Simple Notifications

Use a Cornell e-list to send simple notifications (updated meeting time, etc.) to large groups of people.

Office 365 and Google Workspace may be a good choice for smaller distribution lists.  

Customized Messages

Elaborate Formatting

If you need to send an email that’s visually more elaborate than you can create in Outlook, build the message with a tool of your choice then email it to a Cornell e-list. 

Alternatively, you can use Marketing Cloud which has built-in tools for more elaborate formatting.

Personalized Messages and Engagement Analytics

Use Marketing Cloud for message personalization (mail-merge) or collecting engagement analytics.

Discussion

Use a Cornell e-list when you want to send a message to a large distribution group and allow recipients to respond to that message and each other.

Microsoft Teams is also an option for small work group discussions.

Document Collaboration

Use Box, or Microsoft Teams if you need to send a document to a group of people and allow that group to comment or make changes to it.

Tool Comparison

• Microsoft Outlook and Google Workspace

  Recommended for:

  • Meeting invitations
  • Notifying small groups

  NOT recommended for: 

  • Mass emails
  • Engagement tracking

  • Visual customization

    Learn more about Microsoft Outlook and Google Workspace for students or Google Workspace for faculty and staff. 

• Exchange Group Account (EGA)

  Recommended for:

  • Staff and faculty use
  • Situations where you will email many people and the reply-to address should be a shared mailbox or functional role

  NOT recommended for: 

  • Student use

    Learn more about EGAs.

• Cornell E-Lists (Lyris and Simplelists)

  Recommended for:

  • Student, staff, and faculty use
  • Situations where you will email the same individuals many times
  • Distribution lists where members control their subscription status
  • Discussions among people with a shared interest or business concern
  • Simple messaging or notifications
  • Visual customization

  NOT recommended for: 

  • Mail-merge customization

  • Engagement tracking 

  • Document sharing and collaboration

     

    Learn more about Cornell e-lists.

• Marketing Cloud

  Recommended for:

  • Engagement tracking
  • Mail-merge customization

  NOT recommended for: 

  • Simple messaging or notifications

    Learn more about Marketing Cloud.

• Microsoft Teams

  Recommended for:

  • Discussions among members of a work group
  • Document sharing and collaboration
  • Notifying small groups

  NOT recommended for: 

  • Mass notification

    Learn more about Microsoft Teams.

• Third-Party Senders

  Learn more about using third-party senders before using an external vendor to distribute official Cornell messages. 

   

• CornellAD

  Recommended for:

  • Staff and faculty use
  • Cornell-only distribution lists
  • Situations where you will email the same individuals many times (a mail-enabled CornellAD group is only counted as one recipient)

  NOT recommended for: 

  • Student use

  • Engagement tracking

    Learn more about mail-enabled CornellAD groups.