Easy way to send 60 emails!

[Renfield-64]

Hi, all of our staff email passwords will be changing over the summer and I have been given the task of sending an email to each individual staff member with their new password!

I have a spreadsheet with their email address and new password on but is there an easy way of emailing 60 people without copying and pasting each line of info or will I really have to create 60 emails?

 

Thanks for any advice.

[Michael]

You could perform a mail merge with Outlook 2016/2019/2021, but it's probably going to take you just as long to populate the CSV with their name and email address.

[TRSJon]

Hi, all of our staff email passwords will be changing over the summer and I have been given the task of sending an email to each individual staff member with their new password!

I have a spreadsheet with their email address and new password on but is there an easy way of emailing 60 people without copying and pasting each line of info or will I really have to create 60 emails?

 

Thanks for any advice.

Agree with Michael - mailmerge - as you've already got the excel file with email and password should be relativly straight forward - take a look at this link - How To… | Mail Merge (Office 2016) – Digital Technologies (lincoln.ac.uk) Even if not using 2016, it should me close enough to get you going.

[jthompson]

If you use Gmail, that has a built-in mail merge feature now.

 

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/12921167?hl=en-GB

 

In the recipients field, press the little "People" icon next to Cc and Bcc to switch it to mail merge mode.

 

EDIT: Note that there are Google Admin controls relating to this, which allow you to control whether users can use it, and also whether they are restricted to internal contacts only.

Edited July 16, 2024 by jthompson

[Sephiroth]

Overly simplified, but this powershell script should be relatively simple to customise:

 

$CSV = Import-Csv "\\path\to\file.csv"
Foreach ($Line in $CSV) {
   $EmailAddress = $Line.email
   $Password = $Line.Password

   Send-MailMessage `
       -To $EmailAddress `
       -From "[email protected]" `
       -Subject "New Password" `
       -Body "Your new password is `'$Password`'" `
       -SmtpServer "yoursmtp.server.com"
}

Edited July 16, 2024 by Sephiroth
scripting language

[Renfield-64]

Thanks, I'll take a look.

[PrimaryNetMan]

If you use Gmail, that has a built-in mail merge feature now.

 

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/12921167?hl=en-GB

 

In the recipients field, press the little "People" icon next to Cc and Bcc to switch it to mail merge mode.

 

EDIT: Note that there are Google Admin controls relating to this, which allow you to control whether users can use it, and also whether they are restricted to internal contacts only.

 

Only for those with Education Standard or Plus licensing.

[FN-GM]

Am I the only one that is alarmed that passwords are being emailed?

[TechMonkey]

Am I the only one that is alarmed that passwords are being emailed?

 

As long as they are set to be changed next log in, not the best way, not the worst. In the past I used personnel data to create temp passwords that could be explained but didn't need to be sent, something like last part of their postcode and first 5 letters of their street. This did highlight the people who hadn't updated their address with the school or couldn't remember where they lived...

[kennysarmy]

Hi, all of our staff email passwords will be changing over the summer and I have been given the task of sending an email to each individual staff member with their new password!

I have a spreadsheet with their email address and new password on but is there an easy way of emailing 60 people without copying and pasting each line of info or will I really have to create 60 emails?

 

Thanks for any advice.

 

Hope they don't need the new email password to check their emails.

[phil0569]

I may be stupid, but if you change someone's email password then email them the new password how are they meant to read it if they cant login because the password has changed?

[PrimaryNetMan]

If you need to reset everyone's password, why not just tick the box change password on next logon?

[Renfield-64]

That would be sensible but the management won't let me do it this way!

[DGardiner]

That would be sensible but the management won't let me do it this way!

 

summer resets are a terrible idea, happy september when half of them have forgot the newpassword theyve set 10 minutes after setting it, just enable annual password changes in policy or better yet dont, its bad practice - if auditors are recomending it kick back the official microsoft security paper saying not to do it as it leads to OldPasswordn+1

 

just enforce sufficient complexity in the password policy and if possible force a change if current passwords dont meet the standard

[Renfield-64]

Unfortunately we are part of an academy and the academy management have insisted. They'll have to pick up most of the pieces in September!

[thebatman]

That would be sensible but the management won't let me do it this way!

 

We had this the other year, just before we broke up for xmass. We tryed to inform them why it was not a good idea. The response was "this is a directive and you will do it".

We did as we was told, resetting everyones email and emaild them there new password.

Then we left for xmass leave. Making shure we didn't answer our phones for work related stuff. 1st day back all SLT came asking us for there passwords, our responces was "it was emailed to you as per your request before we broke up for xmass".

The fix, getting the SLT to walk around the school with a printout of all the passwords we had set, so they could inform staff of there new password.

[NegativeKillDeath]

As bad as forced password changes are I don't understand why you set a password for the users. Are you not able to just force a change next time the user logs in? Actively setting the user password of an existing user to something known by other people is a huge security issue.

[Renfield-64]

I didn't set the passwords, management did it, it's out of my control, the only thing I am able to do as admin in 365 is change a users password.

[DGardiner]

I didn't set the passwords, management did it, it's out of my control, the only thing I am able to do as admin in 365 is change a users password.

 

please tell me management arent doing this so they have a log of everyones password so they can snoop