Outlook voting: unexpected results

[ker_01]

We've just started using Outlook voting, and ran into a small problem. I
tested on my machine (Outlook2003) and was able to send a test vote to myself
as a bcc: recipient, I was then able to open that email and vote, and then on
the response, I could open the voting response panel and see my name and
response.

A co-worker, who uses 2007, bcc'd a large group on a real project, and
started getting the responses. Each response has the bar across the top that
shows this person's vote and (when right-clicked) gives the option to view
voting responses, but clicking that option in the right-click menu has no
effect. She /is/ still able to open and view the voting response summaries of
voting emails that were sent out with participants in the To: field, but this
is the first real survey using bcc and 2007, and we haven't been able to
access the results.

In the original outbound email, there is a voting button on the button bar
(when she opens the email). That button is not there when response messages
are opened.

Help! Are there any known issues with Outlook 2007, voting, and bcc:
participants?

Thank you!

 

[Judy Gleeson \(MVP Outlook\)]

Can she see all responses when she goes to the actual Sent email and clicks
the Tracking button?

Are the recipients all in your organisation and all on Outlook 2007?

Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook

www.judygleeson.com
www.deskdoctors.com

Are you sick of bad email practice? Get a copy of my paper "Implementing
Email Policy" from the Desk Doctors website.

 

[ker_01]

Hi Judy-

Just a status update, as we are currently testing different scenarios. 99%
of our organization uses Outlook2007 (I'm one of a handful of holdouts using
2003); All of the recipients of this particular survey were within the
organization, and I'm almost positive they were all 2007 users. Per the more
detailed notes below, the sender was not able to open tracking until the
email was moved back into the sent mailbox on the target account.

The employee using Outlook2007 has her own email account, but also has
permissions to several corporate accounts- in this case "Corporate
Compliance" (hereafter referred to as CC). The survey (with Yes/No) options
were sent "from" the CC mailbox, but the original survey (along with any
other mail she sends "from" CC) shows up in her personal 'Sent Mail' folder.
Replies to the survey (or other emails) do go to the CC mailbox, not her
personal account.

We are testing to confirm, but it appears that the sent survey has to reside
in the sent mail of the same account **when the surveys are coming in** in
order to register those responses. We moved the sent survey into the CC sent
mail folder, but it did not pick up any responses that were received prior to
today.

A few observations/rants (and suggested solutions for Microsoft):

* When the original sent survey was opened from the sent mailbox of the
individual, tracking options were not present. In this context, that doesn't
make sense- the only way the sent survey would end up in another mailbox is
if someone with permissions put it there in the first place. Also, what if a
user wants to share survey responses, and forwards the survey email to
someone else- shouldn't they be able to open the responses as well (at least
updated through whenever it was forwarded)?

* Most people will send surveys from their own mailboxes, so this shouldn't
be an issue... but hyper-organized people may also organize their sent mail,
such as moving sent mail into folders for that particular project- if that
'breaks' the survey, then IMHO it is somewhat fragile. In this case, it was a
completely seperate mailbox... but then the design flaw is that (based on the
requirements of the survey functionality) the sent mail should (by default)
be saved in the sent mail of the "survey owner" instead of the person who was
sending the email. There is probably some way to do this already, but the
user is just working inuitively, and had no reason to think that the process
she used would fail. Maybe the easiest solution would be to have Outlook
determine (for surveys) if the destination of the sent mail is the same as
the return address, and if not, pop up a warning and a link to a relevant
help file on alternative/functional ways to send surveys.

* I've worked in a Fortune 100 company, and am currently working in a
similarly sized private company, and both have strict rules enforced from the
server level on how long sent mail can stay in the inbox, sent, trash, etc-
in many cases it is 60 days, but in some cases it is 30 (these policies are
in place to manage storage space). After an email hits a certain age, it is
automatically deleted unless the user has moved it to a private folder. If
surveys really require being on the host account, and possibly in the sent
email folder, this could be a problem for any company with similar email
policies. I've certainly seen surveys that last more than 4 weeks (to allow
for vacations, FMLA, etc)- so I have to wonder what happens to the user's
ability to check results for a long-term survey when Exchange auto-deletes
that sent survey after 30 days based on IT storage policies. An ideal
solution would be to create a new high-level folder (or something) where
survey-related data could be stored outside of the reach of IT folks who want
to use generic email enforcement policies at the server level.

/end rant

If our testing turns up any additional information, I'll post a followup.

Thank you,
Keith

 

[Judy Gleeson \(MVP Outlook\)]

It has always been the case that the sender MUST leave the sent email in
their Sent Items Folder. Tracking will not work otherwise.

The best place to check the responses is in the Sent Email.

Keep it simple with voting. Forwarding etc when using the voting function
just causes loads of problems! Alternatively, head to the Forms Newsgroup
and make your own form.

Regards

Judy Gleeson
MVP Outlook

www.judygleeson.com
www.deskdoctors.com

Are you sick of bad email practice? Get a copy of my paper "Implementing
Email Policy" from the Desk Doctors website.