This page contains detailed, step-by-step instructions for migrating your Sympa mailing list to a Google Group. If you have any questions about any part of this migration, please feel free to contact the ITS Helpdesk at x5999.

The basic set of steps is as follows:

  1. Create and configure a new Google Group
  2. Extract the membership of your Sympa mailing list
  3. Invite or add the members of your Sympa list to your new Google Group and assign roles
  4. Optionally, adjust delivery settings or make any additional configuration changes
  5. Test and verify!

We’ll walk through each step in more detail below.

Create and Configure a New Google Group

A detailed guide to creating a new Google Group is available on Carlpedia. Here are the basics:

  1. Navigate to https://groups.carleton.edu (and log in if you haven’t already).
  2. Click the red ‘Create Group’ button at the top of the screen.
  3. Select a group name and email address. Make sure that the address ends in @carleton.edu.
  4. Optionally, add a description or language setting.
  5. Select a group type. These represent predefined configurations that are well-suited to specific use cases.
  6. Finally, configure basic permissions:
    • View Topics controls who can see messages sent to the group. Generally this should be set to ‘All members of the group’.
    • Post controls who can send messages to the group. Generally this should be set to ‘All members of the group’, but if the group is meant to be a public-facing email address you’ll need to set this field to ‘Public’.
    • Join the Group controls who can become a member. In almost all cases this should be set to ‘Only invited users’ unless you have a specific use case in mind for which another permission is appropriate.
  7. Finally, click the red ‘CREATE’ button at the top.

Extract the Membership of Your Sympa Mailing List

  1. Navigate to https://lists.carleton.edu and log in with your Carleton username and password.
  2. Locate your list along the left-hand sidebar. Reminder: if there is not a blue ‘admin’ button, you are not an owner of this list and should not be the one to migrate it. ITS can assist in creating new owners upon request.
  3. Click the ‘admin’ button, then the blue ‘Manage Subscribers’ button along the top row of the new page.
  4. Click the light blue ‘Dump’ button slightly farther down on the new screen. A new page will open with a list of email addresses, one per line.
  5. Leave this page open for now, or copy and paste the addresses to another document.

Add Members to Your Google Group and Assign Roles

  1. If you’ve left the management screen for your new group, click here and look for the ‘manage’ button next to the Google Group you want to populate.
  2. IMPORTANT: If you need to add one or more non-Carleton email addresses, you need to change a setting to add them to your group.
    • Expand Permissions –> Basic Permissions and check the “Allow new users not in carleton.edu” checkbox.
    • Click “Save”.
  3. Expand ‘Members’ along the left sidebar and then choose ‘Invite members’ or ‘Direct add members’. Note: Google imposes strict limits (10 at a time, and 25 total) on the number of people that can be directly added to a Group. ITS recommends using the invite option. We can also assist if you have a large list and do not want to send invites to all of your list members.
  4. Copy and paste the email addresses from your Sympa list (that you collected in the prior step) into the field provided. Add an invitation message in the box below, then click the blue ‘Send invites’ (or ‘Add’, if you chose the ‘Direct add members’ option) button at the top.
  5. In either case, an email will be sent to each person either inviting them to join the Group (with a link they can click to accept the invitation) or simply informing them that they’ve been added.
  6. Once members have been added, you can visit the ‘All members’ screen and assign roles to each member (or select multiple members and assign a role to them all). Google Groups supports three native roles: owner, manager, and member. In most cases, you’ll assign the Manager role to moderators and administrators of your Group, and leave everyone else with the (default) role of member. 

Please take a look at the following links for more information on adding members and assigning roles and privileges.

Adjust Delivery Settings and Finalize Configuration

Some Group owners may want to make additional configuration changes or adjustments before using the new Group. Common examples include setting up moderation, changing or removing the footer that is included by default, adding a subject prefix, and much more. There are far too many configuration options to document them all, but we’ve tried to capture some of the most common management tasks below:

  • Set up and configure moderation.
  • Adjust many common group settings.
  • If you wish to insert a forward from the old @lists.carleton.edu address, add your new Google Group as a member of the old list:
    1. Navigate to https://lists.carleton.edu and log in with your Carleton username and password.
    2. Locate your list along the left-hand sidebar. Reminder: if there is not a blue ‘admin’ button, you are not an owner of this list.
    3. Click the ‘admin’ button, then the blue ‘Manage Subscribers’ button.
    4. Type in the email address of your newly-created Google Group in the Subscribers field, make sure to check the “Don’t notify subscriber” button, then click “Add Subscribers” below.
  • ITS can assist with many aspects of managing and configuring your Group. Please contact the ITS Helpdesk at x5999 if you have questions about any aspect of the Groups interface, or don’t know how to set it up to do what you want.

Test and Verify

We strongly recommend that you send a test email or two to your new group once you’ve created it, to make sure that it’s working as you expect and that messages look the way you want them to. Be warned that the members of your group will receive this test message unless you specifically adjust their delivery settings beforehand.