Program Outlook to Prompt You to Add a Subject in Your Email Every Time
In the PR industry, email seems to be the most common form of communication between coworkers, agencies, clients, press, analysts, etc. It sometimes gets to the point when one chain of emails is replied to so many times that you refer to it by the minute it was sent. Yesterday, I found myself saying, “Check the attachment that she sent at 8:43 a.m. No, no, I mean the one she sent at 9:50 a.m.” Once you send an email out, who knows how many times it will be replied to, how many people will be copied on the “reply all” list, etc! Therefore, it’s critical that you don’t make any embarrassing mistakes in that first email.
Here are some personal checks I do before I send an email:
- Did you include any deadlines?
- Does it send the right tone?
- Should it be from “me” or from “us?”
- “Every time” is two words
- “Recommend” is spelled with one “C,” two “ Ms”
- Make sure the track changes are off in the attachment
- Include the attachment
- Have you addressed it to the right people?
- Do all the hyperlinks works?
You click send, feel confident, only to realize that when the first person replies, you forgot to include a subject line! It’s horrifying and you can’t believe you did it, but you can’t send an email now apologizing that you forgot to include a subject. Tempting as it is, that would be absurd. How do you ensure that this will NEVER happen again, so that every time you try to send an email without a subject line, you are prompted? This Toolbox for IT blog post written by Software Engineer Abey George Peter, explains an extremely easy way (2 minutes max) of programming your Outlook to prompt you to add a subject line:
- Open your outlook
- Press Alt+F11 (this opens the Visual Basic editor)
- On the Left Pane you’ll see “Microsoft Outlook Objects.”
- Expand this so you can see the “ThisOutLookSession”window.
- Click on “ThisOutLookSession.”
- Copy and Paste the following code in the right pane. (Code Pane):
Private Sub Application_ItemSend (ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As Boolean)
Dim strSubject As String
strSubject = Item.Subject
If Len(strSubject) = 0 Then
Prompt$ = “Subject is Empty. Are you sure you want to send the Mail?”
If MsgBox(Prompt$, vbYesNo + vbQuestion + vbMsgBoxSetForeground, “Check for Subject”) = vbNo Then
Cancel = True
End If
End If
End Sub
Save this and now close the VB Code editor. Hope this helps!