Outlook Report Message Add-in

Last updated: October 28, 2022

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Overview

The UW Office 365 service has deployed Microsoft’s “Report Message” Outlook add-in to all users of UW Office 365 Exchange Online. The add-in runs as part of Outlook on the web (aka OWA), Outlook for iOS and Android, and compatible versions of the Outlook desktop email client. It never sends data to Microsoft unless directed to by the user.

This add-in does not currently replace UW-IT’s central spam and phishing reporting processes, but it does provide valuable user experience improvements for both the individual and other UW Office 365 Exchange Online users that UW-IT’s central spam and phishing reporting processes do not.

False positive junk email

With regard to “false positive” junk email, i.e. email incorrectly delivered to the Junk E-mail folder, the add-in allows users to report email as “Not Junk”. This does the following:

  • Moves the email to the inbox
  • Adds the sender of the email to the user’s Safe Senders list
  • Reports the false positive email to the UW Office 365 service team
  • Reports the false positive email to Microsoft’s spam protection services

Both the UW Office 365 service team and Microsoft actively monitor and make changes to settings in order to minimize false positives.

Please note: For those reports to reach both service teams, the user must elect to “Send reports”, either prompted per action or by default. If the report is not sent, the add-in will still add the sender of the false positive email to the Safe Senders list and improve the experience at an individual level.

Junk and phishing email

With regard to junk and phishing email, the add-in allows users to report email as “Junk” or “Phishing”.  This does the following:

  • For reported junk email, moves the email to the Junk E-Mail folder
  • For reported phishing email, moves the email to the Deleted Items folder
  • Adds the sender of the email to the user’s Blocked Senders list
  • Reports the junk or phishing email to the UW Office 365 service team
  • Submits the junk or phishing email to the automated reporting process for UW’s primary email filtering services via reportedspam@cac.washington.edu
  • Reports the junk or phishing email to Microsoft’s spam protection services

Versions of Outlook supported

Versions of Outlook that currently support the add-in include:

  • Outlook on the web (aka OWA)
  • Outlook for iOS and Android
  • Outlook 2013 SP1+
  • Outlook 2016 for Mac
  • Outlook Office 365 ProPlus