Microsoft Office Reference Guide

Mar 26, 2004

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To disseminate a blog item I thought would interest some colleagues, I created a distribution list in Outlook. But before I sent the email, I noticed that the first email address was visible in the message. Sure enough, I opened the email prior to sending it to see that ALL of the addresses were visible, which seemed to be the opposite of what a Distribution List should do (and I am fairly certain that previous versions didn’t do it).

So I moved the list to the bcc field, and I thought it went out, but since the field was empty in the message I sent to myself (duh, the field is called blind cc), I thought maybe it didn’t go, especially since some of my more faithful readers didn’t respond after a few hours.

So sent it again, duplicating the email and feeling dumb when I realized what I had done.

I hate to rant (again) but why do things need to be so difficult?

First of all, if I hadn’t noticed that the email had an email address (not the name of the distribution list) in my Outbox, I would have irritated a lot of people.

Obviously if I wanted everyone to see all of the names I wouldn’t have needed a list (for a single email blast); I could have added them all to the To: field.

And I could have duplicated the email in the future to send a different message to the same recipients.

The only purpose of creating a Distribution List that I can think of — truly — and to name and save it — is to have the name of the list make the recipient list invisible to and to preserve their privacy.

In fact, as I look back over my previous update on Distribution Lists (which was based on Outlook 2003)I see that I included a tip on precisely this point — the list protects the privacy of all of the recipients.

In Outlook 2007, when you create the list, there is a button marked “Private”. One might think that enabling that option would make the list invisible, but no...

Figure 1

So your first option is to move the list to the bcc field, and perhaps send the message to yourself. But again, when you open it, since the bcc field is blank, you may wonder whether it went out as planned.

Your other option is to click the little + sign to expand the field in the message (yes, in the message before it is sent it appears that the List name makes the recipients invisible — you are warned that once expanded you cannot contract the list again but who cares? With the list expanded, click CTRL + A to select all the names and address, Click CTRL + C to copy them to the Clipboard, and paste them into the bcc field.

Now you can be confident that it will go to all the recipients without their seeing all of the information, but alas, the entire purpose of the nifty feature is defeated.

I decided to see if my experience was unique or wrong on the Outlook General Newsgroup.

According to the response from the Outlook MVP, using Exchange Server may address the problem I encountered with Outlook 2007:

“If I'm not mistaken, this depends on the mail server in question and/or if working with an Exchange mailbox whether or not the distribution list is an exchange vs. personal distribution list. For example, if I send an e-mail where the distribution list is from the exchange gal, then the list of names are not expanded.”

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I am a small business and I don’t use Exchange Server — I use a personal distribution list and I still need to maintain discretion for the members.

The other aspect that I find troubling is that I came so close to sending out my list with the addresses revealed.

This puts me back in rant mode.

This is once again another version of Outlook with some interesting new features; it’s great to have RSS directly in the Email inbox for example.

But too often these extra features come at the price of overlooking more obvious procedures, like keeping a distribution list private — personal or otherwise.

More important, the user shouldn’t have to use a workaround to make something this significant work seamlessly. The “Private” button should do what it suggests.

There is already talk about the next version of Office — and it is hard to imagine what else can be crammed into a Word Processor, Spreadsheet or Email/Calendar program like Outlook.

It’s also neat that an upcoming version of Windows may have touch screen capability and be loaded into an interactive coffee table.

But like the comic on Last Comic Standing said about his cell phone — he loved the whiz bang camera and music but “how about a reliable dial tone?”

The reason I believe MS Office is being pecked to distraction by online applications is that it is looking for new features and cramming itself into complexity — and at the same time occasionally losing sight of what really matters in software — reliability and ease of use.

The need for a workaround to hde the names in a Distribution list is a good example of this problem.

InformIT Articles and Sample Chapters

Microsoft Outlook Addess Book, Contacts, and Distribution Lists: A Survival Guide

12 Tips for More Effective Email

Books and eBooks

Microsoft Outlook 2007 Inside Out (Safari)

Microsoft Outlook 2007 for Dummies (Safari)

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