With the Outlook 2007 migration project in full swing here on campus and at the Law School, I thought I'd go over some features that most users will find extremely useful.
The topics I'll cover in this article are:
1. Moving email documents to calendars, contacts, folders
2. Recalling sent messages
3. Processing junk mail
Moving Email
When you receive an email, you have the ability to move it to a number of places within your mail file. On the Outlook ribbon, click the Move to Folder button and a list of your folders, along with other options will appear.
Along with the list of your folders, notice that there are options for Calendar and Contacts. Click on the Calendar option and an Appointment pane will appear with the contents of the note already inside of it. You can then set the appropriate appointment date/time and save it.
Click the Contacts option and a New Contact pane will appear with the senders email address already filled in for you. You'll have to adjust the name field because Outlook places the senders email address in that field. The contents of the note will be copied into the Notes area of the Contact form. Enter any other information you want about the sender, save the document and you've got a new contact created.
Remember, when you use either option, you are "moving" the document, so it will leave your Inbox.
Recall a Message
We've all probably sent out a message at one time or another to the wrong person or forgetting to actually attach the document we said we were attaching. With Outlook 2007, you now have the ability to "recall" that message and even replace it with a new one.
There are quite a few scenarios for using this feature, but in general, you can only recall a message sent to another Outlook user and only if they have not opened the note yet.
From your Sent folder, open up the message you wish to recall. On the ribbon, click the Other Actions icon.
Then select Recall This Message. The note disappears from the receivers Inbox and you will receive a confirmation email in your Inbox stating when it was recalled. If the receiver has already opened the note, you will receive a recall failure notice.
You then have the option of just recalling the note or recalling it and replacing it with another one. As shown in the following screen shot:
Check the appropriate radio button. If you have not included an attachment in a note, use the second choice, attach the document and send it again. The original note is recalled and replace by the new note with the attachment.
If you've sent a note out to a distribution list and need to recall it, you have an option (the check box) to receive a notice of confirmation or failure for each person on the list. Remember, you will only be able to recall the note from users who have not opened it yet.
Processing Junk Mail
You will all still receive the IronNotify notices you got when you were in Lotus Notes. In addition, Outlook will trap any notes it thinks is junk mail and place them in the Junk Mail folder. You do need to check these documents to verify if they are indeed junk mail or not.
When you open a document from the Junk Mail folder, you can either delete it or, if it is legitimate, click the Not Junk icon. This will place the sender on a "safe" list and allow subsequent mail from him/her to flow directly to your Inbox.
If you receive a note in your Inbox that you consider to be junk, you can block that mail from hitting your Inbox again by clicking the Block Sender icon on the ribbon. Subsequently emails from that sender will flow directly to the Junk Mail folder.
As you see, Outlook is a powerful product with lots of features that can make handling email a lot simpler for you. Make use of these features and find out about many others by checking back to this EPirate blog for more tips and watch for Outlook classes offered by the Computer Training Center.
