Mastering Microsoft Outlook

Mastering

Microsoft

®

Outlook

®

The Smart Choice®

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Manage E-mail with Flags, Tags and Clean Up Commands ...3

How to Organize E-mail Folders ...8

Modify Calendar Views ...10

Create Appointments ...12

Schedule Meetings ...14

How to Print from Outlook® ...16

Manage E-mail with Flags, Tags and Clean Up Commands

SkillSteps—To flag a message in Outlook® Home > Follow Up

Managing e-mail refers to how you handle the avalanche of messages you receive each day. Do you start from the top of the list and work down? Do you hunt for the least important messages and delete them before you begin rummaging through the remainder?

Is that a process?

There are many ways to “process” your mail. The goal of your e-mail processing strategy is to be effective, to be organized and to be productive.

Outlook® provides a number of features to help you be more productive … special shortcuts for “processing” your mail.

Follow-up Flags

Follow-Up Flags are tags you can attach to messages that create a to-do item from a message. Why would you attach a flag to a message? Flags make it easier to prioritize e-mail and identify those messages that are most urgent and important (with a bright red flag).

To attach a tag manually, click the small flag on the message and select a flag.

In the following screenshot, once you’ve attached a Follow-up Flag to a message (1), you’ll see a new to-do item in the To-Do bar area of your screen (2). The title of the to-do item will be created from the subject line of the message.

Strategy: Attaching flags is equivalent to assigning priorities to a list of to-do items. If an e-mail is

urgent and important, put a follow-up of “Today.” If it’s important but less urgent, plan to follow it up “Tomorrow.” If it’s nether important nor urgent, assign a “Next Week” flag. If it’s urgent but not important, put a “This Week” flag on it.

The following is an illustration of this prioritization strategy. It mirrors Dr. Stephen Covey’s four quadrant time management matrix:

Categories

You can rename the default categories and you can create additional ones.

SkillSteps—To create or modify the default list of color categories Home > Categorize > All Categories … > Rename (or New … )

There are many ways to assign a category.

 Categories can be assigned using shortcut keys which have been configured in the Color Categories dialog box

 Categories can be assigned by Rules you define and which will automatically assign a category to a mailbox item

 Categories can be assigned using Quick Steps which are custom commands you define and use to manage the items in your mailbox

Categories are available across all the Outlook® workspaces

 Categories can be assigned to messages, appointments, meetings, people and tasks  Outlook® items (messages, appointments, meetings, people, and tasks) can be grouped

by Categories

 Outlook® items (messages, appointments, meetings, people and tasks) can be filtered by Categories

Clean Up Commands

A third method of managing your inbox utilizes the array of commands that help you de-clutter your inbox.

Delete moves the current message to the deleted items folder. Use this command when you want to

remove a message from your inbox.

Ignore will move the current message and all subsequent messages that are part of the same

conversation to the deleted items folder. Messages that share the same subject line are considered part

of a thread, a conversation.

SkillTip: It’s important to understand what is meant by a conversation. A conversation begins with

a single message and includes all the responses (and responses to responses) that it spawns with the

same subject.

The following screenshot displays a conversation whose subject is, “Let’s Start a Conversation.”

Clean Up provides a list of Clean Up commands that are built to remove redundant messages.

 Clean Up Conversation removes redundant messages from the current thread of messages  Clean Up Folder removes redundant messages from all the separate conversations in the

current folder

 Clean Up Folder & Subfolders removes redundant messages from all the separate conversations in the current folder and its subfolders

In short, the Clean Up commands are tools for users with overflowing inboxes who need to get rid of the clutter created by unimportant messages and unnecessary duplicate messages.

Junk provides a menu of options with which to tag Senders and Recipients as either safe or suspicious.

Safe senders have their messages delivered to your inbox. Suspicious messages suspected of being “junk e-mail” will be blocked and diverted to your Junk e-mail folder.

SkillTip: Monitor the messages in your Junk E-mail folder to determine if some of the senders should

How to Organize E-mail Folders

SkillSteps—To create a new e-mail folder in Outlook® Mail > Folder > New Folder

When you are working in the E-mail workspace the navigation panel on the left side of the screen displays a collection of e-mail folders (containers).

By default, e-mail arrives and is placed by Outlook® in your Inbox folder. Outlook® uses other folders to group messages.

 Messages that have been written, but not sent, remain in your Drafts folder  Messages that are sent … but awaiting transmission … are stored in your Outbox  Messages that are sent, are copied automatically into your Sent Items folder

 Messages that are received, but deemed to be “junk,” are stored in the Junk E-mail folder  The RSS Feeds folder displays messages from Really Simple Syndication publishers to which

you’ve subscribed

 Search Folders dynamically displays messages that match search criteria While these are the default folders, you can create your own.

Folder Strategies

There are a number of possible folder strategies. It’s important to have one, otherwise your e-mail folders will multiply and become overgrown… no better than those old “bulging file cabinets,” relics of the 20th century.

Strategy #1: Have your e-mail folders mirror your document library structure to make message

storage consistent with document storage.

Strategy #2: Have only one e-mail folder, name it “Processed Mail,” and use Search folders to

group messages based on your categories rather than needing to organize messages by “foldering” them yourself.

In this way, all your mail is processed and then stored in a single folder named “Processed Mail.” Your messages are automatically grouped by the built-in search criteria you define when you create a Search folder.

Modify Calendar Views

While storing appointments and meetings on your calendar, you can change the way those commitments are displayed.

Meetings and appointments can be displayed as a simple list or they can be displayed on a calendar.

SkillSteps—To change a calendar view in Outlook® Calendar > View > Change View

There are a number of built-in Calendar views in Outlook®, you can see their names on the View tab of the Ribbon.

When you are in a list view of the Calendar, you can arrange the list in a number of ways:  By Categories

 By Start Date  By Recurrence  By Location

The Weather Bar

In the Calendar workspace, you can view a Weather Bar below the Ribbon. You can customize the city whose weather is displayed and configure multiple locations.

SkillSteps—To modify Weather Bar options File > Options > Calendar > Weather

Customizing List and Calendar Views

Create Appointments

To Microsoft® Outlook®, an appointment is not the same thing as a meeting.

An appointment is an event which does not track attendees. It’s just a time commitment. Examples of appointments:

 Each morning from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. you are planning to process e-mail  Each day from 11 a.m. to noon you are planning to return phone calls  A dentist appointment is scheduled for Friday at 4 p.m.

A meeting is a type of appointment for which you send out invitations and track responses. Examples of meetings:

 In two weeks you’re hosting a conference call with three co-workers

 Next Friday you’re hosting a kickoff meeting for the new project with your team

SkillSteps—To create a new appointment Calendar > Home > New Appointment

When you select New Appointment you’ll be able to define:  Subject

 Location  Start Time  End Time

The default start date and time will display the currently selected date (and time) in your calendar. (You can change it by typing or choosing a different date and time.)

SkillTip: Did you know Outlook® enables you to type descriptive dates like “next Friday” or “two weeks

SkillTip: If you are scheduling a meeting or appointment in a time zone different from your current

computer time zone, make sure you display and use the time zone fields by clicking Time Zone in the Appointment tab of the Ribbon.

Other Appointment Settings

Schedule Meetings

SkillSteps—To schedule a new meeting in Outlook® Calendar > Home > New Meeting

The Meeting Invitation Dialog box will provide a “To … ” field that enables you to send meeting invitations to the other invitees.

The Scheduling Assistant button on the Ribbon enables you to find out the availability of others invited to your meeting.

SkillTip: The Scheduling Assistant is only as accurate as the calendars to which you are connecting. If

When an invitee receives your invitation and processes the message, they will be able to respond by choosing:

 Accept  Tentative  Decline

 Propose New Time  Respond

How to Print from Outlook

SkillSteps—To print from the calendar workspace in Outlook® Calendar > File > Print

Backstage you’ll be able to preview one of six layouts:  Daily Style

 Weekly Agenda Style  Weekly Calendar Style  Monthly Style

 Tri-fold Style

 Calendar Details Style

BONUS MATERIAL

Keyboard Shortcuts

For lovers of shortcuts, here is an Outlook® keyboard shortcuts checklist. How many do you know?

h F1 Help

h F3 Find a message or other item

h F4 Find and Replace

h F7 Check Spelling

h F9 Check for new messages

h F11 Find a contact

h Esc Cancel/Clear search results

h Ctrl + 1 Switch to Mail

h Ctrl + 2 Switch to Calendar

h Ctrl + 3 Switch to People

h Ctrl + 4 Switch to Tasks

h Ctrl + 5 Switch to Notes

h Ctrl + 6 Switch to Folder List in Folder Pane

h Ctrl + 7 Switch to Shortcuts

h Ctrl + D Delete an item

h Ctrl + E Find a message or other item

h Ctrl + F Forward a Message

h Ctrl + K Insert a hyperlink into a message

h Ctrl + N Create something new (message in Mail, appointment in Calendar, e.g.)

h Ctrl + P Print

h Ctrl + Q Mark message as Read

h Ctrl + R Reply to a Message

h Ctrl + U Mark message as Unread

h Ctrl + Z Undo

h Ctrl + Enter Send

h Ctrl + Shift + K Create a task

h Ctrl + Shift + L Create a contact group h Ctrl + Shift + M Create a message h Ctrl + Shift + N Create a note h Ctrl + Shift + O Switch to the Outbox h Ctrl + Shift + P Create a Search Folder

h Ctrl + Shift + P Display the Font dialog box (when editing a message) h Ctrl + Shift + Q Create a meeting request

h Ctrl + Shift + X Create a fax

Drag and Drop Shortcuts

In Outlook® you can often drag a message or a contact onto a calendar or another area of the screen with the right mouse button and find useful choices.

When Outlook

_{Is Slow}

Here are a number of advanced tactics people use to speed up Microsoft® Outlook®. If Outlook® is slow, consider these ideas.

1. Keep your computer up to date with the latest patches and fixes published by Microsoft® using Windows Update

2. Archive your inbox. Split your data into years by grouping and moving old Mailbox items to a personal storage table (.pst) file.

3. Configure your mailbox to use Cached Exchange Mode which stores a local copy of messages locally on your computer

4. Compact your PST file

5. Reduce Published and Shared Calendars. Use SharePoint® calendars. 6. Disable Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

How to Use Basic E-mail Functions

SkillSteps—To work with e-mail in the Mail workspace Mail > Home

The basic e-mail functions are:  New E-mail

 Delete  Reply  Forward

You’ll find each of these on the Home tab of the Ribbon when you are working in the “Mail” workspace of Outlook®.

Once you’ve written a new message or begun to reply or forward an existing message, Outlook® will add the Send button beside your new message.

The Reading Pane Commands

In Outlook®, the Send, Reply, Reply All, and Forward commands (that were once available only on the Ribbon) are now displayed in the Reading Pane area of the screen. If you are displaying a Reading Pane for your e-mail, you’ll find “Reply,” “Reply All” and “Forward” are clickable there. Using these choices is called using an “Inline Reply.”

How to Navigate Outlook

_Help

SkillSteps—To display the Help window in Outlook®

Press F1 or click the Help button (question mark) near the top right corner of your Outlook® window.

The Help window provides hyperlinks to more detailed information on “What’s new with Outlook,” “Outlook keyboard shortcuts,” and other online sources of Outlook® information.

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