OVERVIEW
Target audience: McGill staff, faculty, and students
Outlook distribution lists and Listserv mailing lists are two services that can be used to send email communications to large groups. This comparison chart is meant to help you decide which solution will be best for your needs.
Feature comparison
Feature |
Outlook distribution list (email-enabled Active Directory groups) |
Listserv mailing lists |
|---|---|---|
| Support for non-McGill email addresses (Gmail, other universities, other countries, etc.) | No |
Yes. However, there must be at least one owner that is a full-time faculty or staff member with a valid McGill email address. |
| Subscribing/unsubscribing - Member management |
List manager(s) can add/remove members using the Group Manager tool in Windows; AD groups can also be automatically populated based on McGill status within a department, course, etc. Members who leave McGill and no longer have a valid email address will be automatically removed. For self-subscription, Microsoft Teams may be a suitable alternative. |
Lists can be configured for self-subscription (with or without approval by list owners); they can also be completely managed by list owners. The list owner is responsible for ensuring member emails are valid (bulk import of email addresses facilitates management). |
| Send options |
Permissions can be set for all members to send, or only select group of members to send. | Can be configured to allow only members (private), owners and editors, or anyone (public) to send, with additional options for moderation of posts, as well as confirmation by the sender (to avoid spamming the list). |
| Formatting (HTML & plain text) | HTML and plain text, tables, images, etc. – just like any email from Outlook. | HTML and plain text formats as well as customizable newsletter/ announcement templates. |
| Stats/reports on email open rates | Not automatically available. Emails can include a traceable short URL that will report on how many people click the link; requires manual work on the part of the sender. |
Not automatically available. Traceable short URLs can be used for this purpose (same as Outlook lists). Listserv activity reports show the number of people who received each post, but there is no way of knowing who opened them. If reader stats are desired, please inquire about more sophisticated mass mailing solutions, such as Envoke. |
| Privacy of list name | Can either be displayed or hidden from the Outlook Global Address List (GAL) | Not visible from Outlook GAL. Can be displayed or hidden on the Listserv website. |
| Privacy of list members | Can be expandable (to view members) or not. | Members are only visible to owners and editors and Listserv administrators. |
| Bounce/error management | Bounces and other delivery errors are sent directly to the sender. | Bounces and delivery errors are usually sent to all list owners; can also be configured to go to a specified email address. |
| Compliance to Canada’s Anti-Spam legislature (providing ability for recipients to unsubscribe) |
Unsubscribing is not automated; people posting to the list would need to intentionally add a link to request removal. For this reason, Outlook AD Groups are recommended primarily for cases where agreement to receive communication is implicit based on membership in an organization (e.g., students enrolled in a course, employees in a unit, etc.) | Listserv templates provide automated footers with unsubscribe mechanism for members who wish to be removed. You can configure a list to allow subscribe and unsubscribe requests to be automated or to require approval by the list owner. |
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES:
-
- About: Email Distribution Lists (LISTSERV, Outlook)
- Using Group Manager to manage group membership for Email and Active Directory groups
- About: Microsoft Teams
- Request a Listserv distribution list
- Request an Outlook email distribution list (manually populated)
- Request AD security group (automatically populated)