Welcome to Microsoft Outlook

What is Microsoft Outlook?

Outlook is an information and communication manager that primarily handles messaging, calendaring, and contacts.

Basic Outlook Overview

• The mail component lets you send, receive, and manage email messages. Messages can be sent to other email users with a valid email address and can include file attachments and hyperlinks to webpages.
• The calendar is used to keep track of appointments and plan meetings with other email users. On a personal level, it can be used to record appointments, events, and other important dates such as birthdays and anniversaries. You can even use it to remind you to do a task every day. On a group level it can be used to schedule and track meetings with others at a time convenient to all.
• Contacts are used to maintain address, phone, FAX information, etc.

Outlook's Additional Components

• Tasks provide to-do lists comprising jobs that can be assigned to other Outlook users, tracked and scheduled in your calendar. You can check the status of a task and set tasks that recur at specific intervals.
• Outlook can also be used to record notes for any textual information. Notes can be posted on your desktop as constant reminders and can be forwarded to other users or even included in Word processing documents.

Your Outlook View

• You can customize your Outlook View
• To manage Outlook it's often easiest to view two toolbars (standard and advanced), the Outlook bar, and the folder view.
• You should also view mails in your Inbox without the preview pane as a security measure but include the following fields: importance, icon, flag, attachment, From, Subject, Size, and Date.

Outlook Options

• Outlook options are where you set your signature, how you read your email, what format you use, how you choose to empty your Deleted Items folder, spellcheck, etc.
• Options are the way you can customize some Outlook behavior.
• Located under Tools on the Menu Bar, using options allows you to set some email preferences, format, spelling, and many other items.

Outlook Format

• The Outlook format, while found under Options, should be identified separately since incorrectly formatted emails may lead to several avoidable problems.
• The default format on older versions of Outlook (95 - 2002) is Rich Text. Rich Text format is Outlook specific, that is to say that email recipients not using Outlook may not be able to read this format. They may even receive blank emails and if you include an attachment, they probably won't receive it since improper formatting may strip it out.
• The format I recommend is either plain text or HTML.

Outlook Signature

• A signature goes out at the bottom of all of your emails. It should tell the recipient your name, title, telephone number including extensions if applicable, and your website if you have one. There is no need to include your email address since every email you send includes it already.
• Don't make your signature too long or people will ignore it. If it's too cute, people may not take you seriously.
• Keep the font simple and legible. Don't use all capitalized letters.
• Your signature should not be sent on replies and forwards.

Outlook Organization - Folders and Rules

• To organize your mail and keep your Inbox uncluttered, create folders to hold common emails.  For example, if you receive mail from Microsoft on a regular basis create a Microsoft folder.
• To further keep your Inbox clean, create rules that make Outlook automatically move emails into your important folders. Make sure you keep the folders up to date and delete anything not required (example: Merry Christmas from your boss in 1999 is not required).

Outlook Size

• If you are in an Exchange environment (at work or at many schools), you may face a mailbox cap. When you are close to your limit you will receive email notifications from the System Administrator. If you ignore the warnings and exceed your limit, you will be unable to send email. If you continue to ignore the warnings, eventually you will not be able to receive email.
• Outlook itself does not have a cap, depending on which version you use and what type of mail account you have created. For a home user, older versions of Outlook (2002 and older) do have a Personal Folders maximum size of 2 GB though it can become pretty flakey at around 1.6 GB. In Outlook 2003, they did away with this cap by changing the format from ANSI (American National Standards Institute) to Unicode. This allowed the PST file in Outlook 2003 & 2007 to become a maximum size of 20 GB (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/830336).
• To determine how much mail you have, view the properties of Outlook Today in the folder view. This will show you what you have and where the bulk of your mail is stored.

Outlook Deleted Items

• Emptying your Deleted Items folder regularly helps to maintain your mailbox or PST size. It is not to be used as a filing system.
• To this end, if you delete an email and discover later that you need it, if you're in an Exchange environment you may be able to recover by clicking on Tools > Recover Deleted Items. If Deleted Item Retention is turned on, you have a chance of getting your email back depending upon how long it's been since you deleted it.
• If you delete an email and you have a POP3 or IMAP account, you can try the following but it is unpredictable at best if you are not trying to recover a deleted email immediately: http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/restoredeleteditemsfromanoutlookpst.htm 

Outlook PST (Personal Folders)

• These can be helpful in an Exchange environment if you have a mailbox cap but should be used with caution. The Outlook PST is created automatically in a non-Exchange environment (say you're a home user and you create a POP3 for your ISP email).
• If you're in an Exchange environment, all email moved to Personal Folders removes it from the Exchange mail server. This means it reduces your mailbox size but it is not being backed up anymore.
• Whether you're a home user or in an Exchange environment, it is in your best interests to regularly back up your PST (aka Personal Folders). The procedure is easy, with Outlook closed, simply copy your PST to another location that is not on your C drive (on a network you can use your User or Home drive, if you're at home you can put it on a CD or USB key or on your D drive - away from your operating system drive which is usually C).
• How to find your Personal Folders: http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/backupandrestore.htm#Locating_the_pst-file 
• How to back up and restore your Personal Folders: http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/backupandrestore.htm 

Outgoing Email Requests

• Request a delivery receipt to verify it was delivered to the email address that you specified.
• Request a read receipt to verify that an email has been read by the recipient. Use this with caution. A recipient may deny this read receipt or their email server can.
• Voting buttons
• Delayed delivery
• Filing outgoing mail
• Recall an outgoing email that you wish to revise or delete (this usually only works in an Exchange environment and only if the recipieint has not read the email).

The Outlook Calendar

• Use the calendar to schedule meetings, reminders, events.
• All scheduled items can be single instance (once) or recurring.
• Invite others to your meetings.
• As the recipient of a meeting request, you can accept/decline/tentative.
• Use the calendar to schedule with people ahead of time. Don't surprise them at the last minute. Give people time to prepare!

Attachments

• If you're in an organization, sending a document by email eats up everyone's mailbox space. Share the document, spreadsheet, PDF, presentation, etc. on the network in a common location that everyone can access. Instead of including the attachment in your email, insert a hyperlink to the location of the attachment.
• Often, incoming and outgoing attachment size is limited. Take note of the size of the attachment size that you wish to send. Sending a huge file can also tie up your own outgoing email.

Email Etiquette

• I am covering email etiquette for several reasons; professionalism, courtesy, efficiency, and liability.
• By using proper language and correct spelling, we portray an image of professionalism.
• Emails that get to the point are much more efficient than poorly-worded ones.
• Since text-based communication has no tone of voice or body language to associate with it, take extra care to be courteous.
• Awareness of email risks protects you from lawsuits.

What Are the Rules?

• Be concise and to the point.
• Answer all questions and pre-empt further questions.
• Use proper spelling, grammer, and punctuation.
• Make it personal.
• Do not attach unnecessary files.
• Don't type in all capitalized letters.
• Add a signature to your outgoing email.
• Read and re-read your email before you send it.
• Double-check that you're sending to the correct recipient.
• Do not forward chain emails and hoaxes.
• Don't use email to discuss confidential information.

Outlook Caution

• Never send or forward emails that contain libelous, defamatory, offensive, obscene, or racist remarks.
• Use the Reply to All button only when all recipients require the information you convey.
• Don't reply to SPAM.