Outlook 2010 Tips & Tricks Away Messages: To set up away messages, click on the “File” tab, then on “Automatic Replies”. Here you have the option to set start and end dates/times and you can reply with one message to internal (GVSU) addresses and either the same one or a different reply to people from outside of our organization. Adding Holidays to Your Calendar: You can automatically add US holidays to your calendar by clicking on the “File” tab, then on “Options”. Click on “Calendar”, then select “Add Holidays”. Changing Settings for Reminders & Notifications: You can change the default settings for alerts by clicking on the “File” tab, then on “Options”. For Calendar, the settings are in the “Calendar Options” section. For Mail the settings are in the “Message Arrival” section. CALENDAR VIEW Viewing other calendars (not your own): Click on the “Home” tab, then on “Open Calendar” and choose from the drop down options. “From Address Book” will allow you to choose from the global address book. “From Room List” will allow you to choose from a list of all meeting rooms available in Outlook. Just choose the calendar you would like to open and click “OK” and the calendar will open next to yours. If you have not been given permission to view details of a calendar you will only see “Busy” or “Tentative” for existing appointments. Creating Calendar Groups: Once you have opened the calendars you want to include in the group click on “Calendar Groups” and select “Save as New Calendar Group”. You can also create a group by clicking on “Calendar Groups” and selecting “Create New Calendar Group”. You will be prompted to name your group, then you can add members from the Global Address Book to create your group. Viewing Multiple Non-Consecutive Days: You can view multiple nonconsecutive days for one or more calendars by holding down the “Ctrl” key and clicking on the dates you would like to view using the small calendar in the upper left part of your screen. Side by Side View Overlay View Busy Searches: In Outlook, the “Scheduling Assistant” is the equivalent of the “Busy Search” in Groupwise. Just click on the date/time you would like to schedule a meeting, click on “New Meeting” on the “Home” Tab and select “New Meeting” from the dropdown. This will open a box with a “Meeting Tab”. Click on “Scheduling Assistant”, enter the names of the attendees. If the name doesn’t become underlined, click on Check Names to find them in the global address book. When your names are added, you can click on “Add Rooms” (bottom left corner of screen) if you want to check room availability as well. Once you have entered all of the information, the right side of the screen will show a 1 month calendar. Dates with white background are good dates, those with light blue will have at least one or two conflicts, and the darker blue dates will probably not be good. Below the calendar you can scroll down to see what the conflicts are for any given date/time. CONTACTS Making Your Personal Contact List Available When Sending E-Mails: To access the addresses in your personal contact list when you’re sending an email, click on “Contacts”, then right click on your personal contact folder. Click “Properties”, then on the tab that says “Outlook Address Book”. Check the box for “Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book”. Now, when you open a new e-mail and click on “To” you can choose your contacts from the drop-down list. You can make any Contact Folder in your list available as an “Outlook Address Book”. Changing Your Contacts View (List, Business Card, Card) You can view your contacts in a few different ways. The Business Card view displays them in a format similar to a business card. The Card view is an “abbreviated” version of the Business Card display. The List view displays them in a list that you can sort by columns. Business Card View Card View List View E-MAIL Tracking Sent E-Mails: Outlook doesn’t have the same functionality as Groupwise did for tracking emails that you have sent out to see who has read them and who has not. Outlook does give you the option to request a “Delivery” and “Read” receipt. Just start a new e-mail, then click on the “Options” tab. Here you can check the box indicating the type of receipt you would like to receive. If you want to activate this feature for all e-mails that you send, go to “File” tab, click on “Options” and scroll down to “Tracking”. This is also where you can opt to automatically send a read or delivered receipt when someone else requests one. Adding “Blind Copy” to your E-Mails: The “Blind Copy” field is not visible by default in Outlook. On the same “Options” tab you accessed to request delivered/read receipts, you can click on the “BCC” icon. The BCC field will now show up on all e-mails you send out. If you don’t want it to show up, just click on it again to remove it. Quick Steps: Quick Steps is a feature that allows you to set up “one click” actions for managing and responding to e-mails. This is especially helpful when you perform the same action with several emails. For example, if you frequently forward e-mails to your manager, with Quick Steps you can set the “To Manager” icon so it forwards the current e-mail to your manager (you have the option to add a comment to it if you want.) You can also create custom quick steps. Viewing E-Mails in “Conversation View”: Outlook features an easy way to view all sent and received items that are related to the same message. If you have sent an e-mail to several people and asked them to respond back to you, you don’t have to scroll through your in-box to find all of the responses, just click on the “Show as Conversation” box located on the “View” tab. OUTLOOK VIEWS To Do Bar: When you are in “Mail”, the “To Do Bar” provides an “at a glance” view of your calendar, tasks and upcoming meetings. If you prefer not to have it visible, click on the carat in the upper left hand corner to minimize it. Open in New Window Option: Outlook provides a handy feature that Groupwise did not have. When you open Outlook and you’re in “Mail” you can right click on Calendar, then click on “Open in New Window” and your calendar will open in a new window. This is especially helpful if your work requires you to navigate back and forth between e-mails and calendars to check meeting dates, or if you need quick access to your calendars throughout the day. You can also do this with Contacts and Tasks. MISCELLANEOUS Sync Issues: When you view the “Folder List” you will see a “Sync Issues” folder. I have confirmed with IT that e-mails in this folder can just be ignored & deleted. Public Folders: To view the Info & Barter Board folders, click on “Folder List” and scroll to “Public Folders” (at the bottom). Click on All Public Folders and you will see the shared folders that IT has set up.