D-mail: Directed Mass Email

Guidelines for D-Mail Mass E-mails
D-Mail Mass Mailing Best Practices
To request a d-mail/mass e-mail

In response to many inquiries and requests, the Office of Information Technology is now providing a service to send directed email to targeted groups of campus members. This service is called D-mail. All D-mails require a VP signature by the cognizant VP before they will be sent. D-mail includes:

Creating and maintaining an email list for a client
D-mail offers rapid turnaround from the request to delivery of email
In order for this service to keep with University policy, OIT-sent mailings will include an opt-out clause that will be respected in all future mailings
All emails must be sent in text only (no Rich Text Format or HTML, please)
[UofU] in the Subject line to identify that this is an official U of U mailling
Department contact info and a reply-to email address will be on each email
Custom lists can be used

Guidelines for D-Mail Mass E-mails

To facilitate processing of requests to use the mass e-mail service, the following guidelines have been set for the sending of messages to and from faculty. The message must:

be of major importance and/or interest to the audience
be no more than 30 lines (including blank lines)
include information (phone and/or e-mail) to allow recipients to contact sender
not be marketing/advertising for a service

If appropriate, it is recommended that the message include a URL referring recipients to a website where more information can be obtained.

D-Mail Mass Mailing Best Practices

Review the tips below to compose your mass mail message:

Make sure you clearly identify the target Audience the d-mail is intended for (enrolled students, faculty, etc.) Sending unsolicited mail that the recipient does not want will be badly received and will not result in a positive outcome .
Determine if your message is of value to the institution/target audience.
Clearly identify your office or organization in the message.
Keep the message short - no longer than one page. A one page message is about 30 lines long. Refer the audience to a web site for additional information if necessary. Note: You can update the web site to reflect changing information. Once the e-mail is sent, it's gone and you can't update it.
Attachments are not supported.
Formatting such as boldface, italic, en or em dashes (e.g., -) is not supported.
If you entered and saved the message text in Microsoft Word, save the document as plain text before you copy and paste the text into the Request for D-Mail Mass E-mail.

Required for your D-mail:

"Subject" line "From" field (who the email appears to be from)
"Reply-to" email address (may be different from the "From" field).
Think carefully about your "Reply-to" e-mail address. Some departments or student organizations have a shared or generic e-mail account that can be used instead of your personal e-mail address. If a recipient replies, do you want the message to come directly to you?
a valid e-mail address in the "From" and "Reply-to" fields
text-only format

To request a d-mail/mass e-mail:

Once you have composed your message according to the D-mail Guidelines for Mass E-mails and D-mail Mass Mailing Best Practices and are ready to send it, you can begin the mass mail process.

Contact the cognizant VP of the audience to whom the d-mail will be sent to and get approval to send the message.
Fill out a Request for D-Mail Mass E-mail - make sure to complete every field. You will need to Login with your UNID and password. If you intend to send multiple mailings, fill out a separate Request for each mailing.
Click the Submit button at the bottom of the Request Form. You should see a new screen with the notice: "Your request has been submitted".
You will receive an auto-reply and an OIT representative will contact you within 24 hours to verify the VP approval and the format of the d-mail
Allow 2-3 business days for your D-mail to be sent once the mailing list is compiled.

Note: If you do not see the "request submitted" page, then there are incomplete fields on the Request Form. You will see a notice in red letters at the top of the Request Form, e.g., Please provide a valid email address in the FROM field . Enter the information to complete the form and click Submit again.

Formal University Communications and Directed Email Communications are provided at no cost. This process is not recommended for confidential mailings.

For More

Frequently Asked Questions

For questions about the D-mail service, please send email to dmail@utah.edu.