis and design - as soon as we take an item into roadmap and it gets to our analysis and design team design focus, we start reviewing all comments, trying to understand key problems to solve. Then we start coming up with possible solution options - and they can be like what you suggested above.

So, thanks for your comment, it will help us as soon as we decide to start working on it.

Now that admin rights are limited to 10 people, it is vital to have another level of admin access which allows members to email specific groups, in the same way that they can have access to a specific web page. We have 30 leaders of groups who can edit their group web pages but they also need to email their group members and there is no way to allow this. So we have a wonderful resource in our database which we can't use while all our group leaders have to keep their own mailing lists on their private computers, which is absurd.

Our organization needs this feature as well. We have nearly 100 activity groups. Currently, each activity group leader sends e-mails to the their activity group through our website. We can't do that with WA without give admin access to nearly all group activity leader (i.e., 100 members). We are ready to activate our WA website, but can't do it until we find a solution.

I hope WA will add this feature soon. In the meantime, has anyone found a product or workaround to address this need?

Thanks,

Mary

The way we see it now is to have a special admin role for emails only. I'm joining your post to that thread.

Is there a way to set up a gadget (or other capability) where someone could (within the restrictions of certain group - like Board Members) click on a gadget to email the entire board (or other saved search), without having to be an administrator of the site.

I'd like to set up a way that people could send an email to the entire board without having to be an administrator, and I'd like to restrict this capability, which we can do by restricting the access to the "page" where this capability exists.

Thanks,
Ray

This feature is something that my organization needs. Our regional directors only need to send emails to their regions, not administrate the website. Considering the technical skill level of some, it would be better to not allow them access to some of the more sensitive administrative rights.

We desperately need the ability for group leaders and committee chairs to send email through wild apricot to their team members. Wild Apricot administrative privileges are far too expansive to give a couple dozen privilege some administrative rights simply to have access to the email mechanism.

Need a way for a group leader to be identified and be allowed to email the members in that group.

Our 4-H club has about 15 functional coordinators that need to send emails to subgroups. They do not need full administrator access - just the ability to view membership information and the ability to send emails. I fear they may accidently edit some of our existing configurations with full admin permissions.

We definitely need this. With 5 regional chapters, we need to be able to let someone in each area compose and send emails to their members. Giving them access to EVERYTHING though is out of the question. This just seems like a no-brainier, and I'm surprised to see that it's been on the wish list for over 6 years now. I realize there can be programming issues that end users don't realize, but Since you already have specific access levels for other functions, it's hard to understand why this can't be implemented relatively easily.

BTW, we have been using MailChimp for emails now for awhile, but so far I'm finding your email system much easier to use, yet every bit as full featured.

Would like an email admin as well.

We are a genealogy group with a newsletter editor that sends out a monthly updatesto all the members. They should just be able to edit a template with the information and send it out to all the members (I envision a saved email list that they would just choose). No need to see/modify anything else.

This way they don't have to send me their file to have it converted to a newsletter (which would save me another thing to do every month!)

I think that your comment is more about this - http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825755-new-admin-role-membership-manager-limited-to-spe

Wild Apricot Team,

I'd like to chime in with support for an Email Manager role. We are an alumni group, and we would like our class representatives from each class to be able to send messages to their class members. E.g., the representative for the class of 1997 needs to be able to send emails to all members of the Class of 1997. This person does not need any other access, and should not have behind-the-scenes access to any private information about an individual that is not visible to other members of the network.

Please consider adding an Email Manager role (this is more narrow than a Communication Manager role).

thanks!

Thanks for the details. I would appreciate comments from others, especially on these points - "...The Communications Manager should NOT be able to: View information about contacts (such as address, phone, financial, notes, etc.), View automated emails or emails sent by others, Use search criteria ..."
I would think that these functions are necessary or even essential for communication managers About drafts - users can already select 'All drafts' in the dropdown on the Email drafts screen to view drafts by others? And sorry - this is not going to be included in the next update or the one after that, those have been locked down long time ago before we started the development.

I also have a need for a separate administrative level for Communications Manager. We are using a non-board member volunteer to create our newsletters and I need to restrict access to the database.

The Communications Manager should be able to to send the newsletter/emails to members, all contacts, or non-member contacts; and should be able to select items (logos, pictures, etc.) in File Management to embed in newsletters or emails;

The Communications Manager should not be able to:
View information about contacts (such as address, phone, financial, notes, etc.),
Make database changes,
View Page Management,
Make changes to web pages,
View automated emails or emails sent by others,
View settings, donations, finances,
Use search criteria and export database.
* In addition, there needs to be a way to make a DRAFT newsletter/email visible to either all or selected administrators, so that a draft of a newsletter can be proofed and approved by another before being sent out by the Communications Manager. Very important.
* At present we aren't using forums or blogs so I can't comment on those. I hope this is something you will include in the next update. Without this ability we are exposing our entire website and database to risk.

You can consider read-only admin role as a workaround for now - see http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Managing+site+administrators#Managingsiteadministrators-Settheadministratoraccesslevel

Hi Lori, sorry, this is still on the wishlist, there have been no change.

Has there been a status update for this option? My organization is new to Wild Apricot and there are a number of users in my organization who need access to send emails, but I don't want them to be able to actually change anything in our database or set up.

Thanks!

Thanks for comments.

Kernal's post at 5/02/11, 2:05pm seems to be right on target. While I'm still in the evaluation period (and LOVING WildApricot, btw), email management was one of the issues on my "watch for a solution to this" list.

Communications Manager/Admistrator access would be a great addition. In our case, opening up all membership information to volunteers outside our Board of Directors isn't necessarily advisable, and in some cases would present a breach of confidentiality. I see this level having access equivalent to what's shown to the general membership with the possibility of additional access to email opt-in/opt-out type fields.

And I LOVE the concept of having a top panel Communication tab for email, drafts, blogs & forums. Access to these functions currently seems a bit "scattered" to me.. "Settings" isn't what comes to mind when I think "I want to send an email to our members", so "bundling" communications features sounds like a great plan!