I would like to set up an email template that I can use to reply to emails, which contains dropdown fields. Is this possible?

Question

Hi, thanks in advance for any assistance offered.

I would like to be able to reply with an email template which contains some pre-populated text and some dropdown fields. I've found different ways of doing parts of this, but none of them allow me to easily do everything I want to do.

I'd eventually like to create a solution my team can use to reply to emails received in a shared mailbox quickly using a standardised template.

"Quickly" is important to that my team uses the solution - if it's too annoying to use, they won't use it

"Standardised template" is important because I would like to do analytics over the replies. For example, I can easily connect to Microsoft Exchange in PowerBI or similar, and it's easy enough to extract, for example, the fourth line of an email. I want my team to select fields from a dropdown in a standardised template to make this analysis easier.

To expand on what I've explored:

Option 1 considered - send email based on template

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/send-an-email-message-based-on-a-template-56c645fc-1b25-4059-808b-55ee72b6bc2d

This option allows me to create the template exactly how I want it - with formatting, tables, control objects like dropdowns. However, it's cumbersome to use/open the template and and it can't be easily used in a Reply or Forward scenario, it looks like it can only be used for new mails. To copy and paste the template into a reply would be even more cumbersome. See above - a quick solution that my team can use is needed.

Option 2 considered - Reply with Quick Steps

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/quick-steps-in-outlook-d8efbdbd-5098-491b-9d2e-8c7b6f45a9b4#:~:text=In%20the%20menu%20bar%20on,the%20Quick%20Step%20to%20do.

This would be really quick for the team to use, however the text body can not be edited the way I want to include tables and drop downs etc.

Option 3 considered - My Templates

https://www.howtogeek.com/697468/how-to-use-outlooks-my-templates-add-in-for-quick-text-entry/

This is also really quick, and tables and formatting can be added to the text body, but not dropdowns.

If Option 1 could be used in a reply, or be made quicker, that would probably be the winner. Alternatively if Option 3 could include control objects like drop downs, but I think that's less likely. If I can do neither of those things, I'll be forced to pick the option which is more likely to be used by my team but less standardised - i.e. Option 3. The issue here is they would need to fill in the template without dropdowns, which makes analysis hard. For example, I want them to populate a "email category" kind of field - with 12 pre-determined fields - I don't want those populated as free text, or for them to populate themes/categories outside of the 12 pre-determined fields.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Hi @kindk

I would like to set up an email template that I can use to reply to emails, which contains dropdown fields. Is this possible?

I'm afraid this is impossible. Because the created template is suitable for sending a message but cannot be used to reply to a message, and in Outlook, the template that can be created is only text format, and you cannot add a drop-down fields.

To get this feature more quickly, I have found a post in feedback collection website, and you could vote for it. Many features of our current products are designed and upgraded based on customers’ feedback. You can also make suggestions on that website and hope Microsoft will notice this in the future. Thank you for your understanding and support!

Hope this helps!

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