Mass Emailing – Emma, Maestro and Listserv

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Emma Training | FAQs | Compliance & Best Practices | Request Access to Emma | Get Support

Emma a is a web-based email marketing tool for creating and delivering bulk or mass email communications. There is no cost to WashU faculty, staff or students to use this resource. You can log in to Emma from anywhere with an internet connection using your WUSTL Key.

Emma empowers you with the ability to:

  • Organize your audience to send targeted and customized content to them.
  • Build your message using a drag and drop editor.
  • View email analytics, such as clicked links and open rates.
  • Automatically send targeted emails to your audience based on actions that they’re taking.
  • View your audience engagement, performance trends, engagement times and growth overview.

Emma is currently in the implementation phase. Visit the Emma project page for more information.

Training Resources

On-Demand Training

Intro to Emma Learn@Work course Use the table of contents to jump to the topic of interest or complete the full course and earn your certificate!

Emma Getting Started user guide (PDF)

Emma Acceptable Use Agreement

This document covers important topics such as: Emma is not HIPAA compliant, WashU InfoSec Policies, the CAN-SPAM Act,  Emma’s Acceptable Use Policy, and Accessibility Requirements.

Some of these topics can result in hefty fines for the university if we do not comply, so it’s imperative to be aware of them.

Quick Start Steps
Create a new campaign
  1. Log in and open the Campaigns section of your account.
  2. On the Emails page, click the Create new campaign button.
  3. Select which template you would like, choose from a previously saved template, pick a design from the template gallery, or start from scratch.
  4. Design or customize the campaign to your liking using the drag and drop editor
  5. Always be sure to send a test of your campaign before sending it out to the intended audience. 
  6. When you’ve finished working on the content for your campaign click the Review button to add your recipients, sender and subject line and to send it.
Upload an audience list
  1. Log in and open the Audience page.
  2. Select Imports from the left-side menu.
  3. Select the Import contacts button.
  4. Add your Excel or CSV file by dragging and dropping in the designated area or select Choose file.
    • You may leave all other settings as default or change them as needed.
  5. Select Continue.
  6. Minimally, set the email fields using the drop-down and uncheck “skip” if the column shows an email address or contact data you wish to import.
  7. Select Continue.
  8. Add this list to an existing group or create a new group by entering the group name and selecting Add.
  9. Select Continue.
  10. If applicable, add the group to a subscription.
  11. Select Continue.
  12. Select Import.
    • Your group will then show in the left-side menu Groups section.

Support

WashU IT Support

Advanced Assistance Request

If you have questions or requests, please complete and submit the General Service Request form

Note: Many answers can be found in the Intro to Emma course in Learn@Work. You can jump directly to the section of interest using the table of contents. Emma’s resource hub is also a great source of information with a robust search feature.

Teams Channel

Get peer-supported help in real time!

Ask and help answer questions on our peer-supported Teams channel.

Note: Contact the WashU IT Service Desk for urgent matters by calling 314-933-3333.

WashU IT Operational Communications

For information about requesting WashU IT services communications, visit Communicating About Services.

Request Emma Access

All users will be assigned to a sub-account in Emma. Sub-accounts keep your all your group’s content and data contained so that only people in your sub-account can access it.

When requesting a new user account, you will need to know what sub-account you will be added to.  If you need a new sub-account created, complete this request an Emma sub-account form.

Before requesting new user access to Emma, you will need to complete the Emma Acceptable Use Agreement in Learn@Work. Then, come back here to access the request form (in step 3 below) and upload your L@W Emma Acceptable Use Agreement certificate of completion. We’ll contact you once your account has been created.

Follow the steps below to request new user access:

Step 1. Complete the Emma Acceptable Use Agreement

Read the Emma Acceptable Use Agreement and complete the attestation.

Select this link to launch the Emma Acceptable Use Agreement in L@W. You may need to log in with your WUSTL Key.

Trouble getting the L@W course to launch? email us.

Step 2. Download your Certificate of Completion

Follow the steps below to download your certificate of completion for completing the Emma Acceptable Use Agreement in L@W.

  1. Navigate to Learn@Work. You may need to login with your WUSTL Key.
  2. From the main menu (the hamburger icon in the upper left) select Me.
  3. From the left-menu, select Completed Learning.
  4. In the main window, locate the “Emma Acceptable Use Agreement” course and then select Print Certificate.
  5. From the printer destination drop-down, choose Save to PDF and then select the Save or Print button. The Certificate of Completion will be saved to your default downloads folder.
Step 3. Request Access to Emma & upload your Certificate of Completion

Complete the Emma Access Request form. Select Add Attachment to upload your Emma Acceptable Use Agreement Certificate of Completion.

Be sure to select Add Attachments and upload your Emma Acceptable Use Agreement Learn at Work certificate of completion.

Frequently Asked Questions

Showing: All results

Attaching Files to an Email

Information Security best practices recommend against attaching files directly to an email, which can also cause system delays. To share a file, add a link within the message to the file stored in Box or add a file directly to your Emma campaign.

read more

Breaking-down an Outlook Distribution List

This article describes how to produce a list that contains the email addresses in a single column.

read more

Compliance & Best Practices

HIPAA Compliance & Emma

The WUSTL Brand of Emma is not approved for use with Personal Health Information (PHI) or Personal Identifying Information (PII). The software is strictly limited to purposes that support the mission of the university, including but not limited to academic and research purposes.  Large university-wide email campaigns of WashU faculty and/or students require advance approval from the Office of the Provost.  Any user who violates this rule will have their account terminated. 

If unsure whether or not your email campaign contains or requests sensitive data, contact these departments for guidance; 

CAN-SPAM ACT (when to offer Opt-Outs)

As a general rule; anytime that your recipient audience is outside of the university domain (email addresses ending in @wustl.edu) then you should offer an opt-out option.  There are exceptions to this rule, but unless you know that you are not affected by them it’s best to use caution and apply the rule.

To find out more read about the CAN-SPAM Act.

Sending to email addresses outside of WashU?

Google and Yahoo announced that as of February 2024, they will begin to enforce new email authentication standards, setting a new standard for unsubscribe or opt-out links.

  1. Google and Yahoo will require all senders to authenticate their emails. 
  2. Recipients must be able to unsubscribe from bulk mailings with ease, and senders must process and honor those unsubscribe requests within two days. 
  3. Google has promised to establish a clear spam threshold of 0.3% in order to maintain access to Google inboxes. 

Read more here.

Accessibility Standards

Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Policy

University Formatting Standards
Naming Your Campaign

It’s a best practice to add your username as an identifier within the campaign title.

Because there are no folders to organize your campaigns within your sub-account and everyone within your sub-account is also saving their campaigns to the same page, the list could get very long and cumbersome to locate a particular campaign.

Adding your username to the campaign title makes it easy to narrow down your search by entering your username in the search bar near the top of the campaigns page. The page will then return all campaigns with your username in the title.

Additionally, when it comes time to clean up the page and archive old or unused campaigns, it will be easy to know who to ask about archiving the campaign in question.

To further narrow down your search experience, it’s also recommended that each sub-account adopt an organized naming scheme that includes the expected send date, a brief description of the campaign and your username. You can then search for any of the naming scheme keywords.

  • Format: Send Date (YYYYMMDD), Brief Description, Username
  • Example: 20240219, Emma Group 3 Notification, mgerst

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Maestro & Listserv

Maestro and Listserv will be retiring soon. Please watch your inbox for communications and visit the project page for status updates.

If you need to download a subscriber list from Listserv, the steps are listed in the List Manager User Guide on page 9: Review the Subscriber List.


Maestro

Maestro is a web-based email marketing tool for creating and delivering email communications.

Maestro empowers you with the ability to:

  • Send to large audiences
  • Identify bounced messages (recipients who did not receive the message)
  • Mail-merge to personalize messages
  • View overall and individual recipient statistics, such as clicked links and open rate.

How to Get Access

Maestro will be retired on June 30, 2024.

Please request Emma access to fulfill your mass emailing needs.

Guides


Listserv

Listserv can be used as a messaging board where, depending on the list settings, your list subscribers can send an email to, and reply-to, all of the list subscribers with or without a moderators approval. Or the list can be set up as an announce-only list where only a list admin can send a message to the list subscribers.

A message can be sent to the list subscribers simply by emailing the list from Outlook or any other emailing software.

Once a list is set up/maintained in Listserv, you can additionally access the list in Maestro.

How to Get Access

ListServ will be retired on June 30, 2024.

WashU IT has reached out to all existing ListServ owners to help transition their announcement and discussion needs to alternate solutions. 

Guides

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Support


Visit our peer-supported Maestro Teams User Group.

If you have questions or requests, please complete and submit the General Service Request form.

WashU IT Operational Communications

For information about requesting WashU IT services communications, visit Communicating About Services.