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I had a moment of inspiration last week. I just realized that Microsoft Exchange does not have a way for external users to subscribe to distribution lists. If you wish to add an external address to a distribution list you must first create a contact with that address, THEN add that contact to that list.
I polled a handful of admin friends of mine and they confirmed that yes, they use a dedicated listserv server. This seems a bit redundant to me.
The result of this thought process is a beta product tentatively called ActiveList. It is a web interface that gives external users the ability to subscribe/unsubscribe with Exchange distribution lists.
Here is the basic flow chart of a subscription:
- User connects to ActiveList (running on IIS) using their favorite web browser.
- User selects a list they would like to subscribe to and enters their email address.
- ActiveList immediately sends a confirmation URL to that email address.
- When the user clicks on the link ActiveList dynamically creates a contact (if the email address doesn't exist in the Forest) and adds that contact to the list. Note: Existing users can also use this, ActiveList will skip the contact creation part and just add the user account to the list.
The unsubscribe is the same basic process except for a slight twist:
- User connects to ActiveList (running on IIS) using their favorite web browser.
- User selects a list they would like to unsubscribe from and enters their email address.
- ActiveList immediately sends a confirmation URL to that email address.
- When the user clicks on the link ActiveList looks to see if IT created the object. If that object does not belong to another lists it will automactically delete the object.
We currently have this working in a beta version. If you are interested please contact us.