How-to Articles
Outlook’s Sharing of Distribution Lists
By Sheri Sense
We have a wonderful resource available to
us in Outlook called Public Folders. Some schools and sites are
using these while others may be unaware that Public Folders even
exist! Each school or site has a folder created for their own
use, and usually the site secretary and/or Tech Specialist has
“owner” rights. However, if the Principal wants to have someone
else be the owner of this folder, just give me a call and we can
make that happen.
The owner can then create any number of
special distributions lists for your site, i.e., first grade
teachers, second grade teachers, English Department teachers, School
Classified staff, etc. This is very easy to do, just by being
in your site’s folder, clicking the down arrow next to the
New button and selecting New Distribution List.
Then you just give your list a name, and click on Select
Members. Save the list, and you now have created your
first Distribution List in your folder. But now there is
another step to giving others’ rights to use these great lists:
1.
On the lower left side, right mouse click on your site’s
Public Folder.
2.
Go down and left click on Properties.
3.
Right-click and select the Permissions tab.
4.
Click on Add… and select the names of all the people
you’d like to be able to share the lists you create. With
each person you add, you need to select a permission level. For
instance, if you just want the staff to be able to use the lists
but not add/delete, you might want to click the Reviewer
permission level. If you want, for instance, to give your
department chairs the rights to create their own distribution
lists, you may want to give them Author rights.
IMPORTANT -- Now, once you’ve done
your part in giving your people rights to this Site Public
Folder, you (AND each person who wants to use this folder) will
need to do one more thing:
5.
Right mouse click on the site Public Folder
for your site and click on Properties.
6.
Click on the tab that says Outlook Address Book.
7.
 Click
on the box that says Show this folder as an e-mail address
book.
8.
Now, when you or anyone you’ve given rights to use this
wants to e-mail the distribution list group, all they need to do is
click on the down arrow next to Global Address Book and scroll
to your folder list (see below). They can select one (or
several) of the Distribution Lists and send their e-mail.
Good luck – feel free to
call me at Ext. 5212 if you have any questions about sharing
distribution lists. |
