Blogs at Penn State Community

The Blogs at Penn State allows you to send an e-mail message to selected users when an entry is published. You can send e-mail to a group of Contacts within your Address Book list or to a custom set of addresses for each entry.

This can be useful within a course blog to notify students or a project blog to notify users of updates.

To create a Notification List

This tool is useful for small lists. For larger lists, such as a class roster, see Using the eLion List.

1. Log on to http://blogs.psu.edu and enter your blog.
2. Click the Manage link in the top then select Address Book.
3. Click the Create Contact link at the top.
   
4. Enter an Email Address and Website URL (if available).
   Note: Each blog you create has its own address book.
   
5. Click the Add Contact button at the end of the row. The address will be added to a new list of contacts
6. To delete a contact, click the Delete button at the top of the list.

Using an eLion List

For large class rosters, you can modify an eLion class list so that e-mail addresses can be copied into a Notification.

1. Retrieve the E-mail format class list from eLion
1. Open a web browser and go to: http://elion.psu.edu.
2. Click on the Faculty link in the left menu. The Penn State User Authentication screen appears.
3. Enter your Penn State Access Account userid (e.g., xyz123) and Password (i.e., the same password you use when accessing your email); click OK
4. After you log in, click the Class Lists link in the left menu.
5. From the main window on the right, highlight the semester for which you would like a class list and click Continue.
6. Click Get Courses, then check the button for the appropriate course.
   Note: If you see an error message, then check to be sure that you have selected the correct semester and that your department has listed you as an instructor of record in ISIS.
7. Click E-mail class list (e-mail distribution format. A text file of the class list will be mailed to you from registrar@psu.edu.
2. Copy and paste the list into Microsoft Word. The format is as follows.
   

             jtk000@psu.edu		(Kirk James T)
             wtr00000@psu.edu		(Riker William T)
                 

3. User vertical select to highlight and remove the names column. Highlight the area near the beginning of the first name and then hold down the Alt key (Win) or Option key (Mac) while using the mouse to highlight the colulmn.
4. Use the Find and Replace function (under the Edit menu) to find and delete all spaces. You should be left with this format of e-mail address names only.
   Note: Extra spaces after address could cause a future notification to fail later.

             jtk000@psu.edu
             wtr00000@psu.edu
                 

5. Save this file in location where you can find it easily in the future.

Send Out E-Mail for a Single Entry

1. Write and publish an entry in a blog.
2. Click the Share link in the upper right of the "Published" box.
   Note: If you do not see this option, make sure you have Saved your entry and set the Status to Published.
3. You will see a Send a Notification e-mail message window. If you want to e-mail your Address Book Contacts, leave the option for All addresses from Address Book checked.
4. You can enter additional e-mail addresses in the Recipients field. Addresses can either be separated by commas or listed with one address per line.
5. Enter text into Optional Message if you want to add explanatory text to your message.
   Note: If no message is written, the e-mail will just include the entry title, date and a link to the blog entry.
6. Click the Entry Excerpt option to include part of your blog entry text in the message.
7. Click Entry Body if you want to forward your entire blog entry.
8. Click Send at the bottom to send the e-mail.