Find the Number of Contacts Served in Outlook with Microsoft 365
This guide will help you estimate how many contacts you serve each month if you’re currently using Outlook with a Microsoft 365 user to manage your customer email. Knowing the contacts served number can help you choose the right Help Scout plan.
Using a platform other than Microsoft? Check Find the Number of Contacts Served to Pick Your Plan where we have guides for other providers.
You can find a more detailed explanation of how a contact is counted in Manage Your Contact-Based Plan: What is a Contact?
Choose Your Method
There are two methods to estimate the number of emails a user has sent during a time period in Outlook with Microsoft 365, which will give you an approximate number of contacts in Help Scout starting out.
The easiest and most complete way to find the information for a user is for your Microsoft 365 administrator to pull the information from reports.
If your Microsoft 365 administrator is not available to get this information, or if your organization is using a Microsoft 365 shared mailbox instead of a full user, you can use Outlook Search Folders to get a rougher idea of the number. tilt
We highly recommend reaching out to your Microsoft 365 administrator (if that's not you!) to get the report data, as it will be more complete information.
Note: If your group email address is assigned to a shared mailbox or a distribution list in Microsoft 365 rather than a full user, there is not a foolproof way to estimate the number of contacts. If you're not sure how your mailbox is set up, reach out to your Microsoft 365 administrator or Microsoft support for more help.
Choose the option that's best for you
Microsoft 365 Admin Reports
Log into the Microsoft 365 admin center as a user that has permission to change settings and access reports. Microsoft's help on who can see reports is here: Microsoft Learn: Who can see reports.
Change Settings to Show Identifying Information in Reports
By default, Microsoft 365 hides user information in reports, which means the first step you'll need to take is to change the settings so that you can ensure you're looking at the data for the correct user.
From the main admin center page, click ... Show all in the left navigation menu to expand all options, then click Settings > Org settings.
Click Reports in the list in the center, then uncheck Display concealed user, group, and site names in all reports, then click Save.
View Report for the User
Click Reports > Usage in the left navigation menu. Note: Reports default to the last 30 days, but check the date selection in the top right corner to make sure that you're viewing that selection.
Choose Exchange and scroll down in the middle to find the user list. The Send actions column will show how many emails that user sent in the last 30 days. In our example below, the support user has 206 send actions, which would be a good estimate to start with for your contacts at Help Scout.
Use Search Folders in Outlook
This method will use Search Folders in Outlook to show a count of sent messages in a mailbox. This will only work in Outlook that has been installed on a device — the online version at Outlook.com does not offer the options you'll need to do this.
Note: This will only count the sent items that have been saved in the sent items forlder for this specific mailbox. This count may not be complete if your users delete emails from the sent items or use other send options in Microsoft 365, such as the Send As or Send on Behalf of options. Reach out to your Microsoft 365 administrator for help if you are not sure how your mailbox is used.
In the list of folders for your mailbox in Outlook, you'll find an option called Search Folders. Click it and choose New search folder.
Scroll down to find the Custom section and choose Create a custom Search Folder, then Choose....
Name it "Send last month", then choose Criteria....
Click the dropdown list in the Time: field at the bottom of the form and choose sent. Then click the dropdown to the left and choose Last Month, then click OK.
Click Browse... under the Mail from these folders will be included in this Search Folder section and select only the Sent Items folder. Make sure that you unselect any folders other than Sent Items. Then click OK.
Click on the new Send last month folder under Search Folders, then look for the Items: count under the folder list to see how many items are in that folder.
