This article presents an overview of Bamboo Solutions’ Group E-mail Web Part. This Web Part allows you to send e-mail to all users on your SharePoint site, using e-mail addresses in a List or site users.  You can send e-mail either by using a SMTP server or the default Mail client on your computer.  Once the Web Part is installed on a site, you can click on the Web Part mail icon to bring up the SMTP mail editor or your default mail client editor to do the final edit of the pre-defined e-mail message before sending out the e-mail.

How does it Work?
After the Group E-mail Web Part is configured, the user can click on the Web Part mail icon to bring up the Microsoft Outlook mail editor or, if configured to use HTML mail server, the server side’s mail editor.

The Web Part will look for a pre-defined e-mail message template stored in a Content Editor Web Part in the SharePoint site and include that message in the body of the e-mail.

Using SMTP Server:
When you click on the mail icon, the Bamboo Group E-mail SMTP editor appears:

You can click on the icon in the lower right hand corner of the SMTP Mail editor to edit the HTML code.  Press Send to send the e-mails to the distribution list.  Note: e-mails will be sent to individual recipients and the distribution list is not displayed in the To: field.

Using Mail Client:
If you choose to use the Mail Client to send out e-mail, the default mail client editor is launched.  The current user e-mail address appears in the “To” field and all other users e-mail addresses appear in the “Bcc” field of the e-mail.

Note: When using Mail Client, the following limitation is applied:

• You can only edit e-mail content in text mode and not HTML format.
• There is a 2043 character limit including e-mail addresses and the body text.

User Settings:
The Group E-mail Web Part can be configured using the following options:

Select a Site Group than can E-mail. Select site group(s) that can send e-mail by clicking on the mail icon of the Web Part.  If a user does not belong to the selected groups in the property setting, the mail icon is disabled. Select e-mail address from list. Select this checkbox to activate the Select List source, Select View and Select E-mail column selection boxes below. If this checkbox is left un-checked, the Web Part sends e-mail to all users in the current site using the e-mail addresses in their user profile. Select List Source. Select a SharePoint List in the current site that has an e-mail address column. Select View: Select a List View which includes the E-mail address column. Select E-mail column. Select a column which contains user e-mail addresses. Enter E-mail subject.  Enter the outgoing e-mail subject. Select E-mail template:  Select a content editor Web Part installed on the site which contains the e-mail body text. Enter icon’s popup message text: This is the text that appears when the user mouses over the icon. Use SMTP: Select this option to specify the SMTP server name and the e-mail address that appears in the “From” field.  Contact your IT system administrator for the proper use of the SMTP server. Use Mail Client:  Select this option if you want to use your default mail client to send out e-mail.