Extension Technology and
Computer Services

University of Missouri-Columbia   Extension Technology and Computer Services—ETCS

September 2002
   Vol. 19, No. 4

A Technology Newsletter for Extension Specialists

New Bulk Email Process
by Jill Dourty

Courtesy of Roxanne Miller, Information Specialist for St. Louis County, ETCS has learned of a new (and easy!) bulk email process. Often times we have been contacted by a user who wants to send a personalized "bulk" email to a group of people without allowing everyone to see the entire list of recipients. Using this new process, you can do just that. Keep reading to find out how…

1. Go to S:\MUCampus\ETCS\BulkMail and copy the file Bulkmail.xls to your hard drive. Do not try to run this file from the S drive!
2. Once you have copied the file, open your email using Outlook.
3. Right click on your Contacts folder and select New Folder.
   1. Name this folder something that will help you remember to what the contacts within are related. (For example: Media Relations.)
   2. Either move the contacts from your main folder to your newly created folder (using the drag and drop method) or create a new contact for each one of your intended recipients.
   3. I would suggest you add a category to each contact. (For assistance with this, please email me, ETCS@missouri.edu).
4. Create a new email message. Fill in the subject area and the body.
   1. If you want to personalize your message to each individual you want to send it to, put "Valued Customer" where you want their first name to appear. (For example: Dear Valued Customer would be replaced with Dear Jill.)
   2. The first name value will be what you have assigned your recipient in your address book.
5. Do not fill in anything in the "To" line.
6. Click on File, Save As and type a name for your email.

7. Before saving your email, change the Save As Type to Outlook Template (*.oft) which will automatically change the location of your file to the templates folder. If you wish, you may change this file location to some place more convenient for you.

8. Leave the email open that you just saved as a template, and make sure you are in your new contacts folder in Outlook.

9. Open the bulkmail.xls file you downloaded in step #1 in Excel.

10. When you open the file, it will ask you to Enable or Disable the Macros. Enable the macros so that the file works correctly.

11. Click on the grey button, Create Bulk Mailing.

12. Across from the Template text box is the Browse button. Click on that and find your template email. If you didn't change its location when you saved it in Outlook, it should be in your Microsoft Templates folder. (If you have trouble finding this, please contact me, ETCS@missouri.edu.) Make sure your email meant for bulkmail appears in the text box.

13. You can either send this bulkmail to all the people in the folder you have open in Outlook (which should be the folder you created in Step #3) or you can choose to send it to the category to which you assigned to the recipients.

14. In the lower right hand corner of the Bulk Mailing dialog box, you can choose to Send message to: "My Inbox" or "Recipients".
    1. If you send it to "My Inbox" it will send the messages to your inbox or your drafts folder. This gives you a chance to review what you are sending to each person.

    2. If you choose to send it to recipients, when you click "Ok", it will automatically send the bulk email to the person you have specified.
15. At this point, if you want to send another bulk email out, you can click on Clear Mailing Info and start the process over again, (at Step #3 or #4).

    If at any time you receive an error related to a comdlg32.ocx file, please contact me (ETCS@missouri.edu). As always, you can contact me for further assistance with bulk emailing!

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