For most of us, Outlook is a “treasure(Data) chest” with so much valuable information related to our work, business, clients etc.

In an earlier post, we have discussed the importance of maintaining your Outlook Data files especially if you have been using it for a long time or you could suddenly (i.e. without warning) end up with a corrupted Outlook data file with Outlook no longer able to open your emails.

If you find that your Outlook is slower than normal, crashes or freezes often, one of the first troublshooting steps you should try before doing uninstallation and reinstallation of Outlook is creating a New Profile. A new profile is also recommended when you are upgrading to the latest version of Outlook.

You can follow the steps below to create a new profile:

• Ensure that Outlook is closed
• Open Control Panel
• Open the Mail Setup dialog box: If you use the Category view, look for the Mail Setup dialog box in the User Accounts category.
• In the Mail Setup dialog box, click Show Profiles.
• On the General tab, under When starting Microsoft Office Outlook, use this profile: click Prompt for a profile to be used, and then click Add.

• In the Profile Name box, type the name that you want to use for the new email profile, and then click OK.
• In the E-mail Accounts dialog box, click Add a new e-mail account, and then click Next.
• Click the appropriate server type for your new email account, and then click Next.
• Type your account information in the required boxes, and then click Next.
• Click Finish, and then click OK.

To add your existing personal data store to the new Profile:

• After you click Finish in the profile wizard, select the new profile from the Mail dialog and choose Properties > click Email Accounts > click view or change email accounts.
• Select New Outlook data file and find your existing PST, add it to the profile and set it as the default.
• Click OK until you are back to the Email Accounts dialog and select the PST you just added in the “Deliver new e-mail to the following location” menu.
• When you return to the Mail Setup dialog, choose Data Files and remove the extra personal folders from your profile.

If you open Outlook, you will now get a prompt to select the profile you would like to use.

Do you have any other remedies to solve the issues discussed above?

Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Why you may want to show contacts on Outlook Appointments?

Having your contacts linked to the Outlook Calendar appointment lets you see all the people associated with the appointment. In case you need to reschedule the appointment, you can simply get more information about the contact (like phone number) directly from the appointment screen and make a call to inform them of the reschedule.

Apart from being able to get information about the contact straight from the Appointments screen, the appointment will also appear in the Activities tab of contact record and also in the People pane when you receive an email from the contact.

How to display Outlook Contacts on Appointments?

The first thing you need to do is to make the Contacts field visible on your Appointment form. In the versions prior to Outlook 2007, the Contacts field was always available on the Appointment form, but this feature was disabled by default in the later versions.

To enable Contacts button on the Appointment form in Outlook 2010 and 2007:

• In Outlook 2010, click on File > Options > click Contacts from the left pane
• Tick the option “Show contacts linked to the current item“
• Click OK

• In Outlook 2007, click Tools > Options…
• Under the Preferences tab, click the Contacts Option… button
• Tick the option “Show contact linking on all Forms“
• Click OK and then OK again

To start attaching contacts to an appointment:

• Go to your Calendar folder and create a new Appointment, you will find the Contacts button as shown below:

• Say for example you want to create a meeting with Sanjay Singh of Standss (South Pacific) Limited. Simply click on the Contacts button, select Sanjay Singh from your contacts list and click OK.
• Click Save and Close to create the appointment.

You can also link contacts to other Outlook items such as Tasks, Journal, Notes etc following similar steps.

Let us know if you find this tip useful by leaving a comment below.

It’s a matter of personal choice what you wish to add in your email signatures but it is best to keep signatures as small as possible but still convey enough information to help the reader and represent you.

Here are some things you might want to include in your signature:

ESSENTIAL

• Your Name (obviously)
• Your Phone Number (don’t lose out on a sale just because you’ve made it hard for someone to call you for more information)
• Your website URL (makes it easy for them to find out more about your company by clicking on a link)

OPTIONAL

• SMALL corporate logo and slogan (for branding purposes)
• SMALL Picture of yourself usually instead of the corporate logo (depends on the nature of your business… better suited to people in sales… or where you are the brand you are promoting)
• Links to follow you on Twitter, Facebook etc (can be useful for social media marketing)

A WASTE OF TIME

Email Address (they can just click reply… don’t waste space at the bottom of your email)

Did we miss something? Let us know by leaving a comment on the blog.

Do you subscribe to any email newsletters, mailing lists or groups?

I often find myself going to check my email and 30 minutes later all I have done is read through “interesting” articles instead of doing any real work.

Microsoft’s built-in Rules feature provides a solution.

Normally I don’t use Rules much because…

My Inbox is my To-Do list.

I don’t want anything automatically moved out of it. Even Outlook automatically moving items after they are read is NOT acceptable because I sometimes leave stuff in there to deal with later.

I want to move emails out myself after I have finished with them – I need to stay in control of my Inbox.

I use QuickFile 4Outlook to simplify email filing out of my Inbox (and Sent Items).

But in this situation it makes sense…

I want the newsletter emails moved out of my Inbox and into a folder dedicated to newsletters.

These emails are not part of my daily to-do-list and I prefer to go through them when I take a break from real work.

How to create a Rule

BEFORE creating the Rule, create a folder inside Outlook where you want the newsletter emails to be moved to. Then…

• Go to your Inbox.
• In Outlook 2010, click on File > Manage Rules and Alerts
  In Outlook 2007 and 2003, click Tools > click Rules & Alerts
• Click New Rule to display the Rules Wizard.

• “Move Messages from someone to a folder” will already be highlighted. (This example assumes that the newsletters come from the same email address – otherwise you can use one of the other predefined Rule Templates)
• Click “people or distribution list” to display the Rule Address screen.

• Choose a name from the list or type in the name in the From field and then click OK.
• Click the hyperlinked word “specified” to bring up the Choose Folder dialog. Select the desired folder from the list and then click OK.

Now that the Rule is created, any emails coming from the list will automatically be moved to the chosen folder.

You can also apply it to any emails that are already in the folder by going back to the Rules and Alerts screen and clicking the “Run Rules Now” button.

Use Rules in this way to move emails that you know are NOT part of your REAL WORK.

This keeps your Inbox clean and focussed on things that need your attention.

OPTIONAL RELATED OUTLOOK ADDIN: I recommend that you don’t use Rules to shift work related emails. Instead use QuickFile for Outlook addin to move emails AFTER you have finished with them.

QuickFile PRO for Outlook also has a special Newsletters feature which moves emails to a dedicated folder AND also reminds you once a day (at time of your choice) to look at newsletters.

Did you find this tip helpful? let us know by leaving a comment below.

So why don’t I use Outlook Rules?

You might be aware of this phrase “Out of Sight, Out of Mind“, this is exactly what could happen if you let rules control your inbox. You might receive an important email from a client but even before you sight it, the email would be moved to a different folder leaving you unaware (and you most likely won’t take the required action).

I like to see ALL emails that I have not read or I have read but not taken action yet in one place… my Inbox… in fact the Inbox shows me the emails that I still need to work on.

I don’t use Rules because emails would be moved out of the Inbox before I’ve had a chance to even read them.

I move the emails out of the Inbox AFTER I have finished with it.

You can move the emails manually (by dragging and dropping) or…

You can use an Outlook addin like QuickFile for Outlook which speeds up the process. QuickFile lets you file up to 90% of emails at the click of one button by displaying an additional button inside Outlook for you. The button displays and links to the folder you are most likely to file the currently selected/open email.

This gives you more control over your Inbox and how emails are to be handled.

Next week I’ll have a post on when it makes sense to use Rules.

What are your views on the use of Outlook Rules? let us know by leaving a comment below.

Related Post

Take Control of Your E-mail Inbox

Today’s post is just a follow-up to that as we realised you could do much more then just snoozing from the reminder pop-up screen.

Do you get annoyed when the reminder pop-up appears with Tasks that you might have completed already?

You are so busy that you just didnt find the time to go to the task folder to Mark it as complete.

Here is the easier way to mark Tasks as complete (without browsing all the way to the task folder).

The next time the reminder pop-up appears with completed tasks:

• Right-click on the task
• Click Mark Complete
• Done!!!

Apart from marking task complete, you can also open it incase you need to edit or you could Delete it, all from the same pop-up window.Easy right?

I hope you find this tip useful.

Do you know of other ways to do things easily in Outlook? Share it with our readers and us by leaving a comment below.

source: lawyerist.com

BUT the overwhelming part is when you are in the middle of something very important and the Reminder Pop-up comes with several tasks. There is two things you might do at this point:

1. Click on the red X button to close the Pop-up screen or
2. Select each individual task and set a snooze time for it to reappear later

The second option is time-consuming and frustrating when you’re in a middle of something important and have no time to waste.

Get frustrated no more, here is a simple tip that will let you “Select All” Tasks and snooze them all at once:

When the Reminder Pop-up appears:

• Select the First item in the list
• Press Shift on your keyword
• Select the Last item. This should now select all the items in the list as shown below:

• Set the Snooze time from the drop-down
• Click Snooze

This should now snooze all the items in the list to the time specified by you so you can continue with your important task on hand.

For more Reminder Tips, you can refer to an interesting article by Deborah Savadra on Managing Microsoft Outlook Reminders.

Did you find this tip useful? let us know by leaving a comment below.

Most of us would say:

• Go to the Calendar
• Change to Week View or Month View and BROWSE to the future date

You are right, this is one way of doing this BUT there is a much easier and faster way to JUMP to the future date.

Here is how you can jump straight to a future date:

• Open Outlook
• Go to the Calendar
• Press CTRL+G on your keyword. This brings up a screen as show below:

• In the Date: field, enter the future date e.g. 20-1-12
• From the Show in: drop-down list select the view you would prefer
• Click OK

You will now jump straight to the date entered, all you have to do is enter your appointment in the required time slot, Faster right?

Hope you find this tip useful.

If you know of other ways to make the use of Calendar easier and faster, let us know by leaving a comment below.

In this post, I will show you how to set both the reminders while writing the email.

Set Auto-Reminders for your Recipients

• Open Outlook
• Create a new email
• On the Ribbon, click Follow-up > Add Reminder…

• On the screen that appears, tick the checkbox “Flag for Recipients“
• Tick the Reminder: checkbox
• Select the Date and Time for the reminder to appear in the recipients Outlook

Set Auto-Reminder for Yourself

• On the same screen that you set the reminder for the recipient as above, tick the checkbox “Flag for me“
• Select the Start and Due Date
• Tick the Reminder: checkbox
• Select the Date and Time for the reminder to appear in your Outlook

Now on the date and time you have set, a reminder will automatically appear in the recipients and your Outlook. This way either of you are likely to follow-up on the  email in case it has not been dealt with.

If you find this tip useful, you may also want to check out Deborah Savadra’s Make your Outlook email messages un-ignorable on the Legal Office Guru (which reminded me of this topic).

Do you have your own methods of setting reminders in Outlook, please share it with us by leaving a comment below.

• Go to your Outlook Today Page
• Click Customize Outlook Today (top right corner).
• Click the Choose Folders button. Tick all the relevant folders and then click OK.
• Click Save Changes to return to your Outlook Today page. The number of unread emails in your chosen folders will now be displayed.

Some uses of this tip:

Know where Rules have moved emails

This is particularly useful if you use Rules to move emails out of your Inbox. The problem with doing that is remembering to look at the folders later to see if they have any new emails that need your attention. Use this technique to have a dashboard that tells you how many unread emails are in various folders that are important to you.

View how many newsletter emails you still need to read

QuickFile PRO for Outlook - get more productive by setting up QuickFile to automatically shift non-urgent emails such as newsletters etc. to a dedicated folder for later reading. You may want to add the folder Inbox\Newsletters (QuickFile) to your Today page too as shown in the image above..

Do you have other clever uses of the Outlook Today page. Please let us know by leaving a comment on this page.