Harvard Business School TEST Sympa Mailing List Server

Policies For Creating and Using Sympa Lists

Use of Sympa lists at HBS is governed by the following policies:

• HBS Sympa lists are for internal HBS business use only. Outward-directed posting requirements should be handled by one of the available commercial mailing services (for example, Salesforce, Silverpop, etc.)
  Some examples of permitted use:
  • Communication to MBA students or ExEd participants as set up by HBS staff (e.g., MBA sections, ExEd participants, HBS Clubs, FIELD)
  • Communications about HBS business that may include non-hbs.edu email addresses (e.g., cross-registrant students or guest faculty members)
  Some examples of nonpermitted use:
  • MBA or ExEd alumni subscriber lists (unless for those working on active HBS projects or committees)
  • Newsletters sent to non-hbs.edu email addresses (e.g. faculty research updates to external nonHBS addresses)
  • Except in certain permitted circumstances, mailing more than 1000 subscribers should be done using a commercial service.
  If you are uncertain whether your proposed list use is permitted, contact TSS.
• MBA student Section/Class/SA lists will be decommissioned immediately after the class Commencement.

• ExEd participant lists will be decommissioned one year after program completion.

• List owners must be HBS.EDU Faculty or Staff - no ownership by Students, or accounts not in our AD domain.

• After initial Sympa list creation, subscriber maintenance is the responsibility of the list owner(s).

• Open Posting lists are rarely approved because they cannot be protected against receiving spam or phishing posts from nonsubscribers.
  • Example of a permitted Open posting use: list subscribers are a small HBS team supporting an app/MBA exercise/etc. who need to receive support requests from random people using the app/exercise/etc. in near-real time. (though an Exchange Distribution Group would be better for this use if the subscribers do not need confidentiality).
  • Open posting lists should not have any non-HBS subscribers to avoid our domain getting blacklisted as an open relay if the list is spammed.
• Sympa lists should not be used for sending attachments or formatted posts - it is designed to handle text emails. If used to send an attachment there is no guarantee it will be accepted because the mail conversion process results in a larger file, which may then exceed the maximum allowed post size.
• Do not invite a Sympa list address to a M365 calendar meeting, as doing so will not inform Outlook of the individual subcriber addresses. While subscribers WILL see the meeting invitation and may respond to it, their status is labelled "optional" so they may not receive changes later made to the meeting. If the purpose of the group involves regular meetings consider using a Distribution group or O365 Team/Group instead of Sympa.
• Do not invite a Sympa list address to access a OneDrive or other M365-based document - this will not specifically invite the individual subscribers to access the document. If the purpose of the group involves regularly sharing M365-based documents that cannot be accessed without a specific invitation to view/edit consider using a Distribution group or O365 Team/Group instead of Sympa.
• Sympa at HBS does not archive any posts - mail to a list passes through the application and is sent to the subscribers witout the contents remaining in Sympa. If you wish to maintain a collection of the posts to a list, subscribe a Sharepoint group address or other email account to receive and retain the posts.