sending the Harvester monthly newsletter

checklist and instructions for sending the Harvester monthly newsletter

• acquire access to 3 places
  • Microsoft sign-up responses (contact Devin for permission - he is the "owner" of the form)
  • Google sign-up responses (login with the libspec Google account)
  • UIdaho Account Management
• add recent sign-ups to the UIdaho Account Management system
• create the newsletter

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Step 1: add recent sign-ups to the UIdaho Account Management system

1. navigate to the Microsoft sign-up responses page

2. click on "Open in Excel." This will download an Excel spreadsheet to your computer. Open it and identify the email addresses that were added since the last Harvester newsletter went out (newest sign-ups should be at the bottom of the spreadsheet).

3. copy the email addresses that were added since the last Harvester newsletter went out

4. go to the UIdaho Account Management site and login with your standard UI credentials (the same credentials you use to login to your computer, your Outlook email, etc.)

   • NOTE: if you're unable to login, make sure you have access to this system. Ask Devin but I think you have to email ITS and they'll give you permission to access this system.

5. navigate to the "Manage Groups" tab in the left-hand menu. The "lib-harvester" group should come up. Click on the little checkbox next to the group name and then click on "Members" at the top of the page.

6. clicking on "Members" should take you to a page that lists all the emails added to the "lib-harvester" group. To add an email, click on "Add" at the top, enter the email address, and confirm "Add Members" at the bottom

7. wait 30 minutes. All new additions to the "group" take at least 30 minutes to be fully part of the "[email protected]" email group so if you email the group immediately after adding new emails, those new emails will not receive it.

Step 2: create the newsletter

1. go to https://harvester.lib.uidaho.edu/newsletter and just copy as many posts since the last newsletter
2. go to your Outlook email in your web browser (you can't use the application because it not format correctly) and paste the contents into a new email
   • IMPORTANT: you must go to the end of each blog post and hit the Return key TWICE. This ensures there will be enough spacing between each post so they look distinctly different from each other. Without this step, the posts are too close together in the email and are difficult to browse through. I've highlighted in red where to place the cursor and then hit the Return key TWICE. It will look like nothing happens - that's okay.

3. add a summary section at the top about recent news, new projects, etc.

4. go to a past newsletter and copy/paste the email signature at the bottom. It's the standard UI signature but with the department listed instead of a specific person
5. once the email is formatted and ready to go, add "Idaho Harvester newsletter [month][year]" in the Subject Line. Having the subject line the same each month makes it easy to search for past newsletters.
6. send the email to [email protected]