SUNY Cortland employees may request the ability to send high-level campus-wide emails on behalf of their offices or departments.
Prior to receiving access to send messages campus-wide email, every authorized user must agree to follow the guidelines and campus email policies listed below.
Campus Communicator and Targeted Messaging
SUNY Cortland offers two main permissions-based tools for approved faculty and staff members to email large groups of campus community members: Campus Communicator and Targeted Messaging.
Campus Communicator: Available through Microsoft Outlook, this messaging system allows mass email to be sent to two main lists – all faculty/staff members and all students – while providing recipients the ability to select the types of messages delivered directly to their inbox. A myRedDragon Daily Digest email is sent each afternoon at approximately 4:30 p.m. with all Campus Communicator messages from the previous day.
Campus Communicator should only be used to share information that pertains to all students, faculty and staff members. Office or department representatives may request Campus Communicator access through the Tech Help tab of myRedDragon.
Targeted Messaging: This mass messaging tool is available through the Faculty/Staff tab in myRedDragon. It enables authorized users to email a custom population of students, faculty or staff members.
In many instances, Targeted Messaging may be preferred because it allows individuals to send relevant emails to specific groups at SUNY Cortland. These messages are limited to 1,200 recipients per message and 3,000 recipients in a single day.
Department heads may request Campus Communicator and Targeted Messaging authorization for individuals within their department through The Help Center’s Knowledge Base, which can be accessed through the Tech Help tab in myRedDragon.
Guidelines for appropriate use
Because both Targeted Messaging and Campus Communicator are mass messaging tools with a potentially far reach, they must be used appropriately. Senders must ensure their message content is appropriate to the recipient audience.
Examples of appropriate messages for Targeted Messaging include:
- Academic or program deadlines that may impact a specific group of students, faculty or staff members
- Events, updates or initiatives relevant to a specific academic school, department, office or employee bargaining unit
- Any messages that may rely on the following filters: department or office, residence hall, class year, credit hours earned, academic major or other student or employee attributes
Examples of appropriate messages for Campus Communicator include:
- Events led by faculty and staff members that invite the entire campus community
- Important dates or deadlines that may impact all students, faculty or staff members
- University-wide initiatives
- Changes to campus-wide policies or procedures
Please also be aware of the following:
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Faculty and staff members may not use campus-wide email messaging to promote events or initiatives that are unaffiliated with SUNY Cortland. A campus office, department or committee must be affiliated with programs communicated through campus-wide email.
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Faculty and staff members, academic departments and campus offices should not send email messages on behalf of student clubs or organizations.
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Students should work with the university’s Student Government Association to ensure their club-initiated events and programs are communicated appropriately through email. Other potential resources to publicize student-organized events include Cortland Connect, the university’s visual messaging system and department or club social media accounts.
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SUNY Cortland’s Email Policy provides additional guidance for acceptable use of official cortland.edu email accounts. Although well-intentioned, personal messages such as thank yous or retirement notices should not be shared using campus-wide email tools.
Best practices for campus-wide email
In addition to complying with campus email policy, mass email messages sent by faculty and staff members should strive to follow the best practices for effective mass email communications in the university’s Brand Identity Guide.
Important considerations include:
- Titles should be short (50 characters or less), but clear enough to convey the subject of the message.
- Text should be brief and include all necessary information. Best practices suggest email copy length of approximately 125 words for general notices.
- Attachments should be pertinent to the text and less than 100 KB. Images should not distract from messages, with a recommended maximum size of 800 pixels wide.
- Accessibility should be an important consideration, with any flyer or graphic text included in the body of the message for those who use assistive technology.
- Privacy must not contain personal or sensitive data.
- Reply-to information should contain a reply-to email address within the body of the text.
- Content and tone should be informative and cordial. Communication that is harassing, defamatory, obscene, threatening or in violation of state or federal laws is prohibited.