KB1285 - Using Quickmail to email course participants

The Quickmail block allows you to send emails to Students or Teachers participating in your Moodle course.

Why Use Quickmail to Email from inside Moodle?

Quickmail gives you a convenient way to communicate with your students by email, without leaving Moodle. (This is different from "Moodle Messages" which are seen when the user logs into Moodle.)

Quickmail also gives you some notable advantages over using your regular email program: Emails sent via Quickmail can be scheduled to be sent in the future, and can be reviewed by their author afterwards using the "View Sent Messages" feature (which is much easier to review than searching your email Inbox).

How to use Quickmail

This video shows you how to use Quickmail's essential features:

First, add the Quickmail block

You must add the Quickmail block to your course before you can compose an email message:

• With editing on, select "Add a block" in the Blocks drawer.
• In the Quickmail block, click "Compose course message". (You'll be taken to the Quickmail interface shown below.)

How to Compose a Quickmail Email

1. In the From field, select either your VCC email address (the default), or "noreply-moodle@" if you want the message to be an announcement that cannot receive replies. 
2. In the To field, click to select "All in course", or select by role, group, or by individual users.
   You can use Ctrl-click (PC), Cmd-click (Mac), or Shift-click to select multiple items in the lists.
3. In the Exclude list, select any recipient(s) you want to omit from receiving your message.
4. In the Subject field, enter your message title.
5. In the Body field, enter your message text. (Note the "user data fields" below, which allow you to insert personalized information, such as the recipient's first or last name, etc.) 
6. Attach any files to the message, if needed.
7. For Signature, you can select a previously-made message signature (or create a new one).
8. Send message as lets you send your message as an Email (the default) or as a Moodle Message.
9. If you want to receive a copy of the message to your own Inbox, select "Yes" for Receive a send report.
10. Click Send Message to send your message (or "Save Draft" if you want to continue editing it later).

What Recipients Receive

• If you sent an email, your recipients will receive an email from your VCC email address (or from "noreply-moodle@vcc.ca" if you chose that option). Students should NOT reply to an email from "noreply-moodle@", but instructors can encourage their students to communicate within their online course.
• If you selected "Receive a send report", you'll get an email that specifies all the details of the email that your recipients received.