How to set up Email Subscriptions to the Forums

Subscribing to Forum Discussions

Or how to make the Outdoor Ed Forums act like a Listserv (only better)

The Outdoor Ed Community is the most advanced technology for sharing and communicating online. This short How To document will help you quickly get up to speed using the Outdoor Ed Community.

Set up your Profile to Allow Emails

First you need to make sure that your profile is set up to allow Outdoor Ed to send you emails. Once you have Signed In at the top of the screen click the Edit Profile link.

Next click the Email tab on your profile. Make sure you have the following settings:

1. Receive Emails: Yes
2. Enable Email notifications of forum/thread subscriptions and replies to my posts: Yes
3. Private Email: You must have an email address here and this must be the email address that you will use to post messages back to the forums. If you enter rick@gmail.com and send a message to the particular forum you are subscribed to from rick@gmail.com it will be automatically posted. If you send it from rick@yahoo.com it won't be accepted. Also, because this is your Private Email address it won't be displayed anywhere on the site (unless have a signature file in your email program that automatically puts it in at the bottom of all your emails).

Now you are all set to get email.

Setting up Subscriptions

This couldn't be easier. Click on the Forums link to go into the forums. Click the Forum Subscriptions link in the Shortcuts section on the right.

That takes you to the Forum Subscriptions Page.

1. If a Forum is Email-enabled you'll see an email address in the Reply/Post Enabled column. This means that you can Reply to messages by email and Post new messages by email by sending it to this email address.

2. The Subscribe Column shows whether or not you have an email subscription to this forum. In this case I am not subscribed to the College Outdoor Prorgams & Wilderness Orientation Forum. If I click the No link it will change to Yes and I'll be subscribed. If at any point I want to unsubscribe, I just click the Yes link and it will change back to a No.

It couldn't be any easier! This way you can subscribe to any or all of the forums you are interested in. The other way is to go into the specific forum. Here we can see the College Outdoor Programs & Wilderness Orientation Forum. If the forum is Email-enabled you'll see that icon at the bottom of the screen. Click on the Email Available icon and you'll go to the Email settings page for that particular forum.

Here is the email settings page. It shows that

1. I am subscribed to the forum by email.

2. That I can start a new discussion in the forum by sending to the specific email address

3. It shows me what email address I am subscribed which (in case you forgot)

4. And reminds you that your email posts or replies must come from this email address.

Want Another Approach? Try RSS Feeds

Another way to view Forum Messages without going directly to the Forum is with RSS Feeds (really simple syndication). If a forum has RSS feeds available that will be listed on the Forum Page. Click the RSS Available link and it will open up the Feed. There are lots of Feed Readers available either as part of your Web Browser or as stand along applications. If you see a feed that you want to respond to you can just fire up your email program and send a message to the specific forum email address.

Here is the RSS Feed Displayed in Firefox. Click on the link to go straight to the post on the Forums.