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About this lesson

Buried behind the Options ribbon are a variety of useful tools, including: Read receipts, Delayed send, and Voting buttons.

Lesson versions

Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:

2016, 2019/365.

Exercise files

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Email Options.docx
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Quick reference

Email Options

Email Options are for new messages and include features like: Voting Buttons, Delay Delivery, Expiration, and Delivery/Read Receipts.

When to use

Although these features are useful, they are not well known and are only used occasionally. But they are worth learning so you can be ready when you need them.

Instructions

Explore the Email Options:

  1. Open a New Email window and click the  ribbon
    If you’d like to practice, address the email to yourself so you can view the results.
     
  2. Turn on the BCC (Blind Courtesy Copy) and FROM buttons. These will stay on for future emails unless you specifically turn them off again.
           
     
  3. Click “Use Voting Buttons” and choose one of the selections or click “Custom”: 
                      
         
    1. Enter the custom choices separated by a semi colon “;”

       
    2. Click CLOSE and you will see a confirmation on your email

       
    3. When the email is sent the recipients will see this:

       
    4. And after they make their selection, you will receive an automatic reply with this message:

       
  4. Activate the Read & Delivery Receipts
  1. Read Receipt       
                                                        
  2. Delivery Receipt              

     
  3. Save Sent Item To allows you to save to a selected folder

     
  4. Delay Delivery allows you to type emails ahead of time, but have them delivered at your specific time:

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  • 00:04 Hello.
  • 00:05 I wanna talk to you about email options.
  • 00:07 Now I am in a brand new email.
  • 00:09 And up at the top of the ribbon, there's an Options ribbon.
  • 00:13 When you click that,
  • 00:14 there's a bunch of buttons in here that are absolutely wonderful.
  • 00:17 First of all, the section over here called Themes.
  • 00:20 I don't use that very often because depending on who's receiving the email,
  • 00:25 if they receive in plain text, all of this stuff comes in as an attachment and
  • 00:30 ruins the whole effect, anyway.
  • 00:32 So generally I'll stay away from themes.
  • 00:34 But the next section, the Show fields.
  • 00:36 This is your BCC, your blind carbon copy.
  • 00:40 Meaning, that you can specify who's gonna receive it, but
  • 00:43 no one else wanted to know they've received it.
  • 00:45 So the BCC line, I generally just leave that on.
  • 00:48 Once you turn this on, you It stays on, until you turn it off.
  • 00:51 Now, the From line has the same effect.
  • 00:53 It gives me a brand-new line, tells me which email account I'm sending from,
  • 00:57 and if I have multiple accounts set up, they'll all be listed here,
  • 01:01 and I can choose which email account I want that email to be sent from.
  • 01:05 Very nice feature, and yes, I have that on generally of all the time as well.
  • 01:09 The next section is the tracking section.
  • 01:12 I can actually use voting buttons.
  • 01:14 I can request a delivery receipt and request a read receipt.
  • 01:17 Now I've mentioned these before in order that you don't abuse them.
  • 01:21 Request your read receipt only if you really have to know that this person
  • 01:25 received that email.
  • 01:27 Generally, keep in mind that there's a human on the other side, and
  • 01:31 if they don't want you to know they've received it, they're gonna say no,
  • 01:34 because it will ask them do you want to send a read receipt they might say no.
  • 01:38 Well if you request a delivery receipt, an unemotional
  • 01:42 computer server will send you an automated message when it hits their inbox.
  • 01:46 Now, whether they open it or not, we don't know, but you might get, not always,
  • 01:50 but you might get an email back from a computer server,
  • 01:53 saying that it was delivered at this date and at this time.
  • 01:56 Now, very quickly, the voting buttons allows you to attach and approve, reject,
  • 02:01 yes, no, yes, no, maybe, or a custom message.
  • 02:03 Now, if I go ahead and do that, I've just added voting buttons to this message.
  • 02:08 The recipient will receive a message, and it will ask them to please vote.
  • 02:12 And they would just have to hit the drop down menu.
  • 02:15 And actually choose their answer.
  • 02:17 Now on the custom part,
  • 02:19 you can have up to 28 options in here as long as you follow this syntax
  • 02:25 which means a semicolon between the words, not a comma, it has to be a semicolon.
  • 02:29 Now I really don't believe in giving any adult 28 options for anything.
  • 02:34 You only give them three options and two for children.
  • 02:36 Remember that.
  • 02:37 It's good advice.
  • 02:38 I'll go ahead and close this.
  • 02:41 Now over here on the more options,
  • 02:43 save send Item to a different folder or delay delivery.
  • 02:48 Now, I'm a computer person and it's not uncommon for
  • 02:51 me to be up at one in the morning sending emails, and the next day I get all these
  • 02:55 replies why are you up at one in the morning sending emails?
  • 02:58 So I'll tell it to not deliver before today at email 7 AM or whatever it may be.
  • 03:05 And so then the email goes out at 7 AM and
  • 03:07 I avoid all those awkward emails about my sleeping patterns.
  • 03:11 Okay, I'll go ahead and close this.
  • 03:13 And the last one is direct replies to.
  • 03:16 Maybe you're gonna be out of town and
  • 03:17 you want someone else to reply to the email that you're sent.
  • 03:20 So, all you have to do is direct reply this to,
  • 03:23 give it the address of who you want the email response to go to.
  • 03:27 And I could type in Franz's email there.
  • 03:30 And so I would send the email out.
  • 03:32 But anyone who replied, Franz would get the reply.
  • 03:35 It's as easy as that.
  • 03:37 Again, and there's one other option right in here called expires after.
  • 03:40 You an actually have an email expire after a certain date and time.
  • 03:45 So let's say midnight tonight, if you haven't read it, poof,
  • 03:49 vanish from your inbox.
  • 03:51 You won't even know you got that email cuz it expired.
  • 03:53 Now should you read it before the date and time I set, then it'll stay in your inbox.
  • 03:58 But if you didn't read it, it's gonna be gone.
  • 04:00 So actually, mortgage lenders taught me that trick so
  • 04:04 that interest rate offers expire if they haven't been opened.
  • 04:07 So, all right, again, in the Options, look at all of those wonderful things you
  • 04:12 can play with and use and just make you even more professional.

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