How To Export Lists From Cooler Email

For many chapters, your main Cooler Email list may have been derived simply by importing your latest membership list from Chapternet. But if you have a webform tied to that list, or if chapter volunteers have been manually adding to it, there will be more contacts than are in the Surfrider National database, and you may very well want to export or download that list (or lists) from Cooler Email. Here's how to do it.

The basic steps, which will be expanded upon below, are:

1. Login to Cooler Email.
2. Figure out which list you want to export (your chapter may very well have only one list).
3. Click "Contacts".
4. Click "Export".
5. In the "Email List Export Manager", (de-)select the fields you do and don't want to grab.
6. Click "Export Now".
7. Save your file.

Pretty simple! The only real stumbling block is that the Email List Export Manager defaults, somewhat haphazardly, to selecting a whole lot of fields that the vast majority of us do not need, the vast majority of the time.

1. Login to Cooler Email.
If you don't have a Cooler Email login, contact Katz.

2. Figure out which list you want to export (there may very well be only one list).
3. Click "Contacts".

4. Click "Export".

5. In the "Email List Export Manager", (de-)select the fields you do and don't want to grab.
Don't ask me what logic went into the decision to default certain fields here as checked! This wouldn't be a big issue except that if you only want some of these fields, there's no way to de-select all of them in one shot. You have to manually go thru and de-click (or click) the ones you don't (or do) want to export in your file.

Something else to keep in mind: several of these fields will likely have blank, or even incorrect data. Things like "SpouseFirst" and "Industries" are rarely used.

I would also de-check "Include Stats" if you are using this for anything other than specifically seeing how your email blasts have been doing. In the case where you really do want to see that, A-OK, but if not, it's a lot of clutter.

(Note: on Windows, I believe you can de-check these lists without using your mouse/trackpad by using the tab keys and spacebar keys).

6. Click "Export Now".
7. Save your file.

That's it! The only thing to say about Saving the File is that it's a pretty fast download in many cases and depending on your browser configuration, you may not even know that it's worked... you may suspect it is not working at all! Check your desktop... there may be a new file there. You can open this file in a spreadsheet application (or a text editor).

Sending Email That Appears To Come From Surfrider.org

» View updated information about the Surfrider.org email service here

Perhaps you have sent a Surfrider related email message from your personal email account, and wished that instead of it coming through to the recipient(s) as mehere@yahoo.com, or brian@gmail.com, etc., it came through as mychapter@surfrider.org. That is, you want it to come into the recipient's inbox as if it came not just from you, but from your Surfrider chapter. This is good for style points, and it's practical, as it increases the odds that your email will be read.

Prior to anything:
1) Make sure you have a working surfrider.org email address for your chapter.
(If your chapter does not have an email address, contact your regional coordinator to initiate setup.)
2) Your email may have one or more aliases. Always use the main, primary one for any configurations, setups, and/or logins.
(Not sure which is the primary? Ask your regional coord or SF tech assistance).

There's a different way to setup sending which depends on how you access your email: 1. via webmail, 2. via your own email client/service, or 3. as a forwarding address.

1. Via Surfrider.org Webmail.
The Surfrider Webmail URL is http://mail.surfrider.org. It operates just like any web-based email client, like Gmail or Yahoo. When you use webmail, you need not do any other setup. You are essentially operating on the Surfrider Foundation mail server, so emails you send from here actually are coming from surfrider.org. No additional configuration is neccessary.



2. Via Your Own Email Client/Service
» View setup instructions for various clients/services
BUG ALERT! If you ever receive "doubles" of your SF emails, it may be because you are accessing your surfrider.org email directly AND as a forward. Contact SF tech assistance to fix this behavior.

Once you setup your client/service (ex. Outlook, Gmail.com, etc.) to receive (and send) email via surfrider.org, you only need to make sure that when you send out emails related to Surfrider, you choose the specific surfrider.org account you just setup. You do this slightly differently in different clients and services.

Here's an example using gmail. Gmail has a modifiable "From: " field when you send. So you just need to set up the Surfrider.org account, and then switch as neccessary before hitting "Send".


In gmail, setup is in "Settings::Accounts::Send Mail As".


3. As A Forwarding Address

In the case where you receive your surfider.org emails at a separate, different email account, a reply-to address is the best option. In account setup, set your chapter@surfrider.org address as the reply-to.

Reply-tos are like sending an actual package from your house but putting a different address on the return-to label. Except that in the digital world, clients and spam filters can tell that the different address is not authentic, and may misinterpret that as mailicious.. which is why this method is the least preferable.







That's it!

Surfrider Is Using A New Email Service; Here's What You Need To Know.

We have transitioned all Surfrider email over to a new and genuinely improved email system. Here's the details on how to use the new system, some troubleshooting, and some general new notes.

If you use webmail, login at http://mail.surfrider.org.

For all other email clients, setup instructions can be found
at this support link. (If you use an email program or service that isn't listed here and are having trouble setting up, please send me a message (my email's also in the Chapternet).

Make sure you are logging into the "Email Account", not the "Control Panel".

Your username is your email address.

In most cases the password is the same as before. In some cases tho, the password did not satisfy the new "strength requirements"... for instance, a password of "mypassword" is too weak. We'll need to set you up a new one. If you have setup your email client as described in the documenation above and/or can't get onto webmail, please contact me (my email's also in the Chapternet) and we'll get you re-setup.

Just to refresh, we can setup your chapter email in any way you see fit... we can make it a distribution list that forwards to several people, have it be an alias for one or many other emails, or have it be a bona fide email mailbox that one or more chapter administrators may have access to.

In most cases, if you use webmail, you can now go into settings and update things like your password, which you could not before. Legacy Exchange accounts, in general staff, however have less power to update their own settings than the newer style
accounts (the official name for this newer type of account is "Noteworthy").