Interacting with Microsoft Outlook in the Add-In

You can add Microsoft Outlook emails, meeting details, and tasks to an Oracle Social Network Conversation or wall; and, in the Oracle Social Network add-in for Microsoft Outlook, you can initiate Outlook-related activities. For example, you can add an Oracle Social Network contact to your Outlook Contacts list; create an Outlook task; send an email with links and attachments from the add-in; schedule an Outlook calendar meeting, and select participants from Oracle Social Network as well as your Outlook address book and your other usual sources.

1. Perform one of the following actions to add an Outlook item (email, meeting, or task) to a Conversation or wall:

   • Select an Outlook item, then click Add To Oracle Social Network in the Outlook ribbon.

   • Right-click an Outlook item, then click Add To Oracle Social Network.

   • Select an Outlook item, then go to the Conversation or wall you want to add the email to, and in its top-most banner, click , then select Add To Oracle Social Network.

   • Open the target Conversation or wall, then drag and drop the Outlook item into the open Conversation or wall.

   • In a meeting or task, click Add to in the item's ribbon at the top of the form.

   • In an email's ribbon, select one of the following options under When sending:

     • Move to—Post the message to a Conversation or wall, rather than sending the email.

     • Copy to—Post the message to a Conversation or wall, but also send the email.

       This option is useful if your message includes some users who are not part of your social network. You would generally want to use this for simple posted information, not messages that will spark a discussion, otherwise the email thread and the Conversation will become out of sync. For example, you might want to send meeting details such as location and agenda to a user who is not part of your social network, and copy it to a Conversation in your social network so that you have a record of the communication along with other related information for internal use, like documents for the meeting.

     The email is moved or copied to the Conversation or wall when you click Send.

     Note: If you don't want to post the email to a Conversation or wall, select No Post to just send the email.

2. In the resulting dialog, the Conversation is populated with the Conversation or wall you targeted or with the title of the email, meeting, or task (which will be the title of the new Conversation). To select another Conversation, click Conversation, then select a recent Conversation or a favorite Conversation, or, to create a new Conversation with a different name, click New.

   Note: For more information about creating a new Conversation, see How do I start a Conversation?

3. Any people included in the email, meeting, or task who are Oracle Social Network users are added to the Invitees. To select other people to invite, click Invitees, then, in the Select Members dialog, select groups and people you want to add as members.

   Double-click a name to add it to the Select list at the bottom of the dialog, or select names, then click Select to add all selections. Use Ctrl+Click to select more than one person or group.

   By default, you see a list of email recipients. Click a tab to change your view:

   • Recipients—View the list of people who received the email.

   • Contacts—View a list of your contacts.

   • Groups—View a list of your groups.

   • Current Members—If you are adding the email to an existing Conversation, you can see the people and groups that are members of the Conversation.

   Alternatively, you can enter part of a person's or group's name, and select them from the list that pops up.

   Note: You can hide unwanted email recipients by telling Oracle Social Network to ignore particular email addresses or domain names when adding an email to Oracle Social Network. For more information, see How do I tell Oracle Social Network to ignore particular email addresses or domains when posting email messages to a Conversation or wall?

4. Any documents that were part of the email, meeting, or task are added to the Attachments. To add more attachments, click Attachments, then, in the dialog, click Add, select documents to attach, and add descriptions of the selected documents.

   Note: The documents you select are uploaded to the Conversation or wall, but they are not also attached as additional documents to the email, meeting, or task.

5. Click Post As to select how the text should be posted:

   • Top-Level Messages—Post the email as one or more individual messages. Message splits mark the end of each message. See Step 6 for more information on message splits.

   • Single Message with Replies—Post the first email message in the dialog as a top-level message in the Conversation or wall, and post all other messages as replies to the top-level message. Message splits mark the end of each message. See Step 6 for more information on message splits. This option is useful for email threads.

   • Word Document—Post the email as a Microsoft Word document. Formatting and inline images will be preserved. Message splits aren't supported.

   • HTML Document—Post email as an HTML document. Formatting and inline images will be preserved. Message splits aren't supported.

6. Any text in the email, meeting, or task is included in the dialog's editor. You can edit the text and formatting, add or remove links, insert references to Oracle Social Network items, and change how the messages are split up.

   Oracle Social Network automatically adds message splits ("End of Message" indicators) based on the messages in the email, but you can also manually add or remove message splits to control how the email is posted to the Conversation or wall:

   • To remove a message split, delete the whole "End of Message" line.

   • To add a message split, place your cursor where you want to split the messages, then click Add Message Split.

   If you're adding an email with multiple messages, the newest message appears in the dialog first (at the top), the same as it does in the email. When the messages are added to Oracle Social Network, the first message in the dialog is posted to the Conversation or wall first, followed by the remaining messages.

   If you want to reverse the order of the messages in the dialog (to show the oldest message first), click Sort Messages, then select Last Message on Top.

   Note: The sort order has no effect if there are no message splits.

7. Click Post.

1. In the navigation bar, click .
2. Click a tab to open it.
   

   Tip: On the Groups tab, double-click a group to open its wall, then click the Members tab to see its members.

   
3. Right-click someone on the list, and select Add to Outlook Contacts.

1. In the navigation bar, click .
2. Click a tab to open it.
   
3. Right-click someone on the list, and select Create Task.
   Note: For groups, double-click a group, open its Members tab, then right-click a group member.

   
4. Fill out and save the Task form like you would with any other Outlook task.

1. Right-click an item, person, or group, and select Send Email or Send As Email (depending on your starting point).
2. Write and send the message like you would any other Outlook email.