How do you send a mass email to category in Outlook 2007?

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Guest

I have created several categories in 2007, some have 100+ contacts. Is there
a way to choose a category (for example restaurants) and email to all of the
contacts in that category?
 
Jac said:
I have created several categories in 2007, some have 100+ contacts.
Is there a way to choose a category (for example restaurants) and
email to all of the contacts in that category?
Click to expand...

Open the Contacts folder, change the view to By Category, select the
category you want, then click Actions>New Message to Contact.
 
Isn't that just sending to one contact? What I want to do is send to all
contacts within a category
 
Brian,

I tried this and cannot get it to work. When I select View By category all
of my contacts within that folder appear in list form. The categories are on
the far right column of the list. If I click on the category it only emails
to one contact, the one selected. How am I supposed to select the category?

Thanks
 
Jac said:
I tried this and cannot get it to work. When I select View By
category all of my contacts within that folder appear in list form.
The categories are on the far right column of the list. If I click on
the category it only emails to one contact, the one selected. How am
I supposed to select the category?
Click to expand...

When viewing By Category, your categories should appear as headings with all
of the messages in the category below it. You should be able to expand and
collapse the categories with a plus sign to its left. By selecting a
catgeory what I describe will include every contact in that category. If
you don't see that, you're not grouping by category. What is your grouping?
 
In My Contacts on the Contacts Tab I have created about 20 new contact
folders. In these contact folders I have my contacts which are given
catergories. Such as Restaurants, Florist, etc

Let me tell you exactly what I am doing perhaps I am doing this wrong:

1. I go to contacts
2. I go to View and select by Category
3. A table appears in my Contact View that lists all my contacts in that
folder. There are columns in the table showing Full Name, Company, E-mail,
File As, Business Name and then Category

I do not see anything like what you described below? Am I doing something
wrong here?

When viewing By Category, your categories should appear as headings with all
 
I think you are confusing Category (which is an Outlook term) to Contacts
stored in specific Folders. As that seems to be what you have set up. This
is easy to do ;)

Do you use the Categories Field in each Contact? It is in the bottom line
of an open Contact.

If not, what you probably want to do is email all Contacts in a given
folder. That's not what you asked so you sent Brian on a goose chase and he
went and answered the "wrong" question.

To email everyone in a folder:

select all of them (Shift Click or Edit Select all or whatever method you
like to use)

then Actions, new message to Contact (it will select all of them)

I hope this helps you at least a little bit!

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook
Outlook trainer and author of Productiv_IT with Outlook

read my articles here: www.judygleeson.com
www.acorntraining.com.au
Canberra, Australia

Joseph Joubert
To teach is to learn twice.
 
I do not think I am confusing category and contact. Let me explain again. I
have Outlook 2007.

In my Contacts Folder, under the main contacts list I have created several
other folders with contacts in them. For example Brokers, FL Retail etc. In
those folders I have contacts. On each contact I have created a category by
name and by color. For example a FL Retail Contact will have the category
Restaurant which is blue.

In the FL Retail Folder there are about 200 contacts, and probably 25 or so
categories. yes, I did use the categories field in outlook on each contact.
What I want to do is choose a category (for example Restaurant) and send an
email to all of these contacts. All the contacts within the category, not all
of the contacts in teh FL retail folder

I do not think I sent Brian on a "goose chase" as you said, I think you
misundertsand what I am trying to do. He was on the right track it seems but
I was not seeing what he said

I hope this all makes sense. I am just trying to email a list of people in a
category
 
Jac said:
In My Contacts on the Contacts Tab I have created about 20 new contact
folders. In these contact folders I have my contacts which are given
catergories. Such as Restaurants, Florist, etc

Let me tell you exactly what I am doing perhaps I am doing this wrong:

1. I go to contacts
2. I go to View and select by Category
3. A table appears in my Contact View that lists all my contacts in
that folder. There are columns in the table showing Full Name,
Company, E-mail, File As, Business Name and then Category

I do not see anything like what you described below? Am I doing
something wrong here?
Click to expand...

Do you have the grouping enabled? I'm not at my OL 2007 system right now,
but in OL 2003, one would click View>Current View>Show in Groups to enable
grouping. I thought, though, that grouping was on by default for the By
Category view.
 
Brian, it's View | Arrange by | click the Show in groups button in 2007.
Then click the column header Categories and it will group by Category.

BTW. The reason you need to group, is that you cannot sort By Category.
That's what is making this more difficult to explain. Have a look on my web
site for a description of what we're doing too.

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook
Outlook trainer and author of Productiv_IT with Outlook

read my articles here: www.judygleeson.com
www.acorntraining.com.au
Canberra, Australia

Joseph Joubert
To teach is to learn twice.
 
I feel like a person who cannot do anything here! I thought this would be
simple, I appreciate all your help

In my Outlook 2007 When I go to View, there is nothing that says Arrange By.
I am doing this while on my contact tab? Is this wrong?

Do you both now understand what I am trying to do? I know that in my last
Outlook it was possible. I am just not seeing what you are both seeing in
your Outlook

Judy, is this explained on your website? Can you tell me where to go on it?

Thanks
 
I just found View/Arrange by Groups. It is on the main page. My was already
checked to do this. So, how do I sent to categories as I have been mentioning
that I want to do?
 
Judy,

I looked on your webpage and found a document on categories. I have now
figured out from the toolbar to group my contacts. The problem I am having
now is how to get that group into an email

Your page says "Once you have the item grouped you can send an email to the
whole group by selecting the whole group and dragging it to the outbox."

How do I do this? When I am in my contacts folder, the groups show up to the
right, how do I drag to my Outbox? I do not see jy Outbox when in contacts? I
only see my Outbox when on the Mail Tab. Do I have to do this by opening my
contacts in a new window? That seemed to work but I want to know if that is
the best way?
 
Judy,

I looked on your webpage and found a document on categories. I have now
figured out from the toolbar to group my contacts. The problem I am having
now is how to get that group into an email

Your page says "Once you have the item grouped you can send an email to the
whole group by selecting the whole group and dragging it to the outbox."

How do I do this? When I am in my contacts folder, the groups show up to the
right, how do I drag to my Outbox? I do not see jy Outbox when in contacts? I
only see my Outbox when on the Mail Tab. Do I have to do this by opening my
contacts in a new window? That seemed to work but I want to know if that is
the best way?






- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

When you're in OL, and you've selected the Contacts folder, under the
View menu you may or may not find both Arrange by and Curent view.
Arrange by will only be a menu choice if Current View has been set to
Categories. Just for fun, click on various Arrange bys to see what
happens to the list of contacts you're working with. Once you're
bored with that, Arrange by Category, and you should see all of your
contacts sorted by their color category. If you have, for instance,
some Red contacts, they should all be listed together, follwoing a
heading which shows the little red square, followed by the word
"Categories" followed by the name that you gave the red category
("Restaurants," perhaps). At the left of that heading line you should
see a minus sign - if you click it, you'll see that it will collapse
the entire category into a single line. To send mail to everyone in
that category, just click on the heading line - it doesn't matter if
the list has been collapsed or not.

Then, from the menu, click Actions -> Create -> New Message to
Contact. That should bring up the new email message window with the
To field populated with all the email addresses of the people in your
[red] category. I guess, if you don't want the addresses shown in the
To field, you'll have to copy them to BCC, e.g., and then delete the
To entries.

This is kind of confusing, but I've been wrestiling with the saem
problems as you -- I'm just a few days ahead of you.

Good luck, and hope this helps a little.
 
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