12.2. Email Members with Outlook - Small Groups (i.e. Committees)
Emailing from REMMS using Outlook
Since REMMS is built on an open platform, it can integrate with other products very simply. One of the more powerful features is the ability to quickly export information from REMMS to Excel. Once the information is in Excel, it can be either merged or copy and pasted into other special programs. The instructions below outline how you can perform a simple Find, open it up in Excel, and then copy and paste the email addresses to Outlook.
Note: This requires you to have Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Outlook installed on your computer.
STEP 1
Go to Member Module
Click on Find
Enter the criteria to find the records you need (here is an example for committees)
Click on the Committee TAB on the top portion of the screen (This is NOT the Committee button)
Click in the Committee ID field and select the committee you want
Click in the Committee Year field and type in the year (i.e. 2009)
Click on Continue to complete the find
If the results yield more than one member, then you will be brought to the List View for the Members.
Right-click on your Association name and select Send/Save Record as... and select Excel
Fill in the information for saving and click on the check box to Automatically open file
Excel will open and you will see the records that were selected in the Find
STEP 2 (THIS NEXT STEP IS ONLY GOOD FOR SMALL GROUPS , like committees. FOR LARGER GROUPS, YOU SHOULD USE A REGULAR BROADCAST EMAIL SYSTEM LIKE CONSTANT CONTACT OR GROUPMAIL.)
Open Microsoft Outlook and compose a new email to the group you just retrieved in the above find
Switch to the Excel file from Step 1 and locate the Email Address column.
Click and drag to highlight the email address to include in the email you want to send
Once they are highlighted, click on Edit and select Paste from the Excel drop down menu (you can also use the right-click method)
Switch back to the email you are composing and click in the BCC field. (If you do not see the BCC field, then click on View and select Bcc Field from the drop down menu)
Click on Edit and select Paste. This will put all the email addresses in that BCC field. You can then address the email to yourself and send it out.
NOTE: Some Internet Service Providers (ISP) will limit the amount of recipients in the BCC field of your emails, so you will want to test this out or contact your ISP. The reason you may want to use the BCC field is to hide the email addresses to keep them confidential.