Once you have access to your GCU Email, you may have some questions regarding the features inside the Microsoft Outlook Web App. This article will show you how to set up email forwarding, add items to your calendar, and much more!
It’s important to stay safe while you are online. Unfortunately, there are people out there who will try to send spam or phishing emails to anyone they can. To help keep you safe from any potential spam or phishing emails, we recommend checking out the following accordion for more information about what can be considered spam or phishing.
STRANGE SENDER INFORMATION
One of the first spots you should check when examining a suspicious email is the sender’s address information. Of course, any messages sent from strangers or lists to which you’ve never subscribed to are cause for concern, but be wary of more “normal” looking addresses, too. To trick you into opening an email, hackers commonly pose as reputable companies such as banks, stores, and even universities. Always double-check the sender's address to be sure there aren’t strange characters like unnecessary commas and periods, misspellings, or added numbers inconspicuously hiding in the sender’s email address. Even if the email seems to have been sent from someone at GCU, you will still need to watch out for the other signs of phishing!
PERSONAL INFORMATION
One of the most common email scams is phishing. A phishing email will ask you to provide personal information such as credit card numbers, passwords, or account information. To further convince you to give out your most private data, these emails typically rely on creating a false sense of urgency, information that seems too good to be true, and other tactics to access your information. To avoid falling victim to phishing emails, never give out your personal information via email unless you’re certain the email is legitimate.
HARMFUL ATTACHMENTS
Along with questionable content, a majority of dangerous emails contain an attachment. In fact, recent studies found that a whopping 85 percent of malicious emails contained an attached file in the form of .DOCX, .XLS, .PDF, .ZIP, or .7Z. While not all attachments are harmful, you should be extremely cautious if you weren’t expecting to receive an attachment via email. Compromised files can contain viruses and other malware designed to attack your computer once downloaded and opened.
SUSPICIOUS LINKS
Similar to attachments, emails containing links you don’t recognize or were not expecting to receive are another tell-tale sign you can use to identify a dangerous email. Most dangerous links will either be incomplete, to a site you’ve never heard of, or even consist of jumbled letters and numbers. Before clicking on any links, hover your mouse over the link to preview the URL safely.
URGENT OR THREATENING LANGUAGE
One way that people can trick you into missing other phishing indicators is by creating a sense of urgency or panic to claim a gift or avoid a penalty. This type of pressure can cause victims to let their guard down and forget the other signs of phishing. If an email promises free concert tickets for filling out a survey, they may be phishing for your personal information. If a suspicious email threatens to drop you from your program in 24 hours due to non-payment, then asks for your billing information, you should reach out to your counselor to discuss it directly.
If you believe you have a spam or phishing email, you should report it immediately. To report these emails in the Outlook Web App, select the Report tab from the toolbar at the top of the page and then select Report Phishing from the drop-down menu.
Setting up email forwarding will tell Outlook to send a copy of new emails to another email address. For example, a you can set up email forwarding to a personal email address so that you won’t miss important messages from your counselor or instructor.
To set up email forwarding, open the Settings menu by clicking the Settings gear in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
In the Settings window, select Mail and then select Forwarding.
Under Forwarding, check the Enable forwarding box, then enter the email address to which you want to forward your Outlook Web App email and select Save. If you would like to keep a copy of forwarded emails in your GCU inbox, simply check the Keep a copy of forwarded messages box.
With Outlook's calendar feature, date-sensitive communications are sent and received quickly and easily. You can create a personal calendar with class schedules, assignment due dates, and personal appointments.
To access your calendar, select the Calendar icon from the left-hand navigation bar. To add an item or appointment to the calendar, select New event in the top-left, or left-click on any day in the calendar and click the small blue + icon. An appointment window will open; complete the appointment details and click Save.
To create an additional calendar, click on the Add calendar button on the left-hand side. Type a name for the calendar, then press Enter.
To view the new calendar, click on the calendar name. You can also select multiple calendars and view them side by side. Likewise, to hide a calendar, simply click it again.
To share the new calendar, click the calendar name and click the Share button in the top-left of the calendar page. Enter the email addresses of those with whom you would like to share and click Share.
To change the way that messages are organized, select the Settings button, select Mail, then Layout. Scroll down to the Messages Organization section.
Checking Show email grouped by conversation groups all messages with the same subject together into a quick, condensed view of the message thread. Clicking a message in your inbox expands the specific email in the thread.
Checking Show email as individual messages will show each reply as a separate entry in your inbox.
Clicking a message expands the specific email to view that section of the thread.
Creating folders also helps to organize your email and reduce the clutter of your inbox. It can be helpful to create a folder for each of your courses.
To create a folder, select the New folder button at the bottom of the folders list.
You can drag and drop messages into the folder from your inbox or create a rule to automatically move messages to the folder as they arrive.
Outlook's filtering feature is a time-saving tool that allows you to automatically sort and group incoming messages by sender, subject, date, and many other options.
To create a message filter, click the Settings gear and select Mail. From the Mail settings, select Rules. Click the Add new rule button to create a new inbox rule.
Inbox Rules can also be utilized to automatically forward or redirect specific messages sent from this inbox to another email account.
When choosing redirect, you are able to reply from your alternate email account and the reply will go to the original sender. With a forward, the message appears to have come from your student email account and replies will go there.
All original messages will still be in your GCU email inbox; if that inbox fills up, the redirect rule will not work. It is recommended that you still sign into your GCU email account regularly to clean it out.
Outlook helps you save time by allowing you to quickly send messages to a group of people. To open the groups page, click the Groups icon from the left-side navigation bar.
To create a new group, click the New group button at the top of the Groups list.
Select which type of group you would like, then type a name for the group in the Group name field, enter a description, and click Create. Type the email addresses in the Add members field, pressing Enter after typing each email address. Keep in mind, you will only be able to add @my.gcu.edu email addresses to a group. Once all email addresses have been added to the group, select Add.
To send a message to the group, click Mail from the navigation menu and then click New. Type the group name in the To field and compose your message.
If you would like to save a copy of an email to your computer, you can do so by saving it as a .PDF file. First, select the email you would like to save and click on the ellipses from the toolbar at the top of the page. Select Print from the drop-down menu.
This will bring you to your browser’s print menu. Each browser’s print menu will look slightly different, but the steps will generally be the same.
Once the print menu is open, set the print destination to Save as PDF. If it is not already set to Save as PDF, select the current destination and switch it to Save as PDF.
Click Save, then choose the folder that you would like the .PDF file saved to.
Click Save, select the location you would like to save the email to, then click Save again.
Google Chrome:
Microsoft Edge:
Mozilla Firefox:
- Open the Settings menu by clicking the Settings gear in the upper right-hand corner of the page, select the Mail tab, then Junk email.
- Scroll down and click the Safe Senders and Domains option. If you need to block a sender, click the Blocked senders and domains option instead.
- Enter the email address or domain name and click Save.