Q: Any tips for using the new LISTSERV 17.0 web interface?

By Wenjie Cao
Software Support Engineer, L-Soft

The LISTSERV 17.0 interface is a complete redesign from the ground up, and as with any new major upgrade, some things that users were accustomed to have moved or changed. This tech tip includes some answers to frequently asked questions to make the transition to LISTSERV 17.0 easier for list owners and subscribers. In turn, this helps you make the most of all of the new features and functionality in LISTSERV 17.0.

Getting Started and Finding Out What's New

When you first log in to the LISTSERV web interface, you should see a notice in the top-right corner of the main content area with a link.

Click on this link for information about the new interface and a description of the main new features.

Additional information is available at:
http://www.lsoft.com/products/listserv_170.asp
http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/17.0/LISTSERV17.0_WhatsNew.pdf

Where are the LISTSERV menus?

You can find all of the items that were previously in the Server Administration, List Management and List Moderation menus in the top-left corner of the navigation bar under this pulldown menu:

You can show or hide this menu by clicking on the downward pointing arrow next to "LISTSERV". This area also has a Subscriber Options section, which includes options to access the LISTSERV archives, search the archives, review your subscriptions, change your preferences, change your password and log in or log out.

You can also find some links by clicking on the icon with three horizontal lines (the "hamburger" menu) in the upper-right corner of the main content area.

The options that display in this menu are context-sensitive and will depend on which page you're on. Generally, you will be able to access a mailing list's archives, join and leave a list, post messages and newsletters to a list or log in or log out via this menu.

How can I view a mailing list's subscribers?

Under the full LISTSERV menu, go to the List Management section, click on Subscriber Reports and select the list of your choice. You will then see the subscribers of the list.

Under the "Report Format" menu, you can choose to view the subscribers either directly on screen or download them in a CSV file. If you want to customize your report, there is a "Customize Report" option right above the report table:

If you click on this link, you can choose the columns that you want to include in the report. You can also search for particular subscribers via the "Search for Subscribers" option.

The green question mark icon is the help icon, which provides information about each of the checkbox options. This can be helpful for understanding what each of the subscription settings mean.

How can I add an individual subscriber to a list?

Under the full LISTSERV menu, go to the List Management section, click on Subscriber Management and select the list of your choice.

Type in the subscriber's email address and name. Then choose whether or not to send a subscription notification and click on the "Add Subscriber" button to add the subscriber.

Alternatively, you can also click on Subscriber Reports under the List Management section and enter the email address and name of the subscriber at the top of the screen, followed by "Add Subscriber".

How do I view, change or delete an individual subscriber?

Under the full LISTSERV menu, go to the List Management section, click on Subscriber Management and select the list of your choice. You will see a search form at the top of the screen.

Type in the subscriber's email address, and a page with information about the user's subscription settings will appear:

Here, you can update the subscription options for the subscriber or delete the subscriber from the list.

Alternatively, you can also go to Subscriber Reports under the List Management section and click on "Customize Report". Then enter the subscriber's email address and click "Update".

A report will be displayed containing the user's subscription settings. Check the box next to the subscriber and use the pull-down menus to change the subsciption settings, followed by "Update", or click the "Delete Subscribers" button to delete the user from the list.

How can I add or remove subscribers in bulk?

Under the full LISTSERV menu, go to the List Management section, click on Subscriber Reports and select the list of your choice. The link for "Bulk Operations" is next to the "Add Subscriber" section of this page:

Click on the link and a modal window will open:

Select the desired action among the three options and click on "Choose File" to select the file containing the email addresses that you want to add or remove, followed by "Import". Note that the subscriber file format must be a plain .txt file. Each line should consist of a user's email address, optionally followed by a space or tab and the user's name, for example:

No other information or text should be in the file. You cannot upload an Excel or Word file. If you have your subscriber information in another program, you can copy and paste it into Notepad or use the other program's export features. We recommend checking files created in this manner before uploading them to make sure that no quotation marks, commas or other unwanted text has been added.

Here is a useful tech tip explaining how to import a list of subscribers from Microsoft Excel into LISTSERV:
http://www.lsoft.com/news/techtipLSV-issue2-2019.asp

Note that in previous LISTSERV versions, there was an option to remove all subscribers and replace them with the subscribers in the imported file. In an effort to reduce the risk of accidentally removing subscribers, this option has been removed in LISTSERV 17.0. You can restore it by modifying the BULKOP-MAIN web template and uncommenting the line containing the replace option.

How can I bulk update email addresses of existing subscribers?

Sometimes an organization will change its domain, and it will be necessary to change all of the subscribers' email addresses so that they use the new domain rather than the previous one. If only the domain is changing and the username portion stays the same, then you can easily accomplish this using LISTSERV's CHANGE command.

Under the full LISTSERV menu, go to the List Management section, click on LISTSERV Command and issue the following command:

With this command, all of your list subscribers with @olddomain.com addresses will be updated to @newdomain.com addresses, and all of the subscription options will be kept the same.

How can I find a mailing list's archives?

There are several ways to access the archives of a list. As a list owner or site administrator, you can click on List Dashboard under the List Management section to see all lists that you manage.

From here, simply click on the name of the list in the report table to access the list archives.

Alternatively, you can click on LISTSERV Archives under the Subscriber Options section and locate the list of interest in the overview table. If the particular list that you're looking for doesn't appear on this page, then use the "Access Unlisted Lists" form to find it.

How can I search a mailing list's archives?

Click on Search Archives under the Subscriber Options section. A screen will open, showing all of the lists that are available to you for searching.

Check the boxes next to the lists that you want to search and enter your search query in the text box at the top. You can use the Subject Line, Author, Since and Until boxes to further narrow your query.

You can also access the archive search screen by going to the list archives and clicking on Search Archives in the hamburger menu.

How can I delete posts from a mailing list's archives?

Only site administrators and list owners can delete messages from the archives. If you want to delete a single post from the archives, simply cick on the gray recycle bin icon next to the message.

If you want to delete an entire month's worth of messages, then click on "Enter Date Range" from the main archive screen. Then enter the month that you want to delete as both the start and the end date. This will show all of the messages from the specified month. To delete them, click on "Delete All Messages" at the bottom of the screen. Note that you can only delete one month at a time.

How can I put a logo on a mailing list's landing page?

Click on List Customization under the List Management section and select the list that you want to customize. Under Navigation Bar Options, you will find a text box labeled "Custom Logo" that says "default". To insert a custom logo, simply replace "default" with the URL pointing to the logo that you want to use.

To avoid display problems for users viewing the web interface from their phones, we recommend that the logo should be no more than 200px wide. The height is less important, but it should generally not exceed 40px. Change the "Custom Logo Padding" and "Height" boxes to make adjustments if the logo is a different size than 200x40px. Note that you can also do this customization for the entire site by using the Site Customization section under Server Administration.

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