Allow Admins to Private Message Multiple Community Members Simultaneously

[#1]

I'd like to have the ability as an admin to send out announcements via the private message tool to the entire community population or groups of members.  I realize I can make use of the announcements module, but it'd be much more effective to message the entire community from time to time.

I'm sure some within the Lithosphere will be view this as spamming members.  But I'm just referring to sending instructional messages to take advantage of certain features or to select an avatar or to participate in a brand new forum. 

It seems like this is a rather common feature in other communities and would be a great tool to help engage the member base.

[#2]

Jeff,

Great concept !     So, are you suggesting a function to build distribution lists?   Or maybe you'd like to see the PM system allow you to select a role to send a message to, so that all members who have that role would receive the message.   Or perhaps rank?

I could imagine that working rather well if you changed the permission of XYZ role to allow the use of an externally hosted avatar, and you wanted to point out that new feature to the group in private, whereas a public announcement would not make sense.

Or maybe like in our community if there are specific roles for employees, it might be a good way to push a target message to all the employees who are participating in the community.

Mark

[#3]

I'm not too sure about the "send it out to everyone" part, but I like the idea of being able to send a PM to more than one member.  I'd like to be able to set limits on it, though, that's perhaps role-based to help slow down disgruntled members who use the PM function to rally their supporters.

[#4]

I can see a lot of scenarios where one would want to send a message to more than one member. The role-based concept seems interesting. I'd love to hear more use-cases around that.

[#5]

Here are a few scenarios that I envision:

1) As an admin, ability to DM all community members with an administrative message.  For example, my community will soon be switching to single sign on.  Would be nice to DM all members in preparation for the change over.

2) DM all members of a particular rank, inviting them to participate in a certain discussion.

3) DM all members who have participated in a community contest with an acknowledgement and/or invitation to participate in the next contest.

These are just a few examples.  Again, as a community manager looking to engage members, this would be an extremely valuable feature.

[#6]

Absolutely a good idea.

Users tend to ignore the Annoucements module over time, but they all read private messages. Sometimes the news you have to share is of such import that you want to be sure that all users, or all users in certain roles, get it.

[#7]

Excellent suggestion!  I've tried creating my own comma seperated distros in the past.  What a nightmare.

[#8]

It is referenced in the last comment but not clearly stated:  a comma seperated list of names does work.   

[#9]

But that doesn't enable one to use the community platform to message all members from, correct?  I assume that list is for use with a separate email platform?

[#10]

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Jeff_Green wrote:
But that doesn't enable one to use the community platform to message all members from, correct?  I assume that list is for use with a separate email platform?

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A comma-separated list will work in the private messenger to send messages to mulitple people at once. But you can only use a limited number of names, so it won't work for large groups of people (like the whole community).

[#11]

I can see benefits....but should only be for TOP admins/community members.