Have you ever had emails sent from students end up in your “Junk” folder in Outlook? Have you ever had emails get lost in the shuffle of all the other emails sitting in your inbox? Do you receive so much email that it is almost overwhelming to try and sort and organize it?
Email filtering can help!
This article will provide you with some easy-to-follow steps to set up email filtering in Outlook so that certain emails (based on keywords in the subject/body of the email) get automatically sorted to a designated folder. The scenario below specifically targets setting up Course folders in Outlook so that student course email sent from Blackboard will automatically filter to a course sub-folder of the Inbox. However, the same instructions can be easily applied to setting up other types of filtered email folders based on keywords.
A Little Bit of Background Information
All courses in Blackboard are automatically set up with an area on the main course menu called COMMUNICATION. Within the Communication area, all courses have a “Send Email” link that allows students to use the Email tool in Blackboard to directly email their instructor and other students in the course. These emails are not saved or stored anywhere in Blackboard. Blackboard acts as a “relay” point to generate emails from, but cannot store or receive emails once they are sent. Because of this, all emails from Blackboard will automatically be sent to the @odessa.edu address (if you are an instructor) or the @myoc.odessa.edu address (if you are a student) of the receiving users. Additionally, all emails that get generated from Blackboard will automatically contain the course ID of the course in the subject line (remember this – it will be important below!).
Many users that have @odessa.edu email addresses (faculty/staff) use Outlook (either the desktop software or web application) to meet their email needs. When a user receives a high volume of emails from an individual or course, Outlook tends to think of it as “spam” or “junk” because the Subject line of the email will contain the same information every time it is sent. This is why some of your student emails might end up in the “Junk” folder in Outlook!
To keep this from happening, you can set up email filtering, based on a keyword (ie, your Course ID) so that they automatically go to a designated folder for that specific course.
Creating a Filtered Course Folder
(1) Open up Outlook and click on your Inbox folder from the options on the left side.
(2) Locate the Rules icon on the ribbon toolbar and then select Manage Rules & Alerts.
(3) Click New Rule.
(4) Select a template to use for your filter. In this case, you’ll want to select the template called Move messages with specific words in the subject to a folder. Then click Next.
(5) For the ease of this tutorial, leave with specific words in the subject as the checked option. (If you want to get more advanced with your filtering needs, feel free to look through the other options there – you may find that you want to filter based on other criteria as well!)
(6) Look down at the Step 2 area of the window and click underlined, hyperlinked text within that option that says specific words.
(7) In the “Search Text” window that appears, you will want to type the full course ID of your course into the top text field. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you type your course ID precisely and accurately – otherwise your filtering will not work! Your course ID needs to be in the following format: TERM.DEPT.####.SECT. So, for example, it would need to look like 19SP.BIOL.1111.W90C or 19SP.ENGL.1301.F90NT, etc. It is very important that they are typed exactly in that format (make sure you don’t forget to include the periods inbetween!). Once you’ve typed the course ID, click the ADD button to add it to the filter list, and then click OK.
(8) When you return to the previous screen, you will then want to click on the hyperlinked word specified folder in the Step 2 area.
(9) If you have already created a folder for the course in your Outlook folders, you can select it from the list that appears. Otherwise, click on the NEW button to create a new folder as a sub-folder of your Inbox.
(10) Give your folder a name (I recommend giving it the same name as the course ID – it will make locating the folder easier and Outlook will sort your course folders for you in a more logical manner!). Make sure the “Inbox” is selected (it should be by default). Click OK to create the folder.
(11) When you return to the Rules and Alerts screen, you should see your folder has now been created as a sub-folder of your Inbox. Click on OK.
(12) When you return to the Rules Wizard screen, all of your settings for filtering should now be set! You should be creating a filter based on specific words in the subject line of an email with a designated course ID and course folder set up. Click the Next button to move to the next screen.
(13) On the next screen there will be two rules automatically checked at the top of the actions list: stop processing more rules, and move it to the specified folder. Leave both of these rules checked! Click on the Next button to move to the next screen.
(14) On the exceptions screen, leave everything unchecked and click on the Next button.
(15) On the last screen, make sure that the options Run this rule now on messages already in the “Inbox” and Turn on this rule are selected. Then click the Finish button.
(16) On the Rules and Alerts Window, you will now see the filtering rule that you’ve set up for your course to be filtered. If you have multiple courses that you’d like to do this for, simply start the process all over again by clicking on “New Rule”. Or, if you are done creating filters, click on the OK button.
If you have any questions about the steps used above or if you’d like some assistance in setting up email filtering for your courses, please reach out to ocglobal@odessa.edu and we’d be happy to help!