Audiences and Channels

Map your audience to the right channel.

Audiences

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Known User

Targeted: Specific User 

When you are communicating to a known group or list of users it is generally most effective to email them directly. User types might include

  • Accounts holders. For some services or technologies, people are required to create an account e.g., Jira, LastPass, Zoom, Active Directory, etc.
  • Active Users. Some technologies can access administrative interfaces to produce reports of
    • Active users
    • People who have used the tool within the past 6 months
    • People who have enabled certain features
      • For example, Zoom reports can list users who have added their pronouns in the pronoun feature.

Known User: Data

To access this contact information, consult with the service owner, product owner, or other subject matter experts.

These data may be contained in:

  • Spreadsheets with email addresses
  • Google groups
  • listservs

Known User: Channels

  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud (upload CSV as a list or data extension)
  • Google Group (if one does not exist, communications will be ongoing, and you do not need to track open rates, you may wish to create a new one.)
  • it-comm email address. Use the [email protected] email address to send out emails that are from a service or from the communications department. Responses will open tickets and the account is monitored.

By Role

When you are communicating about a broad initiative, a significant change, or an event, you may not have a specific user in mind, and it is preferable to send to a user group by role. Below are common University roles and the channels that are available for communicating to those roles.

Faculty and Staff

  • Brief 
  • MyU 
  • Google Groups (OIT-Managed)
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Students

  • MyU
  • Undergrad Update
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Others

Sometimes you will need to contact people who are affiliated with the University but do not align with the roles for faculty, staff, or student. Contract employees, retirees, persons of interest, etc. You will likely need to work with the project's business analyst to get a list of email addresses in a CSV file. 

  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Channels

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Brief

The Brief is a weekly* newsletter sent to all University of Minnesota employees on Wednesdays.

  • See the Brief Submission Guidelines.
  • Submissions must be sent to [email protected] by Friday at noon the week before it is published.
    • 170px x 170px, JPG only, with no white backgrounds.
    • Note: if you are linking to web pages that are not yet live, but will be by the Tuesday before Brief is published, let the Brief editor know that. 
  • Submissions can be targeted to a specific campus, by request.
    • Consider if your post will affect only Twin-Cities audiences.
  • The editor of the Brief may change your submitted text, so always check to see what is published on Wednesday. The editor can update the online version with any corrections.
  • No image is required, and even if you submit one, it will not be used. 

*The Brief reduces its publication cycle during the summer at during some holidays. Check the Brief homepage for more information.

MyU

News

Submit to MyU News when you want to reach a broad audience by roles, such as faculty, staff, or students.

  • MyU news can be delivered to specific audiences (Undergrad Students, Graduate Students, Employees, Faculty, Instructors, All) systemwide or by campus, indicate your audience on the MyU Submission from.
  • A news graphic is required. If you do not submit one, they will create one for you.

Complete the MyU News submission form

Notifications

MyU can send notifications to specific user groups by role or with a CSV file. Notifications appear on the top menu bar in MyU. This channel might be used for systemwide initiatives and reminders, such as the PIPSM initiative.

Request notifications: email Beth Cunningham

Google Groups

Some of the commonly-used Google groups for IT communications include:

  • OIT_All (Office of Information Technology employees ~450 people)
  • Service Owners (Office of Information Technology Service owners ~21 people)
  • IT@UMN (IT Professionals systemwide ~1500 people)
  • OIT Managers (OIT Managers 
  • IT-leadership Community (IT Directors systemwide. Includes OIT Senior Directors)
  • IT Management Community (IT Managers systemwide. Includes OIT managers)
  • ITLT (VPCIO and OIT Sr. Directors)
Stakeholder Group Description Email Address/Google Group Webpage
IT Leadership Team OIT Senior Leadership Team [email protected]  
OIT (RRC) Office of Information Technology  Employees [email protected] Org chart
IT Directors systemwide IT Directors from central and distributed units it-leadership-community.umn.edu  
IT Managers systemwide IT managers systemwide it-management-community.umn.edu  
OIT Service Owners OIT Service Owners [email protected] See Atlas
X.500 attribute access list Curated list of contacts with access to x.500    
IDEAA UMN data community of practice Associated with EDMR contact EDMR  
Technology Help T1 OIT service desk Managers Adam or Alona  
Technology Help T2 Messaging and Identity T2 team Manager: Shenelle