Sending Messages

We will begin today's session by sending a couple of email messages that we can then use for some of the exercises. We will send this first message to our own email address, so we may also see a new message notification.

Step 1. Verify that the Home tab is selected.

Step 2. To open a new untitled message form, on the Ribbon, in the New group,

Click

A new, untitled message form opens. In order to add more messages to our Inbox, we will send this message to our self.

Step 3. To send a message,

type in the appropriate information from the table below

Step 4. To send the message,

Click

A moment later, the message appears in our Inbox. Depending on the setup of Outlook, we may also see an alert that we have a new message.

Creating a Contact Group

Contact Groups, formerly called distribution lists, make it possible to send messages to multiple recipients, especially groups we repeatedly contact, without having to type in all of the individual email addresses. Once a contact group is set up, it is stored in our People folder and can be accessed and used for sending messages and scheduling meetings. This can be a huge time saver, especially if we deal with multiple groups on a daily basis.

Let's create a contact group of our own now, and send the group a message.

Step 1. To create a contact group, in the New group on the Ribbon,

Click

A drop-down menu appears.

Step 2. To continue,

Point More Items, Click Contact Group

An Untitled - Contact Group form opens.

Step 3. To name the new contact group, in the Name field, type:

Example - Outlook Group

Now we can add members. We will add names associated with demo accounts. These are not actual users.

Step 4. To begin adding members, on the "Untitled - Contact Group" Ribbon, in the Members group,

Click , Click From Address Book

The Select Members: Global Address List opens:

Since we already know the members' usernames, we can add them to the Members field now.

Step 5. To add names to the contact group, in the Members field,

Click ,

type: Abernathy, Abby; Cape, Carol; Dell, Diane; Catt, Cathy; Daily, Doris;

Step 6. To continue, in the bottom right corner of the dialog box,

Click

The names are added to the form.

This group must be saved before we can send a message to all, but if we select one of the buttons in the Communicate group now, Outlook will prompt us to save before we continue.

Step 7. To begin sending an email to this contact group, on the Ribbon, in the Communicate group,

Click

A message appears informing us that we must save this contact group before we can go on.

Step 8. To save and continue,

Click

A new Untitled Message form appears with the name of the contact group in the To field. Notice that there is a small plus sign in front of the name of the group. We could click on this plus sign to expand the contact group and see the names of all members, but if we do, Outlook will replace the list with its members, and we cannot collapse it again.

Step 9. To continue, type in the information from the table below:

Step 10. To send the message,

Click

We see the contact group form once more.

Step 11. To close the Contact Group form, in the top right corner,

Click

In the future, when we want to send a message to this group, we can type the group name directly in the To field. The contact group is also stored in our contacts and will be there until we delete it.

Responding from the Reading Pane

In Outlook, it is possible to reply to messages by typing our response directly into the Reading Pane. Let's see how this works now.

It may be necessary to open the Reading Pane. This tool is available on the View command tab.

Step 1. To move to the View command tab, on the Ribbon,

Click the View tab

Step 2. To open the Reading Pane, if necessary, in the Layout group,

Click , Click Right

The Reading Pane is now open to the right of the Inbox.

Step 3. Verify that the message with the subject, "Your Order has Arrived" is selected.

Step 4. To reply to the message, at the top of the Reading pane,

Click

The view in the Reading pane changes, and we can now type in our reply in the pane. If necessary, we could fill in the To..., Cc..., and Subject fields just as we normally would in a message form.

Step 5. To continue, in the Reading pane, type:

Thanks for letting me know.

Step 6. To send the reply, at the top of this pane,

Click

Because we had sent the original message to our own email address earlier, the reply is sent back to our address as well. Therefore, a new message with the subject, "RE: Your Order has Arrived" appears in our Inbox.