Information & Technology Services is migrating email distribution lists from our home-grown Distribution List Manager (at https://epass.plu.edu/secured/user_distlist.php) to Google Groups. In Google Apps for Education and you will see Groups listed as a link at the top left of your Google Apps screen along with Mail, Calendar, Documents, Sites, and Contacts. You will be able to manage your old distribution lists from Google Groups.
This migration greatly increases the toolset to manage your groups and their memberships. Added functionality includes options of reading and posting messages online or via email as well as a fully searchable archive of your group's messages (starting after migration).
During this transition and migration of your groups, everything should work as it has before. The key differences are:
There's nothing you need to do right away, but we recommend you review the Group settings for each of your groups. You can do so by going into each of your Groups via http://groups.g.plu.edu/ and clicking on the "Group settings" link on the right side of the page. The "General", "Access", and "Email delivery" tabs are the key places to review your default group settings and make any changes.
You can easily view and adjust your group membership via the "Members" link on the right of your group page. Here you can "Invite members by email" or "Add members directly". And each group member will be able to manage how they want to receive messages from your group via the "Edit my membership" link on the group web page.
If you have questions or need assistance with your Groups, we're eager to assist you. To that end we have scheduled two Google Groups Open Labs to assist you in this transition. Visit <http://www.plu.edu/google-apps/transition/Workshops-and-Open-Labs.php> for Open Lab dates and times. For more immediate questions or concerns, contact the Help Desk at helpdesk@plu.edu or 253-535-7525.