Chapter 12: The Group Mail Box

What is a Group Mail Box?

The Group Mail Box is designed to allow a message to be sent to a defined group of Mail Boxes quickly and easily. For instance, if you are running a singles dating line you might want to establish a special interest group for divorced singles. You could set up a Group Mail Box which would allow anyone to leave a message that will be forwarded to all divorced singles listed in this Group Mail Box, and the voice message will only be stored once on your hard drive. If you only wanted to allow the interest group moderator to leave messages you could password protect the Group Mail Box using the Use Password option.

The Child

A Child is any box which is owned by a particular Client. If you are the only system supervisor, then you are Client 0 by default and all boxes on your system are owned by Client 0. The Child is a powerful feature because it allows you to send a message to all Mail Box holders (Children) owned by a particular Client without adding each Mail Box to the Group Mail Members list one-by-one. All you need to do is add the Client to the Group Mail display and modify the Client by checking the Mail To Children check box.

Consider this example. If you are operating a homework hotline for students to call up and receive assignments, each teacher could be a unique Client on your system. Student Mail Boxes would be owned by their teacher's Client Box. A Group Mail Box would then be created to allow each teacher to leave a single message that would be broadcast to every student in the class. This is accomplished by adding the teacher Client Box to the Group Mail Members list. After adding the teacher's Client Box, highlight it in the Group Mail Members list and click on the Modify button. In the Modify window you will see a check box called Mail To Children. When you check this box all Child Mail Boxes of this Client Box will be sent the Group Mail message.

Now let's take this example one step further. You could provide the school principal with a Client Box, and establish a Group Mail Box to allow the principal to send a broadcast message to all teachers, and another Group Mail Box to allow the principal to send a broadcast message to all teachers and their children (all students).

Note: If you add a Client Box in your Group Mail Members List, and it is set to Send Mail to Children, be careful to not individually add any Child Mail Boxes of the Client to the Group Mail Members list.

Box Number

Just like all other boxes, the box number is a reference number between 0 and 999,999,999 (with a maximum of 100,000 boxes allowable on the system) that the system assigns when a new box is created. The reason for allowing such large box numbers is so that boxes can be numbered with seven-digit phone numbers, or even nine-digit Social Security numbers. When you use the New Box Icon to create a new box you can assign the new box any box number that is not already in use within your system.

Box Name

In this field enter a descriptive name that will help you locate this box in the future. You can search on information contained in this field using the Box Finder screen.

Client

Each box belongs to a Client that you have defined using a Client Box. If you are the system supervisor you will be the only Client, and you are Client 0 by default. Each Client has a password which allows the Client to remotely access and modify all of the boxes which it controls. If you wish to assign a box to a different Client, double-click on the Client Number field and the Client Finder screen will appear. This window will display a list of the Clients currently defined on your system. Double-click the Client you would like to assign to this box.

Name

Click on this button to record a name for this box. You will want to record an identifying name for the system to use with this box.

For instructions on how to record, see "Recording Names, Greetings, Messages and Prompts" in Chapter 3.

Greeting

Click on this button to record a greeting for this box. The greeting is the voice announcement that is associated with this Group Mail Box. The greeting usually delivers information to guide the caller. For example, a greeting for a Group Mail Box might say, "Please leave a message for all club members at the tone. Remember that this will be a broadcast message with many recipients."

For instructions on how to record, see "Recording Names, Greetings, Messages and Prompts" in Chapter 3.

Mail Type

There are two types of messages that may be sent from a Group Mail Box:

Broadcast - A broadcast message is a send-only message which does not request a response from the recipient.

Two-Way - Not implemented.

Group Mail Members

Group Mail Members can be individual Mail Boxes and/or Client Boxes. You have the additional option of modifying Client Boxes in your Group Mail Members List to include or exclude Child Mail Boxes of each Client.

Use Password

The Use Password option allows you to set a password that must be entered before a message can be sent to Group Mail Members. When the caller arrives at this box the system will prompt the caller to enter the password. If the caller fails to enter the correct password three times the system will not accept a message for Group Mail Members.

Block Notification

This option allows you to disable notification for messages sent from a Group Mail Box. The reason for this is that messages sent from a Group Mail Box are typically not urgent in nature, and Mail Box holders most likely don't want notification every time they receive a Group Mail message.

Attached Mail Box

The attached Mail Box is used to store replies to group mail messages. Mail Box holders will only be able to reply to group mail messages if their active privilege setting is set to "Allow Replies". This option is set in the Mail Box Privileges, which is accessed through the Privilege command in the MAINTAIN menu. All replies for a given Group Mail Box will be stored in the Mail Box you designate in the Attached Mail Box field.

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Enter in this field the box number you would like the caller sent to after leaving a group mail message.

Add (submenu)

When you click on the Add button you bring up the Group Mail Member Finder which allows you to select Mail Boxes and/or Client Boxes to add to the Group Mail Members List. You may search by box name, Client, or range of box numbers. You can also narrow your search with the Search Types check box options.

Delete

The Delete button will allow you to delete Group Mail Members from the Group Mail Members List. Click on the Mail Box or Client Box you wish to delete from the list to highlight it, then click on the Delete Key.

Modify (submenu)

To add Child Mail Boxes to Client Boxes already in the Group Mail Member List you need to use the Modify key. Highlight a Client Box listed in the Group Mail Members List, then click on the Modify button to open the Modify window. In this window you can select or deselect the Mail To Children check box to include or exclude Child Mail Boxes of the Client Box from the Group Mail Members List.

Note: If you have selected a Mail Box from the Group Mail Members List, and not a Client Box, the Modify key will have no effect.

Messages sent to group boxes do not ever get deleted. It is recommended that you run the msgclear.exe utility every so often to clear your hard drive of messages that are no longer required. The message clear utility will delete ANY and ALL old messages prior to the date you enter when you run the utility. You can just delete messages that are over 90 days old, for example.