Participating Through Email:

The benefits of email participation are numerous - here are just a few:

• Receive messages as they are posted to the discussion forums.
• Faster than browsing the site. Messages are sent to your email address and stored there until you retrieve them.
• Most email clients support filtering that allows you to sort the messages by conference, topic or keywords found in the body of the message.
• Retain and archive messages for your reference. The Autodesk discussion forums will remove posts when they have been on the forum for longer than the specified time.

Setting up to receive email:

You can receive Autodesk M&E discussions by email in one of three formats:

Non-digest
This format sends individual messages as they are posted. This format is best if you want to participate in conferences on a real-time basis by reading and responding to messages as they are posted.

Digest
This format saves all the messages from a conference for a day and sends them in a single email message. The digest email starts with an index list of all messages in the email, so you can get a quick overview of what happened. This format is best if you want to primarily read the discussion and only respond occasionally.

Digest/ZIPped
This format creates a digest and then compresses it into a standard ZIP file, which is sent once a day as a file attachment. You must be using a mail program that handles attachments and have an unZIP program (such as WinZip) to open the file. This format is useful if the conferences have high volume and you want to get the messages as compactly as possible. This format is also useful if you simply want to archive conference postings.

Subscribing to the conferences:

To subscribe to one or more conference mailing lists, follow these steps:

• Click 'More' on the webboard menubar - the 'More Options' menu appears.
• Click 'Mailing Lists' from the menu - the 'Mailing Lists' page appears.
• Check the box following the conference name to subscribe to its mailing list. Repeat for each conference you want to subscribe to. The name of the mailing list is in parentheses following the Conference name.
• To unsubscribe from a mailing list, uncheck the box.
• Click 'Save' to complete the subscription process. Webboard responds with a 'changes have been saved' message. You will now start receiving email from the conference(s) you selected.

Posting messages:

Replying to a discussion forum message is the same as replying to any other email you receive. Depending on the format in which you receive the webboard email, the procedures differ slightly, as described below.

Non-digest format
Reply to the message using your email program’s normal methods. For example, if you use Eudora, click 'Reply' or select 'Reply' from the Message menu.

Digest format
Reply to individual messages in the digest by clicking the 'Reply To' link at the end of the message. This link is a mailto link that allows you send a reply to the discussion forum specifically for that message. Do not reply to the digest itself since that email cannot be posted to the conference.

Digest/ZIPped format
The ZIPped file contains a text version of all messages posted to the conference. The only way to respond to these messages is to cut and paste the correct Reply-To address into your mail program and create a reply. If you want the archiving convenience of ZIPped files and the ability to respond to messages easily, we recommend you set up two accounts with two different formats.

Alerting a User to Your Message
Even though you do not have access to your webboard address book when you participate by email, you can still ask webboard to alert users to your message. To alert users to your message, follow these steps:

• Create a reply message or a topic message as described in the two previous sections.
• On the first line of your message, type Attn: followed by a comma-separated list of login names. For example, type: Attn: Romeo, mustang, booknerd, star
• Start a new line and type in your message.
• If you accidently misspell a login name or enter the name of a user who is no longer on the board, webboard sends you a message indicating which login names were invalid. To find out a user’s login name on a board that does not show login names, ask the user or the webboard manager.

File attachments:

File attachments are not currently supported via email - you will need to go to the discussion forum in your web browser and upload any attachments.

Troubleshooting:

Email addresses are verified. Your message must have the same return address as the one you used to sign up for the discussion forums. If you receive a returned (bounced) message, check and ensure that you have entered the return email address correclty in your mail client.

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