Chapter 1: Managing Your Company E-Mail AL In This Chapter ✓ Letting Outlook handle e-mail while you’re out of the office RI ✓ Getting someone else to handle your e-mail and appointments TE ✓ Managing Mail and Calendar for someone else O TE D MA utlook makes handling life’s little nuisances pretty easy. For example, Outlook can automatically organize and categorize incoming mail, remind you to leave early for a dentist’s appointment, and even nag you to pick up your laundry.
802 Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone Every time I leave the office for even just the afternoon, I return to find my Inbox full of messages. Some are junk, and some are important. But I don’t know which until I take the time to go through them all.
Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone 803 If you want to limit the time when Automatic Replies is active (for example, you want to set it up to work while you’re on vacation next week, but not actually turn it on right now), then set the appropriate dates and times for Start Time and End Time. Book X Chapter 1 Managing Your Company E-Mail Figure 1-1: Automatic Replies: One assistant you don’t have to hire. 5.
804 Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone If you select the My Contacts Only radio button, the contact who e-mails you must appear in your Exchange Contacts list — either the main list or one that you create. The contact can’t appear only in a Contacts list in an offline folder or a personal folder you’re using with a POP3, IMAP, or HTTP account. 8. Click OK to finalize your choices and turn Automatic Replies on. Figure 1-2: Create a message for people outside your company.
Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone 805 Letting rules control mail while you’re away By using the Rules Wizard, you can create a set of rules to handle your e-mail while you’re out — for example, you can move e-mail from one folder to another, forward it to a colleague, or delete it. These rules are different from the ones I discuss in Book IX, Chapter 2, in that they come into effect only when you turn on Automatic Replies.
806 Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone For example, maybe you want to do something special when an e-mail arrives from your boss or one that has a Subject line that includes Blackford account, or just Blackford. For the lowdown on how to select conditions that define the e-mail you want to affect and to set advanced rules options, see Book IX, Chapter 2. 6.
Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone 807 10. Click OK. The rule is added to your other Out of Office rules, and you’re returned to the Automatic Reply Rules dialog box. 11. To create more rules, just click the Add Rule button, and then rinse and repeat Steps 4 to 9. 12. To finish adding rules, click OK to dismiss the Automatic Reply Rules dialog box, then click OK again to dismiss the Automatic Replies dialog box.
08 Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone 5. Make changes, click OK to close the Edit Rule dialog box, click OK to finalize changes to Automatic Reply Rules, and then click OK in the Automatic Replies dialog box to close it. In other words, OK, OK, OK, enough already. Figure 1-6: Rules aren’t set in stone. To change the order in which rules are applied, follow these steps: 1. Click the File tab to display Backstage, and select Info from the list on the left.
Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone 809 1. Click the File tab to display Backstage, and select Info from the list on the left. The Account Information options appear on the right. 2. Click the Automatic Replies button. The Automatic Replies dialog box appears. 3. Click the Rules button. The Automatic Reply Rules dialog box appears. Refer to Figure 1-5. 4. Select a rule that you want to delete. 5. Click the Delete Rule button. 6. Click OK when you finish.
810 Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone 3. Type the message that you want people to receive while you’re gone. Looking ahead, remember that Outlook, being a bit of a control freak, keeps track of each and every e-mail you receive while you’re gone and sends the reply only once to each address, even if somebody sends you a bunch of e-mail. So keep that in mind when you design your message.
Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone 811 Because you saved your message as a template and don’t want to send it to anyone just now, don’t save any changes to the message. In the dialog box that appears, click No. After you create a template for your out-of-office replies, follow these steps to create a rule to use that template: 1.
812 Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone Figure 1-8: The Rules Wizard steps you through the process of creating an e-mail rule. Figure 1-9: Send out auto-replies using a template. 7. Click the A Specific Template link that appears in the bottom of the page. The Select a Reply Template dialog box opens. (See the foreground in Figure 1-9.
Letting Automatic Replies Handle Mail While You’re Gone 813 8. Select User Templates in File System from the Look In drop-down list. 9. In the list box, select the template you just created and click Open. The Select a Reply Template dialog box closes. 10. Click Next. The Are There Any Exceptions? page of the Wizard appears. 11. Select any exceptions from the Are There Any Exceptions list. 12. Click Next. The Finish Rule Setup page of the Wizard appears. 13.
814 Assigning a Delegate to Handle E-Mail and Appointments 3. If you no longer need the rule for any other purpose in the future, then to delete it, click Delete, and respond to the dialog box by clicking Yes. 4. Click OK to save your changes.
Assigning a Delegate to Handle E-Mail and Appointments 815 sent). When people get these meeting/task replies, however, the From field reads something like Delegate Name on behalf of Manager Name. That way, people know you’re not actually responding, but someone acting on your behalf is. For very special delegates, you can adjust the permissions to allow them to do even more — basically acting as your replacement.
816 Assigning a Delegate to Handle E-Mail and Appointments 4. From the list of people, select a workhorse (uh, delegate) whom you want to take over your job while you’re gone. Click Add, and then click OK. The Delegate Permissions dialog box appears. 5. Choose the modules (such as Calendar or Tasks) you want to delegate to the people you’ve chosen, and change their level of access as needed by selecting a permission level from the appropriate drop-down list.
Assigning a Delegate to Handle E-Mail and Appointments 817 6. To create a message to your delegate that summarizes the permissions you’ve just set, select the Automatically Send a Message to Delegate Summarizing These Permissions check box. 7. To allow your delegate to see items that you’ve marked as private, select the Delegate Can See My Private Items check box. This option allows a delegate to see all private items in your Exchange data file, regardless of the folder they’re in. 8.
818 Assigning a Delegate to Handle E-Mail and Appointments 10. Click OK. If you select the Automatically Send a Message to Delegate Summarizing These Permissions option in Step 6, your delegate gets an e-mail letting him know his duties and the permission levels you set. Your delegate can now take over the tasks (replying to meeting requests, for example) that you’ve assigned.
Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar 819 5. Repeat Step 3 for other modules, as desired. 6. Click OK to close the Delegate Permissions dialog box, and then click OK to close the Delegate dialog box. You can also remove a delegate altogether, which you may want to do after you get back to work, by following these steps: 1. Click the File tab, to display Backstage, and select Info from the list on the left. The Account Information options appear on the right. 2.
820 Assigning a Delegate to Handle E-Mail and Appointments . . . Displaying somebody else’s folders When someone sets you up as a delegate, you get an e-mail that details exactly which folders you have access to and what you can do in them. You probably want to display that person’s folders in your Outlook right away so that you can keep an eye on them.
Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar 821 Book X Chapter 1 Managing Your Company E-Mail Figure 1-14: The Change Account Wizard. 6. Click OK to dismiss the Microsoft Exchange dialog box. You return to the Change Account Wizard. 7. Click Next. Outlook has a little message of congratulations for you in this last page of this most flamboyant wizard. 8. Click Finish. The Account Settings dialog box peeks back out. 9. Click Close and restart Outlook.
822 Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar If the person whose name you typed has granted you access to some or all of her folders, you can access her folders from the Navigation pane within the appropriate module. For example, if you have Editor access to the calendar so that you can handle meeting requests and replies, you also have permission to view that person’s calendar and to make appointments and events.
Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar 823 Book X Chapter 1 Figure 1-16: Spying on another user, kinda. Managing Your Company E-Mail Figure 1-15: Now you can access the folders.
824 Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar If, for some reason, you don’t have access to the folder that you want to open, a message dialog box appears, asking whether you want to request access. Click Yes, and Outlook will open up a message form showing the formal request for access sharing. The recipient only needs to accept your request automatically, and the sharing process will begin immediately.
Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar 825 Here is where you see the request’s true recipient. Book X Chapter 1 Managing Your Company E-Mail Figure 1-17: As delegate, you can open up somebody else’s requests. 3. To see the subject of the meeting request on the calendar, double-click the meeting in the request. Outlook switches to the Calendar module. There, the requested time shows up in a calendar specifically marked for the other person, not for you.
826 Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar prefer to select Edit the Response Before Sending — this way, you can explain to people that you believe, on behalf of that other person, that he or she is definitely, certainly not sure.
Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar 827 2. Click the New Items button on the Home tab and select either Meeting or Task from the pop-up menu that appears. Create the meeting or task request in the way you would for a meeting or task of your own. For help in creating meeting requests, see Book IV, Chapter 4. For help with task requests, see Book VI, Chapter 3. 3. Click Send. When a colleague receives the meeting or task request, he sees that you created it, but on behalf of someone else.
828 Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar 4. In the From box, type the name of the person for which you’re creating the e-mail . Alternatively, click the From button and select the name from the Choose Sender dialog box by selecting a name from the list and clicking OK. See the foreground of Figure 1-18. After you click OK, you’re returned to the Send From Other E-Mail Address dialog box. Yes, you can choose any name from this list, and you may even think you’re sending a message as that person.
Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar 829 To reply to somebody else’s e-mail for whom you’re acting as delegate, you need to be able to view the contents of his or her Inbox first. See the section “Displaying somebody else’s folders,” earlier in this chapter, for help. After you display his or her Inbox, follow these steps to reply to messages: 1. In your colleague’s Inbox, select the message to which you want to reply. 2. Click Reply. A message form appears, as shown in Figure 1-19.
830 Managing Someone Else’s E-Mail and Calendar Follow these steps to deal with someone else’s appointments: 1. Select your colleague’s calendar in the Navigation pane to make it active. If the calendar doesn’t appear on the Navigation pane, see the section “Displaying somebody else’s folders,” earlier in this chapter, for more info. 2. Click the New Appointment button on the Home tab. An appointment form appears. 3.
