Your organization has just migrated from GroupWise to Office 365. You love the collaborative benefits of working in the cloud, and Outlook offers a ton of great features to make your work life easier. At the same time, getting used to a new email system can prove a little confusing. Here are some handy Outlook tips to get you started.
Streamline Email for Efficiency
- Add rules – Any rules you created in GroupWise will not migrate over. But you can quickly create rules in Outlook. For example, you can tell Outlook to mark all emails from your manager as Important or send all emails from an annoying vendor immediately to Junk. Click File > Manage Rules & Alerts. Then click New Rule.
- Quick steps – Save time with email management by using Quick Steps. This feature allows you to perform multiple actions on a message with a single click. For example, you can create a quick step that marks an email as read and also creates a task. You can choose from predefined Quick Steps or create your own.
- Limit search to a particular folder or sender – A Search bar displays at the top of your message list. By default, Outlook will search the entire contents of your mailbox. To adjust the scope of your search, click in the Search box. Then use the dropdown to change Current Mailbox to Current Folder.
To limit your search to emails from a given sender, in the Search box type “from:” and then type the search term in quotes. For example, a search for “don” will display messages sent from anyone whose first or last name contains “don.” No more scrolling through lists of unrelated messages to find important information.
Customize Your Email Display
- Sort folders – By default, Outlook arranges folders alphabetically. However, you can re-sort folders by dragging and dropping the folder names. With this feature, you can place frequently-used folders at the top of the list. To return to an alphabetical listing, select the Folder tab and click Show All Folders A to Z.
- Improve visibility with grid lines – Grid lines improve the visibility of your mailbox. To add grid lines, click View > View Settings > Other Settings. On the Grid line style dropdown list, you can specify the type of line to display: small dots, large dots, dashes or solid.
Composing New Messages and Replies
- Email signatures – If you created an email signature in GroupWise, it will not migrate over to Outlook. However, you can easily re-create your signature in Outlook. Simply click File > Options > Mail. Then, in the Compose Messages section, click the Signatures button. Type and format the text to display. You can even include images.
- Inline reply – When you reply to a message, Outlook defaults to inline reply. You can even specify text to preface your inline comments. On the other hand, if you prefer to reply in a new message window, click File > Options > Replies and forwards. Then check the box next to “Open replies and forwards in a new window.”
Calendar Tips to Make Your Day
Email offers many reasons to love Outlook. But no list of Outlook tips would be complete without a glance at calendars.
- Turn an email into a calendar appointment – Quickly create a calendar event from an email by dragging the email from the mailbox to the calendar. While GroupWise would delete the email, Outlook keeps both the email and the calendar event. Attachments stay with the email and do not appear in the calendar copy.
- Create multiple calendars – In Outlook, you can create multiple calendars. For example, you can have a work calendar and a personal calendar. To create additional calendars, click File > New > Calendar.
More Outlook Tips
- Working with contacts – Outlook allows you to perform several actions quickly from the contact details. For instance, you can initiate a new message, schedule a meeting or start a chat. You can also view recent emails or file attachments from that contact.
- Delegates – The Delegates feature in Outlook allows you to assign proxy rights to another Outlook user, such as an administrative assistant. In fact, in Outlook, you can assign rights down to the folder level. That is, you could give an assistant access to your Inbox while withholding access to deleted or sent items.
Outlook offers many more handy features to save time and keep you organized. With extensive experience in both GroupWise and Office 365, the consultants at Messaging Architects can guide you through a smooth email migration. From Outlook tips for email management to ePolicy consulting, we will help you get the most out of your email.
