Outlook newsletters…My first thought was: well that can be great even outside peoples’ scope of work right? I was imagining starting artists, tabletop RGP logs or even starting blog posters like myself to see some sweet benefits of this feature that popped up in Preview Mode.
But…Computer says no…Or well…at least my quick investigation into topic stated this new Microsoft feature is not available for free personal Outlook accounts. One needs a Microsoft Entra ID, an Exchange Online mailbox and access to SharePoint. Yes, the newsletter content is stored in there. What does that mean? Well…you kinda need either a Microsoft 365 Business, Enterprise or Education plan.
Business only, so let’s get to business!
How does it work?
Getting to business by first opening Outlook, like one does about every workday or so right? Now there’s something new under your New-button: The Newsletter. Enthusiastically smacking that Newletter with a mouse-click like I’m practicing kumite on a punch bag, I open up the creation menu. As you can see, a typical Microsoft menu pops up with some sleek design suggestions similar to Planner or Lists.
Without getting too distracted by checking things out immediately, first notics that a new icon has appeared in your left navigation bar. Could be a calculator in my opinion, but it is a newletter.
The second thing of interest (to me) are those 2 bigger bottons. Create edition and Create newsletter. What is the difference you might wonder?
I am wondering that as well and…wonderwell, there is no hoover text assigned to these buttons with a little explanation in the difference. No hoover text to the other buttons as of the moment of noting this, hoping it might come later as these little nifty things is what helps people learning by trial-and-error. But, we’re not gonna let ourselves be stopped by this so:
Let’s button bash!
Hitting the Create newsletter button gives us a quite familiar (Share)Point of view… Anyone familiar with the news post feature, in particular the option to send posts as email might get a déjà vu of this picture here. As there are some straightforward fields to fill in, I’m gonna fill in those fields. If you’re by this point wondering what I’m exactly doing… Lemme tell ya I’m not too sure either, just following intuition with a vague idea of what it might create for us.
At this stage, some fields are unclear to me. I did a quick search to see if “Owners” might also suggest 2 owners, just like with Teams or SharePoint environments. Turns out, yes, Outlook Newsletter also suggests at least 2 owners.
The little “handbag”, as one of the end-users I taught once called it, allows us to set the target audience of the newsletter. To me, it looks kinda similar to the options in Forms, as you can set it to My organization, Private, and the “Unlisted” which isn’t some fantasy thing, but just all users with a link to your newsletter. Just like in Forms a way to target people outside of your organization. Clients, businesses partners or the like, maybe even use the link in your email signature.
Hmmm, this might get interesting considering target audiences. Later more about that, as there were some interesting discoveries I made along that little investigation. First we’re gonna save this creation by smashing the Save icon in the top left corner and see what that does for us.
Notice that once saved, the +Create now also appears beneath the just-made layout of your Newsletter, implying that we’ve just created an overall lay-out in which you store your editions. I’m really starting to feel like I’m an editor of a newspaper now and I’ve just determined my branding haha.
There is however, so much more to explore. So steady your breath, focus and let’s tackle this some more shall we?
Let’s go wild and create the first edition of our newsletter.
We can either click the “Outlook-looking” button in the top left, the “SharePoint-vibes” button mid-right or the newly spawned colorful button on below.I like it when I have some neat little templates lined up when I don’t know what I’m doing haha. Creative as I think I am, let’s pick “Creator” here.Slapping the button we immediately get 3 fields to fill in. A title for this edition, the choice between “edition” and “template” (which seems a bit odd as I am creating n edition?) and the option to pick the group to which this edition belongs to, in case you have several Newsletters going on.
Here are the blurred lines with Sharepoint. Immediately I notice the premade sections to fill in without needing to be a creative genius regarding some sweet little lay-outs. Simply add images, change the text, add or delete sections, move them up or down. It screams SharePoint to me, in a positive way.
One difference though. I can add contributors to the sections…NEAT! Tempted as I am to take a break to look if my beloved SharePoint has that feature as well all of a sudden without telling me, I ignore these temptations like I ignore my asthma during training and quickly make a mock-up first edition.
Note that if you add contributors to your edition, they will be notified once you save that draft. Adding images allows you to upload or search stock images. I find that, in difference to SharePoint, the order of searched images after retyping the same search word remains the same…is this a dream? (yes, some know it is a bit of a peeve point of me that the images seem to reshuffle even though you use the same search words, kinda annoying when they don’t shine as you wanted once used on your site and you want to try that other picture that looked great as well, but isn’t in the same place as you first found it).
Anyway, I digress.
Quickly dashing to some neat pine tree images and keeping the pre-made text as I’m typing enough already, I click next and get some more fields to fill in.
This just looks like sending an post as email from SharePoint. Recipients, CC, BCC (automatically filled as subscribers) a nice preview of your post.
However…there is an option to add a custom email for replies…NEAT #2.
At the bottom, we encounter two toggles to display other editions NEAT#3 and allow comments and reaction on this edition (same with posts in SharePoint).
Oh and how do I wish they would add a featured image as thumbnail for SharePoint posts (please Microsoft, I can’t be the only one that’s getting headaches about using only the header/banner as the featured image on the news webpart).
Obvious Preview button is obvious. Let’s wrap this edition up, hit send and take the win of knowledge!
BAM! Immediately our fresh pine tree edition is added to a stack of “Published” edtions, along with the well-known view, comment and react-break down next to it, once again similar to SharePoint. There’s also options to Share and Duplicate your edition and the three dots next to the edition allow you to Edit or Delete it.
Wrapping things up with clicking and stumbling around this first “Outlook Newsletter battle”, the buttons on the left let you Explore Newletters and Featured editions and allow you to subscribe to what you like. Drafts contains…your drafts and Published, you’re guessing it correctly: your published Newsletters and Editions. Admin section brings you back to the selected Newsletter overview, good for keeping track of Subscribers or Analytics. The three dots even allow you to export a rapport of these stats to Excel NEAT as well.
WHY?
So, the question remains: Why? Why would you want to use this, when most of the Modern Workplace movement seems focused on getting away from Outlook? To reduce mail? Why an Outlook Newletters, when you have SharePoint Newspost to email, or mayve even some Viva apps? Browsing around and questioning my own experience thus far I can guess:
- Do Viva Engage is more social and interactive, this Outlook feature provides more structured information. Given it’s native in Outlook, you don’t need to add extra costs of Viva licenses if you just want a bit social but not too social haha.
- If your organization uses Email Marketing Platforms like Mailchimp or Constant Contact only internally, skip the costs and use this, though Outlook Newsletter doesn’t seem ideal for external bulk mailing (I’m not gonna test that)
- Handy if you don’t have an Intranet or other internal news platform. Your organization and its teams can send a bit more engaging and attractive updates now than a plain email.
- “Good old Outlook”…yeah, same reason I guess users also like it when you send certain SharePoint posts via email. Might check your user adoption and communication channel count.
- Easy way for internal social stuff as…well no extra Teams or SharePoint sites are needed, no messing around with access rights etc. Just users sharing their interests easy NEAT.
All in all, I think it can have its uses for sure. It’s easy and intuitive to use, though at the start you might find, just like me, that not all fields are too clear in the beginning. They are easily identified in their use however and easily edited.
To be honest, I wish WordPress was this clear and easy in making blog posts as Outlook is in creating Newsletters.
Curious about your thoughts of its handling and potential. Do let me know.
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