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Archive for Outlook 2010

Linking Contacts to Calendar Appointments in Outlook

Posted by: standss | Comments (0)

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

[A hidden but very useful feature of Outlook appointments is that you can link contacts to them. Here’s why and how.]

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.

Categories : Outlook Calendar Tip, Outlook Contacts Tips, Outlook as a Business Tool

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When and How to let Outlook Rules Control your Inbox

Posted by: standss | Comments (0)

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

Last week we discussed why you should NOT let Outlook rules take control of your Inbox. This week I’d like to show you why it makes perfect sense to use Rules to process your newsletter emails.

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.

Outlook 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.

Rule Address

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.

Categories : Outlook Email Filing & Management Tip, Outlook Email Tips, Outlook as a Business Tool, QuickFile for Outlook

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Outlook Reminder Tip: Snooze Multiple Reminders at Once

Posted by: standss | Comments (0)

Thursday, April 26th, 2012

Setting up reminders on Task is simple and quite handy because with so much to do, we are likely to miss or forget about other important tasks that might be due.

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:

Click on the red X button to close the Pop-up screen or
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:

Reminder Pop-up screen

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.

Categories : Outlook as a Business Tool

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Where is your Outlook Data File?

Posted by: standss | Comments (0)

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

I recently read an interesting article on TechRepublic about the 10 most important things to teach Outlook users.

One of the point refers to… backing up your Outlook data. I am frequently surprised by how many Outlook users just assume that their Outlook data is backed up when they backup their Documents folder. Guess what… your Outlook data is not in your Documents folder.

Unless you are part of a corporate network using MS Exchange, all your Outlook data is stored in one Personal Folder file.

This file has a .pst extension and is saved somewhere on your computer.
This one file probably contains all your Outlook folders, e-mails, contacts, tasks, calendar items, journal entries and notes inside it.
(Unfortunately) This file is NOT saved to your Documents folder (at least not by default) so chances are you are not backing it up.

So let me show you how to find out where your Outlook Data File is stored:

The exact location depends on the version of Outlook and Windows. To find out where your Outlook data is:

Go to your Inbox and make sure that the list of folders is displayed
Right-click the top-level folder and select Properties
Click the Advanced button. The full path to where your Data file is stored will provided in the box labeled Filename:

It would be a good idea to include that file as part of your normal computer backup plan. This ensures that your Outlook data is also getting backed up along with other things.

If you are using more than one PST (e.g. a separate file for archives), then you need to do the above for each of your Outlook data files.

I hope that this little tip helps keep your Outlook data protected.

Do you have your own tips on how to better use Outlook, share it with us and our readers by leaving a comment below.

How to maintain Outlook data (PST) Files

How to protect your Outlook Data from data loss

Categories : Outlook Installation/Setup, Outlook Performance

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Changing the Font of Email Notes in Outlook

Posted by: standss | Comments (0)

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

Don’t like the font of your email notes in Outlook? Here’s a quick tip on how to change it.

Yesterday we received a feedback from an existing Email Notes for Outlook user:

“…my biggest complaint is that I do not like the typeface on Email Notes.”

We chose the default font because it looks (a little) like hand written notes but several users have told us that they don’t like it.

I suspect that there many users who have been “putting up” with our font selection. Here’s how you can change the font to something you like.

Start Outlook
On the EmailNotes Toolbar/Ribbon > click More > Click Settings…

Email notes settings screen

On the Settings screen as shown above, you can select the Font, the Font-size and the default color of the note you wish to use. (You can see a preview of your selections just below it)
Click OK

Alternatively, you can access the Settings straight from the Notes screen:

Select a email you want to add notes too > click on the Add Notes button on the EmailNotes toolbar/Ribbon

Emailnotes settings from notes

Right-click anywhere on the notes screen > select EmailNotes Settings
Make the changes as preferred and click OK

These settings will now be applied to all the notes that you create.

If you haven’t tried Email Notes for Outlook yet, you can download a fully functional 30 day trial of Email Notes for Outlook here.

If you are an existing Email Notes user and have any suggestions or ideas to further improve EmailNotes, please let us know by leaving a comment below or email us at news@addins4outlook.com

Customer Story: How I use Email Notes for Outlook in my business

Categories : Email Notes for Outlook, Outlook Email Tips, Outlook as a Business Tool

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My two favourite Outlook Calendar Tips

Posted by: standss | Comments (5)

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Many people use Outlook’s Calendar to keep themselves organized. Here are my two favourite tips on being more productive when using the calendar. Each one will take you all of 10 seconds to learn.

Enter a date without knowing the date

When you are creating an appointment, reminder or meeting request, you don’t have to enter the date… you can enter things like Next Friday or 3 Weeks Time or Next Month or Today or Tomorrow or 2 Days Time… and Outlook will automatically fill in the date for you.

I use this tip a lot myself… when I set myself reminders to follow up on Tuesday or 2 Days Time.

Outlook even knows holidays (that occur on the same date every year) so you can type Christmas 2014 or New Years Day.

Instantly move to any date on your Calendar

Need to see what’s happening on a particular date on your Outlook Calendar. Here’s an easy way to jump directly to the date.

Here’s what I have seen many people do… they switch to the Week or Calendar View and then scroll through by clicking on the tiny arrows.

Here’s what you can do… press CTRL-G on your keyword. Then simply enter the date you want to see and click OK.

(You can combine this tip with the first tip and enter phrases like Next Friday to jump to dates… without knowing the date).

Did you find these tips useful? Do you have your own calendar tips that you would like to share. Please let us know by leaving a comment.

Categories : General, Outlook Calendar Tip

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Outlook Search Tips Revisited

Posted by: standss | Comments (0)

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

I set down last night to find out what were the most common problems that readers of our Outlook blog were trying to solve. I noticed that many visitors were looking for solutions to Outlook search problems or how they could use the outlook search features better.

So I thought, as part of today’s post, I will revisit some of the post related to search in Outlook.

Fixing Search Problems in Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010

The Search functionality in Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 is great… unless it is not working. Most of the time rebuilding the search index clears up the problems. Unfortunately it isn’t obvious, at least not from inside Outlook, how you can do this.
Check out this post to learn How to Rebuild the Search Indexes.

Make Outlook 2007/2010 search ALL folders instead of just the current folder

Outlook (by default) searches emails in the current folder you are in. The Search results also come up with a link at the bottom to “Try Searching all Mail Items”. I find myself ALWAYS clicking on the Search All link as I rarely bother to move to the relevant folder first.
This post shows how you can force Outlook to search all mail items by default

Human-Friendly Power Searches in Outlook 2007/2010

Do you find Outlook search to be to complex, not so human-friendly. Did you know that Outlook let’s you refine your searches using human friendly English words?
This post shows you how easy, human-friendly and powerful Outlook search is.

We hope that these tips help you use Outlook search better. If you have your own Search tips, please share it with other readers by leaving a comment.

Categories : General, Outlook Search Tips, Outlook as a Business Tool

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Download the Super Rugby 2012 Schedules to Your Outlook

Posted by: standss | Comments (1)

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

The Super Rugby 2012 will kick off next week (24th February), so for all you rugby fans who would not want to miss a single match, or at least not your favourite teams matches, here’s how you can download the times for all the games into your Outlook Calendar.

1. Make sure that your computer is setup to the correct time zone. This step is important to ensure that the game time gets shown at the correct time depending on where in the world you are. Go to the Windows Control Panel and open Date and Time.

(Your screen may be slightly different depending on the version of Outlook… it may have a separate tab for Time Zone).

Make sure that the correct Time Zone is displayed i.e. the time zone of where YOU are. (I am in Fiji so the screen shot above says Fiji). Click on Change time zone if you need to.

2. Click on the link below and save the .ics file to your desktop
Download Super Rugby 2012 Schedule

3. Import the downloaded file into your Outlook by using the following steps. If you are using Microsoft Outlook 2010, click File – Open – Import. For all other versions of Outlook, click File – Import & Export.

4. Select Import an iCalendar (ics) or vCalendar file (vcs) from the list and click Next.

5. Use the screen that comes up to select the ics file that was downloaded in Step 1.

(You may get the following extra steps depending on the version of Outlook you are using)

Click either Open as New or Import. (I simply imported it to my main Outlook Calendar as it then synched with my Iphone too)

The times for all the games will now be in your Outlook.

Enjoy the games and may the best team win.

Thank you Green and Gold Rugby: Source for the .ics file

Categories : General, Outlook Calendar Tip

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How to Change Your Outlook Email From line

Posted by: standss | Comments (0)

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Do you need to change the way that your name appears in the Inbox of people receiving your emails? Here’s how you can change the FROM field.

But before that, why is this important?

Having a From field that readers recognize makes your email stand out from other emails. It increases the chances that your email will be opened but… changing it could also result in your Outlook Emails not getting opened.

If you’ve decided you are going to change the From line…

In Outlook 2010, click File > Account Settings.
In Outlook 2007, click Tools > Account Settings.
In Outlook 2003, click Tools > E-mail Accounts > select View or change existing email accounts > click Next
Select an email account from the list and click Change.
Make the change in the Your Name field.

your_name_settings

Click Next. (Wait for Outlook to do some tests)
Click Finish.

Related Posts

If you sending marketing or sales newsletters, we recommend you read The importance of FROM in your Outlook email newsletters and flyers before changing anything.

Categories : Outlook Email Tips, Outlook as a Business Tool, Sales and Marketing with Outlook, Sending emails

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Outlook Appointments in a Different Time Zone

Posted by: standss | Comments (2)

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Do you have meetings with people in other time zones. We’ve talked about displaying multiple time zones in Outlook previously.

Here’s another time zone tip (for users of Outlook 2010 only). This lets you enter appointments based on the time in another time zone without having to convert it to local time.

* Open your appointment

* Click Time Zones on the ribbon. Outlook will add a time zone drop-down next to the appointment time.

Now you can enter the time of the appointment if the appointment time is given to you based on the time in the other time zone… and Outlook will automatically add it in your calendar at the correct time in your Time Zone.

(Thank you to Ben M. Schorr who writes at OfficeForLawyers for this tip).

Note: If you’re trying to find a suitable time for a meeting based on both your time zones then the tip in displaying multiple time zones in Outlook is better as it lets you see the times in the two zone side-by-side.

Categories : General, Outlook Calendar Tip

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