Google-groups – Sending HTML email through Google Groups

Well, you asked it on 2011 and Google Groups changed recently some features...

But if you want to enable replies from all users on the new Google Groups interface (hey, I use it in Portuguese, so some words here would be synonyms of real options):

1. Enter the group and choose Manage

2. On Details > E-mail Options, change Post Answers to All Members, and press Save

3. On Details > New Members, check the checkbox New Users can Post, and press Save

4. On Permissions > Basic, on Post select All Members, and press Save

5. On Permissions > Post, on Post select All Members (if you have done 4th step, probably this one would be already done too, but once, when I was creating dozen of new groups, options from these steps, 4 and 5, were different, perhaps a momentary bug), and press Save

6. On Info > General, on Post Options, check the option to Allow E-Mail Posting

7. And finally, on Members > All Members, check if someone is not allowed to post (on Posting column). If so, select them and on Actions > Post Permissions select the default option.

@gerzan, you've asked a great question. This answer may be coming too late for you, but perhaps someone else can benefit from it.

Basically, what you're asking for can be established with Google Groups. If you're not familiar with the system, there are two key permissions we can set: "view topics" and "post". Both of these can be set from the creation URL: https://groups.google.com/a/schoolname.com/forum/#!creategroup (note: replace schoolname.com with your actual domain!)

1. Create a Google Group that contains all teacher addresses - let's call it teachers@schoolname.com. Set view and post permissions to "All members of the group" so teachers can easily converse (although we're primarily creating the group to ease access permissions, as you'll see later). Also limit "Join the group" to "Only invited users".
2. Create the class-specific groups you want, for example history101@schoolname.com. Set view and post permissions to "All members of the group" again. Limit "Join the group" to "Only invited users".
3. Go to the following URL to directly add members: https://groups.google.com/a/schoolname.com/forum/#!managemembers/history101/members/active (replacing the bolded values with your domain name and group name, respectively). Here, enter teachers@schoolname.com and set "Email subscription options" to "No email" so teachers don't get fed up with emails for classes they aren't teaching.
   4. After you add the teachers, add the other student accounts for this class. Then, anyone in the 'teachers' group will be able to send and any student in the class can send. (Bonus tip: you may want to add the teacher for this class and make sure they will receive "all email" from the group.

This is just one way to set up this model, let me know if you're interested in any others. Also, to manage group populations between semesters, I'd recommend looking at a tool like GAM where you can use CSVs and Powershell to quickly add/remove users from Google Groups.