Outlook Tip # 1 Quick Steps Outlook ’ s Quick Steps ( found on the home ribbon ) are a fast , uncomplicated way to take multiple actions on an email or series of emails all at once . An example might be to mark an email as read , file it away in a folder , forward it to your legal assistant and create a deadline task based on the email simultaneously .
Quick Steps are on the home ribbon in Outlooks 2013-2016 . Select the small corner arrow to build a new and / or modify an existing Quick Step .
There are sample Quick Steps that you can utilize and / or select custom and build your own . The process is intuitive and when completed you simply highlight an email in your list and select the quickstep to apply to it .
Outlook Tip # 2 Drag and Drop to Create Appointments , Tasks and Contacts Often , when we receive an email , that email prompts us to do something else . For example , you may have an email from a new contact and you decide it would be useful to add the senders contact information to your Outlook contacts list . Or , an email may prompt you to create an appointment and you need to preserve the text of the mail as a reminder to be associated with the appointment . Simply take your mouse , select the email and drag it to the shortcuts bar in the lower left corner of Outlook .
When you release the mouse , a new appointment , contact or task will result which includes the body of the email in the notes section of the resulting contact , appointment or task .
Outlook Tip # 3 Clean Up Your Conversations Many times , emails come in and go out multiple times on the same immediate subject . Multiple parties may reply all and you could end up with 30-40 emails that have gone back and forth among multiple people . One way to consolidate the emails is to use the built-in clean up tool found on the home ribbon in Outlook in the delete section . When you select Clean Up , the option that will consolidate those 30-40 or more emails on the same subject into the latest one in a chain is called Clean Up Conversation .
Once you decide on the behavior of your clean up conversation function , simply then select multiple emails ( and by the way , you can select your entire inbox if you like ) and Outlook will clean up conversations based on the criteria you set forth . The result – those 30- 40 emails may be reduced to just 4-5 depending on whether a chain of emails includes other emails you ’ ve already received . To activate the clean up function , select a group of emails or your entire inbox and then choose Clean Up > Conversation .
Outlook Tip # 4 Categories Outlook categories are a simple , yet useful management tool . Most users use the colors to visually identify items by people , topic , priority , and so on . However , categories can do much more . You can use them to perform quick sorts , populate search folders , and even narrow a mail merge to a specific category . Understanding category basics is the first step .
You can use categories for emails pending , contacts categorization , to group types of appointments ( i . e . court ) etc . The categories list transcends all Outlook functions . For this writer , I have my email categories prepended with a “*” so it stays at the top of my categories list . The rest of my categories are ways of grouping types of contacts in my contacts list .
When an email comes in and I am unable to reply right away , I categorize the email , so I can filter the list later by , for example , “ Follow Up Required ” or “ Delegated to Mary .” By the same token , my contacts list is permanently categorized ( I changed my contacts view to the Address List view to make the best use of categories ). This is particularly useful when , for example , I ’ m searching for an accountant or a court reporter , etc .
Outlook Tip # 5 Customize Your Views Customizing the way that data is presented to you is an easy way to make Outlook work for you in-
28 March 2018