Outlook 2010 or 2013 Reoccuring Emails

[hlewton]

I see on the WEB there are add-ins that apparently will allow you to create a reoccurring email. I could use either Outlook 2010 or 2013 but all I read about it doesn’t clear things up.

Some articles say VBS code in Tasks can do this but I sure don’t know anything about creating code and really have never used Tasks either. What I would like to be able to do is send a reoccurring reminder 3 or 4 days ahead of the third Thursday of any month. I don’t even know if that is possible by any means.

Any recommendations on how I could do this monthly reminder? I do not need or want any replies from the emails if that makes it easier do do.

[Rudi]

See this illustrative step by step.
If you modify the recurrence to suit your need I'm sure this could provide some form of solution...

[hlewton]

Thank you. I will check it out now.

[hlewton]

See this illustrative step by step.
If you modify the recurrence to suit your need I'm sure this could provide some form of solution...

Actually all looked great until I got to the reoccurrence. Since the meeting is always on the third Thursday of every month to send it out that day would be too late. A reminder would need to be sent out 3 to 4 days ahead of that third Thursday and since every month does not always have the same third day of the month happening ahead of the third Thursday I saw no way to make a reoccurrence happen. What I am trying to say is i.e. if the first Thursday of the month is on the first of the month there would only be 2 Mondays ahead of the third Thursday and I didn't see a way to make that adjustment.

[HansV]

Set the appointment to recur on the third Thursday of every month.
Then click the Reminder dropdown and select '3 days' from the dropdown list.

S0867.png

The appointment itself will fall on the third Thursday of the month, but the reminder will fire three days before that. The reminder triggers the e-mail to be sent.

[hlewton]

The appointment itself will fall on the third Thursday of the month, but the reminder will fire three days before that. The reminder triggers the e-mail to be sent.

Thanks. That is great. I always use reminders but I never knew that they could do anything except remind me of something. Then again, I never tried to use any reminder to send an email. Do you know if I will have to dismiss the reminder in order for the email to be sent or will I even see the reminder?

[HansV]

You'll have to have Outlook open when the reminder will occur (3 days before the event).
When the reminder pops up, the e-mail will be sent automatically. You can dismiss the reminder.
(If you would click Snooze, the reminder would be displayed again, causing the e-mail to be sent again too.)

[hlewton]

That's great. I usually have Outlook open all the time anyhow.

[hlewton]

Well I just made a test reoccurring email seeing if it will be sent to only a couple different email accounts I have. It seems there is no easy way to get the email addresses into the "Location" line of the email since it gives no dropdown allowing one to choose from a list of contacts. So what I was wondering, and I think the answer will be yes, is if I create a group of those I want the email to go to and then placing that group name in the "Location" line of the reoccurring email will that send the email to all in that group as is the case when sending regular emails in Outlook and using groups? Rudi directed me to this tutorial which shows email addresses are placed in the "Location" field. http://www.extendoffice.com/documents/o ... email.html.

[HansV]

In the tutorial Rudi pointed to, the e-mail addresses must be entered into the Location box manually, you cannot select them. I think the name of a distribution list should work as well - it should be easy enough to test.

[hlewton]

Yes I agree. I was going to take it one step at a time and check out the emailing to my addresses first then combine those same two addresses into a group and try it as the second step. The only reason I even thought of asking this is because I do send a lot of emails to distribution lists but even though they appear as say, Group1, in the BCC field or any other of the fields when I look at the sent emails they always display each individual email address within that Group1. It just made me curious but I actually did plan on testing that as a second step after and if the first test worked. I have it scheduled to end after 2 occurrences but because I wanted to also test the 3 day reminder as well it will take me over a week to see if what I did actually works.

[hlewton]

I created a group (again with just my own email addresses) to test along with the other email addresses I put in this reoccurring email. If it works I will probably get 4 copies of it in my Outlook Inbox because I have a gmail account that forwards the emails to that account. Then I should see a copy of the email in a yahoo account that does not forward any emails. So all in all I should see 7 copies of the note because the gmail account retains copies of forwarded emails. I put a 3 day reminder on it with the meeting scheduled for Fridays. So, again if it works, I'll see when the 3 days kicks in. I'm guessing since the meeting is scheduled for 9:00 AM the email should go out around 9:00 AM on Tuesdays. In any case I should know if the first email goes out and to how many accounts it was sent within the next 2 days; then a week from now I'll see if it sends again.

[HansV]

OK, let us know the outcome.

[hlewton]

I sure will. I do appreciate all the help I get here.

[hlewton]

The reminder popped up on schedule but I received no emails after a 15 minute wait. I then dismissed the reminder and still after another 15 minute wait there were no emails. Not sure what went wrong but I checked everything in that tutorial and all seems to be as it should be. I even checked the VBA code and it is correct as it should be since I copied it from that same tutorial. I not only did not receive any email from the group name I tested but none to the individual manually entered email addresses either. I am wondering, even though all I have read and been told says it should send when the reminder pops up, if it may still be sent when Friday gets here. I won't know that for a couple days though.

The reoccurrence is set, the reminder is set, it is named Send Schedule Recurring Email, as the tutorial say to do, and the VBA code is all there.

So any ides what else to check?

[HansV]

The emails should have been sent when the reminder popped up. "Send Schedule Recurring Email" should be the Category of the recurring appointment, not its subject.

[hlewton]

The emails should have been sent when the reminder popped up. "Send Schedule Recurring Email" should be the Category of the recurring appointment, not its subject.

Yes I believe it is the category, it is not in the subject line. It is even shown in Red when I open the series or the individual occurrence. When I use the dropdown for the Categorize it too shows Send Schedule Recurring Email beside a Red colored box. I think I di everything according to that tutorial but it did not send any emails at all. I will attach a screen shot of the recurring email along with the reminder so if anything stands out as being wrong maybe you will see it.

Breakfast1.jpg

[hlewton]

I just checked the VBA code and it has quotation marks around the Send Schedule Recurring Email. I was thinking of copying the Send Schedule Recurring Email without the quotes and renaming the category in case there is some discrepancy. Do you think that would be worth a try? I could then change the reminder to 2 days so I can see what happens tomorrow.

[HansV]

The quotes around Send Schedule Recurring Email belong there - the code wouldn't work if you omitted them.

Would you be so kind to do the following?

- Select File > Options.
- Click Trust Center.
- Click Trust Center Settings...
- Click Macro Settings.

Which option is selected under Macro Settings?

[hlewton]

Notifications for digitally signed macros, all other macros disabled is the option I see but I'll attach a screen shot of it too.

MacroSettings.jpg