TOPIC:

I am VPE of club number 2224. Pathways is rolling out here this week. We have been told to give Pathways one email address that will go to me, the President, and the Secretary. We don't want to create a new email account that each of us will have check every day. I was thinking we could create a BaseCampManagers group and give that email address to Pathways. But your documentation on group email says that only club members can send to a group of members. Is there a way we could make that address send emails from outside the club? Specifically from Base CAmp?

Thank you.

Beth Stoeckly
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An idea that comes to mind: set up a single new email account that automatically forwards to the three people in question. That way, you don't need to check the actual account for new mail.

Another possibility: whitelist the Pathways email address, and it will then be able to send to a club email group.

Jane wrote:

Another possibility: whitelist the Pathways email address, and it will then be able to send to a club email group.

This is a brilliant idea, Jane! Perhaps we publish put your idea out to all the clubs using FTH? I am sure others could benefit from it.

Go right ahead, if you think it's helpful.

Sorry; I'm not really savvy about this stuff. Set up a new account where? How to make it automatically forward? That's what I thought I would be doing with a group on Free Toast Host.

Also, what does "whitelist" mean?

Thank you for your help.

Beth Stoeckly
VPE of Los Amigos Bilingual Toastmasters, club 2224
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For more on whitelisting, see support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/email-and-contact-forms

Thanks, I followed this procedure and created the Email Group "ClubPathwaysTeam" consisting of the President, VPE, & Secretary.
At club #980049, we just received our initial Pathways Guide presentation yesterday. In it, we were introduced to our Guide and Ambassador but were not given a Pathways email address. Thus, we could not whitelist a Pathways email address. If TI could standardize the Pathways email address along the lines of <Pathways>@<districtURL.org> then we could have a way to whitelist the Pathways address assuming the Guide, et. al. have a way to send email from such an address alias. Or should we specifically white list the email addresses for the Guide, Ambassador, Chief Ambassador, Program Quality Director? Anyone else?

Wes, my question was not about communication with Pathways Guides and Ambassadors They are human beings and can send email to multiple addresses if they need to. After Pathways rolls out in your region, it is my understanding that that President, VPE and Secretary are supposed to be notified directly by Base Camp whenever a member requests credit for a level completion or anything else that requires the attention of a Base Camp Manager. But, if I understood the webinar correctly, we can give Base Camp only one address for the club. That is the address that I would like to forward to the three officers.

Beth, Many thanks for that clarification. I get it now. From the Pathways Guide presentation, I had not realized that there was an email coming from Base Camp whenever a member requests credit for a level completion or other things that requires the attention of a Base Camp Manager. I had been under the impression that those notifications went straight to the VPE. Thanks to your clarification, now my club is good to go as soon as Pathways launches in our district and they tell us the Base Camp email address that I can then white list.

You asked a question before my post about the FTH new account and forwarding and so forth so maybe I can return the favor and give you or anyone else that needs it the exact steps that I did according to Jane & Steve's suggenstion to set up the new group and be ready to white list the Base Camp email. Here it is:
1. Sign in to FTH as admin
2. Launch Admin Console
3. Select Membership Management Module
4. Select Custom Groups Tab
5. On Item #1. Select Members as the contact list containing the people to make the group from...
6. On Item #2. use the field at the right to Enter NEW Custom Group Name:
I entered "ClubPathwaysTeam"
7. On Item #3. check the boxes for the team. I checked the president, VPE, and secretary

At this point, only club members would be able to send emails to the group ClubPathwaysTeam@<clubDomain.org> or ClubPathwaysTeam@<clubnumber.toastmastersclubs.org> (whichever the club is using for club FTH email addresses.)

8. When provided with the Base Camp email address enter the new FTH email address alias from #6 above into Base Camp.
9. on FTH Admin Console, Select the Email & Contact Forms Module
10. Select the Email Security Tab
11. Enter the Base Camp Email Address in the Email White List field and click "Save".
This should allow the Base Camp email to be able to send to the new custom group email alias address just as if it was a club member. The email would be forwarded to the president, VPE, and secretary (or whatever addresses were included in step 7.)

Thanks again & Best Regards,
~ Wes

If you have not yet determined what address to white list for this, here is an approach you can use to determine it...

Basically, just use your own personal email address for the Pathways Contact Email temporarily, then do something that will trigger a notification to be sent to you. You should be able to get the address to whitelist from the "From" address in the notification email. Once you have gotten the address and white listed it, then you can change the Pathways Contact Email address back to your group address that you created.

BTW, I will be a Pathways Guide for my district, so I will have more insights (and maybe system tweaks) to offer in the upcoming months as I get up to speed.

I have been told that Base Camp will use the club contact email listed in Club Central. Right now it is mine. I'll have to follow Steve the Techie's plan to find the address things will be sent from.

Beth Stoeckly
VPE of Los Amigos Bilingual Toastmasters

BRILL!!!

stoeckly wrote:

I have been told that Base Camp will use the club contact email listed in Club Central. Right now it is mine. I'll have to follow Steve the Techie's plan to find the address things will be sent from.

Beth Stoeckly
VPE of Los Amigos Bilingual Toastmasters

This raises a good point. Using this method, we need to be sure to also whitelist "@toastmasters.org" as a whole domain, since the new group email address will become the email TI uses for official contact.

Surely we need a more generic fix as ALL FHT clubs will need the same in the next few months.

May I suggest a new Club Email Address for Base Camp Managers (BCM??)

such as This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. automagically filled with President, VPE & Secretary


Similar to contacts-nnnn@ etc

If you need to restrict who can send to this address, we need to get these addresses from TI directly

If you read the documentation for Pathways you will see that they will communicate with the registered email the the club contact on find-a-club.

Agreed, Brian. B U T the club contact is normally the VP Membership.

When members request that their completions are signed off, this will trigger an email to the Base Camp Managers, normally President, VPE & Secretary.. It then depends on how TI will generate these emails. If we can give TI one Base Camp Contact email, it then comes back to the club to work out who sees this emails. e.g. if a coulpe of the 3 are away on holidays at the same time, the executive may ask, say, the VP Membership to also watch these emails

Just a thought - lots of related changes in Pathways

Ok, everyone, please be patient.

I am the Chief Guide / Chief Ambassador for my District... we are just now starting to get our team of Guides together and our roll-out is targeted by years end.

Basically, while I have been a Pathways Ambassador, I am pretty green on Basecamp.

This will change over the next few months. As I learn more, I will address things in FTH that need to get addressed.

For now, please use the workarounds until I get up the learning curve.

Unless I'm mistaken, you can only select the group members by name; not by officer role. Ergo, this needs maintenance after each election. I'd like to know whether you can select custom group members by officer role - somehow.

It seems as though this issue about pathways has not been fully solved yet. Or, am I missing something.

Steve,

I'm a Division Director and I have a bunch of clubs that are using FTH and will help them setup the workaround. FYI for those clubs that are NOT using FTH Pathways provides yet another reason to use FTH (as if there were not enough already).

Thank you for the Workaround in FTH.

But, for those clubs that are not using FTH, an 'Easy Answer' to sending Basecamp manager eMails to multiple IDs is to use a mail service that allows forwarding emails. Gmail does allow that - although it is not intuitive.

I'll be recommending to the clubs I work with that they either use FTH and a group email id or if they aren't using FTH using Gmail to forward to multiple ids.

The idea that Toastmasters International sent out in an email to my clubs suggested:

'For this reason, it is recommended you use an email address that all three of you can access.'

does not sit well with me.

If something does not sit well with you respond to the group at TI that sent the letter, they are the only ones who have control.

I got Base Camp to send me a message so I could use the workaround. And then I realized why that is not a good idea. The address on 'find a club" is used by outsiders, including prospective members, to ask questions and check on the meeting information. It would defeat that purpose if we used an address that can only accept email from club members and specifically whitelisted addresses. I realize this is a problem for TI/WHQ.

Beth Stoeckly
VPE, Los Amigos Bilingual Toastmasters, #2224

stoeckly wrote:

I got Base Camp to send me a message so I could use the workaround. And then I realized why that is not a good idea. The address on 'find a club" is used by outsiders, including prospective members, to ask questions and check on the meeting information. It would defeat that purpose if we used an address that can only accept email from club members and specifically whitelisted addresses. I realize this is a problem for TI/WHQ.

Beth Stoeckly
VPE, Los Amigos Bilingual Toastmasters, #2224

Thanks for sharing this insight! It may come down to having to set up a dummy gmail account in the short run that has some rules functionality in it until TI can come up with a better approach. If you use an email address that has rules capability (like gmail), then you should be able to set up a rule to forward emails to different destinations based on their from address.

BTW, for the lurkers, I am very interested in this because as my district's Chief Ambassador / Chief Guide, I know this is something I am going to have to be able to have our Guides explain to clubs in my district. This is an example of me having to "eat my own dog food".

See the following for yet another possible work around approach...

support.toastmastersclubs.org/5-support-...gers-email-box#66087

Beth,

Could you post what the Basecamp Manager email address/subject line was?

Thanks!

I now know that all Basecamp notifications come from a From address of This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with a Reply-To address of This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ...

New things become possible with this knowledge... stay tuned.