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Using MS Society email

Click here to log in to MS Society email

  1. What is MS Society email?
  2. Who needs to use MS Society email?
  3. MS Society email user guide
  4. MS Society email technical guides
  5. MS Society email password self reset
  6. Data protection and MS Society email
  7. Upgrading your MS Society email account
  8. If you are a new volunteer
  9. Need support?

What is MS Society email?

MS Society email is one of our six online tools designed to support your group to meet our requirements. It gives your group access to a range of functions that enable you to communicate on our behalf, whilst ensuring that we comply with current data protection legislation.

See Group Handbook A2: Requirements, support, tools and resources

We’re currently upgrading MS Society email to give your group and specific individual volunteers more ways to communicate with others, and within your team, whilst ensuring that we comply with current data protection legislation. See below for how to submit your upgrade request.

Email accounts

All MS Society groups have a shared MS Society email address that we want you to promote widely within your local MS community. And when you have upgraded your account, volunteers with access to your group MS Society email will also have an individual MS Society email address. You can view both inboxes and send emails from both addresses, all in one place.

  1. Find out more about Upgrading your MS Society email account

We want you to use MS Society email whenever you need to handle personal data. We also want you to use it when you communicate with an external organisation or person by email on our behalf. This could include local supporters, press and PR contacts, or grant making trusts.

Your Coordinating Team should nominate two volunteers who can delete emails from your group inbox when they are no longer needed.

File storage

MS Society email includes a secure storage space where you can keep documents like team meeting notes, service level agreements and risk management paperwork.

All volunteers on your team with access to MS Society email can view and edit shared files.

Calendars

MS Society email also includes group and individual calendars that enables you to schedule team meetings and keep track of when your services, activities and events are due to take place. You can add agendas to meetings and set reminders so no-one forgets what’s coming up.

Microsoft Office applications

MS Society email is hosted by Microsoft, which means your MS Society email account gives you online access to applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

This enables you to download contact email addresses from the Portal as an Excel spreadsheet. Simply copy and paste the list into the ‘Bcc’ field of your email and send it.

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Who needs to use MS Society email?

If you hold one of these roles, we expect you to use MS Society email when you represent us:

Regardless of the volunteer role you hold, you must also use MS Society email whenever you represent us in these ways:

  • Handling personal data by email
  • Acting as an account signatory on your group’s cash pooling account
  • Communicating with external organisations or people by email on our behalf

If you are a Coordinating Team member who doesn’t meet either of these criteria, you may still request an MS Society email address.

MS Support

If your group offers MS Support, you also have an MS Support email address.

Only trained Lead/Support Volunteers can access and respond to enquiries sent to your MS Support email address.

  1. Find out more about Offering MS Support

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MS Society email user guide

We’ve put together a set of resources to support your group to use our new, upgraded MS Society email.

Our user guide covers:

  • Who needs to use MS Society email
  • Why and when to use it
  • Data protection
  • How to make changes to your team of MS Society email users

We recommend that you read this guide before submitting your upgrade request.

  1. Download our MS Society email user guide

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MS Society email technical guides

Our technical guides will help you get started with MS Society email, access your inboxes, send and receive emails, work with documents and use your calendars. Our technical guides are specific to the different types of device you may use to access MS Society email:

  1. Download our MS Society email technical guide: PCs and laptops
  2. Download our MS Society email technical guide: Android devices
  3. Download our MS Society email technical guide: Apple (iOS) devices

Office 365 on your Apple or Android device

Office 365 is only supported by newer versions of mobile device operating systems:

  • Apple - iOS 11 or above
  • Android - Android 7 or above

This means you may not be able to use Office 365 on 4th generation iPad, iPhone 5, iPhone 5C or older Android devices.

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Password reset

  1. Find out more about MS Society email password self reset or watch a short video on how to register for the self-reset service.

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Data protection and MS Society email

MS Society email is a secure system for receiving and storing people’s personal information that helps us to protect their rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Under the GDPR, there are specific rules for dealing with emails. You must follow these rules whenever you send, receive and store email communications on our behalf.

  1. See our Email rules

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How to upgrade your MS Society email account

1. Complete your group’s upgrade form

You will need to let us know:

  • Your group name
  • The main contact person for the upgrade, and their email address
  • The names of volunteers requesting an email account
  • Their volunteer roles
  • If any of your Support Volunteers should also be added to the main group inbox
  • Which two volunteers you would like to have permissions to delete emails from your shared folder
  1. Complete your group’s MS Society email upgrade form

2. Ensure everyone completes GDPR training

  • Any volunteers who have not completed our Data protection for GDPR eLearning will be sent a link to do so as soon as possible
  • Your individual log ins will be set up when everyone has completed the online training
  1. Find out more about Data protection for GDPR eLearning

3. Receive your log ins and guidance

  • You will have two weeks to test out your upgrade
  • If you have any problems during this time, support is available from [email protected]
  • At the end of two weeks, your account will be automatically upgraded

4. Your upgraded account is ready to use

  • You will have access to view your old email account for a further six months, but you will not be able to send or receive emails from it.

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If you are a new volunteer

If you are a new volunteer, or you take on a new role or tasks with a group that has already upgraded their MS Society email, follow this process to set up your MS Society email account.

1. Confirm that your role or tasks meet our MS Society email criteria

We expect volunteers who perform certain tasks or hold specific roles to use an MS Society email address.

  1. See our MS Society email user guide
  2. Learn about Who needs to use MS Society email?

2. Submit your request

If your volunteer role or tasks meet our criteria:

  • Contact your Group Coordinator or Volunteer Support Team to request your MS Society email address. Make sure to include a personal email address we can use to contact you throughout the process.

  • Your Group Coordinator will submit your request to our Volunteer Support Team at [email protected] and they will confirm which shared inboxes you should be given access to.

3. Complete GDPR training

You must complete Data Protection for GDPR eLearning before we activate your MS Society email account. We will send a link to your personal email address.

  1. Find out more about Data protection for GDPR eLearning

4. Receive your log in

Your MS Society email address is now ready to use.

  1. Find out more about getting started in our MS Society email technical guide

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Need support?

Volunteer Support Team

Our Volunteer Support Team is your key source of support when using MS Society email. Contact us if you can’t find the answer to your question in our MS Society email resources.

  1. Get contact details for our Volunteer Support Team

Reporting a data breach

A ‘data breach’ is any situation where personal data is made insecure.

You must speak to our Data Governance Team to report any potential data breach immediately. We are required to inform the Information Commissioner’s Office of a breach within 72 hours of any volunteer or member of staff becoming aware of it.

  1. Get contact details for our Data Governance Team

Reporting a lost or stolen mobile device

As soon as you become aware that your device is missing, contact IT Lab, our IT support service, to inform them. They will initiate a partial wipe to remove all MS Society data and reset your MS Society email password with you.

  1. Get contact details for IT Lab

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