topic Microsoft 365 - Outlook: "Reply All", "Reply Some", and Attachments in Digital Exchange

Microsoft 365 - Outlook: "Reply All", "Reply Some", and Attachments

stepher — Fri, 17 May 2024 15:30:00 GMT

At the start, I want to apologize... What follows is somewhere between an ideation and a fever dream.

Background:

I have an automation that relies heavily on email actions. This automation started using MAPIEx, was converted to the MS Outlook VBO, but now uses the Microsoft 365 - Outlook VBO. Overall, I am pretty happy where it stands, but I have come up against a bit of a hurdle.

Most of the emails that the automation creates fall under four categories:

Reply All with no Attachments
Reply All with Attachments
Reply Some with no Attachments
Reply Some with Attachments

The first two are generally covered by the 'Reply All' action of the VBO, as it does allow for attachments. But the 'Reply All' does not allow me to alter the 'To:', 'CC:' or 'BCC:' values to address the 'Reply Some' scenarios. The same is true of the 'Reply' action. So, I moved the 'Reply Some' scenarios to the 'Forward' action. It is a bit awkward, but mostly addresses the third scenario. However, the 'Forward' action does not allow for attachments. My current option is to 'create' a new email, copying attributes from the original thread, as I can. Unfortunately, this looks cobbled together, and it breaks the email thread. It is not the worst thing in the world, as these are intended to be the 'last emails' in the chain, but it is still not elegant.

So, the simple request would be to add the option of an 'Attachment' when using the 'Forward' action. I am not sure if this is a limitation of the Graph API methodology, but that's the ask.

However, me being me, I could not let it go at that. In Outlook, when I click 'Reply' or 'Reply All', I can do more than just add a response, I can change the subject, alter the recipients, and even alter the original message. This is all possible because the initial document is in a 'Draft' status. What if the VBO had 'Draft' variants of the email actions? For example, 'Reply All (to Draft)', or 'Send Email (to Draft)'. And then there would need to be an action to 'Edit Draft Email' and 'Send Draft Email'.

I have a few more thoughts but will cut it off here.

Thanks for your indulgence,

Red

Re: Microsoft 365 - Outlook: "Reply All", "Reply Some", and Attachments

ewilson — Fri, 17 May 2024 17:50:42 GMT

@stepher there is an Ideas page on the DX for this just this sort of thing. After logging into the DX, go to Explore -> Ideas. You can submit ideas for new assets or changes to existing assets. Those submissions will be added to our backlog for review and likely assignment to a calendar quarter for delivery.

Cheers,

Eric

Re: Microsoft 365 - Outlook: "Reply All", "Reply Some", and Attachments

stepher — Fri, 17 May 2024 18:11:00 GMT

Thanks, Eric,

Fully aware, and I will do. I just wanted to get this in front of others in case this was really a "me" issue, and I was missing some other way around this.

As always, I appreciate the work of you and your team,

Red

Re: Microsoft 365 - Outlook: "Reply All", "Reply Some", and Attachments

stepher — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 20:22:36 GMT

Just so that I do not appear to be ungrateful...

I was scanning the Release Notes for 'Microsoft 365 - Outlook' to see what was updated as a part of v1.5.1, only to realize that nearly everything I was asking for was made available in v1.4.

Sorry I missed it.

Red