Automating Outlook Sort, Spike, Even Reply To E-Mail Without Lifting a Finger Helen Bradley
Wed 4/3/02 -- Got spam? If you're like most computer users, you get hundreds of e-mails each week, ranging from invaluable to intolerable. Unfortunately, the time you spend sorting the inbox wheat from the trash-can chaff is time you could spend doing other work (or going home early).
Fortunately, Microsoft Outlook has some useful tools to help you manage common tasks such as sorting e-mail, managing multiple e-mail accounts, and even replying automatically to some senders. Here are half a dozen tips for anyone who's still handling mail and retyping messages manually.
Create an e-mail template. Just as you can create document templates in Word and Excel, you can do the same in Outlook to jump-start a new message -- a weekly report to your boss, for instance, or a product-information alert to customers.
To make a template, create a new e-mail message including the standard or boilerplate text you'd otherwise retype each time. You can also include the subject line and list of recipients, if they don't change. Choose File/Save As; from the type list, choose Outlook Template (*.oft) and give the template a name. Choose, or at least make a note of, the folder or location the file's saved to, and click Save. You can now discard the unsent message.
Put your template to work. To use your new e-mail template, select File/New/Choose Form (or Tools/Forms/Choose Form depending on your version of Outlook). From the "Look in:" drop-down list, find the folder where your template was stored (usually the User Templates in File System folder); select the template; and click Open. Complete and send the e-mail as you would any other message.
Declare a rule. Rules allow you to sort, reply, delete, get notification of, and flag incoming messages based on your personal preferences -- if you can specify clearly enough which messages a rule affects, Outlook will do all the work for you. Let's create a rule that notifies you when an e-mail from your boss arrives.
Choose Tools/Rules Wizard/New; pick "Check messages when they arrive," and click Next. Choose "from people or distribution list"; select your boss's e-mail address, and click Next. Select "notify me using a specific message" and type an alert message of your choice, then click Next again. You can add exceptions to this rule if you like, or simply click Next again to continue, typing a name for your rule and enabling the "Turn on this rule" checkbox so it'll be applied to incoming messages. Now you'll see an on-screen alert whenever your boss drops you a line. For your next rule, we suggest "Check messages when they arrive"; "delete it"; and "Make Money Fast!!!" in the subject.
Manage multiple accounts. Chances are that you use Outlook to manage more than one e-mail account -- both your work and personal accounts, for example. To keep mail from different accounts in separate folders, apply a rule that sorts messages as they arrive: Just create your folders, then add a rule using the instructions above. The only thing to do differently is, when selecting "Check messages when they arrive" in the Rules Wizard, to choose "when received through the specified account." Click the link on the word "specified" to choose the account for that rule. You'll need one rule to route messages for each account (except the one you want to use the generic Inbox).
Tell Outlook to reply for you. Ever dream of having a secretary you could instruct, "Send him the standard reply" or "Send her Answer Number 3"? If you habitually send a standard reply to everyone who sends you a particular type of e-mail, Outlook can automate the task for you. All you need is some specific content, such as a job number or unique keywords in the subject line or body of each message to distinguish them from your other e-mail.
Configure Outlook to use Plain Text as the default e-mail option (use Tools/Options/the Mail Format tab), then create a template message to use as an auto reply. Create a rule to identify incoming e-mails, choosing the "with specific words in the subject" or "with specific words in the subject or body" condition depending on your needs.
When asked what you want to do with the message, choose "Reply using a specific template," and select your newly created answer. Every incoming message with the text you've specified will then receive this reply automatically.
The ruling class. Once you've created two or three rules, the order in which they're processed becomes important. You need to apply specific rules first, followed by more general ones.
For instance, if you want to separate incoming messages into three folders -- for mail from your boss, other work messages, and personal mail -- place the rule for your boss's messages above the one for work items, or else all work messages (including your boss's) will get routed to the work folder before the "boss rule" can see them. To change the order in which rules are applied, start the Rules Wizard and use the Move Up and Move Down buttons in the Rules list.
