PART II

Deeply

Inside Microsoft(R) Outlook(R) 2000!

By: Hosam Hammady 

Hi everybody! Haven't I promised we will talk about some advance features on that Outlook? Here we are; Today you will learn how to organize messages into folders, how to move them among these folders/subfolders automatically using the 'Rules Wizard'. Also we will talk a little about setting message options, importance, sensitivity and expiration date. And finally prepare e-mail messages, called Templates to automate your tasks. Just get prepared!

Organizing Messages Into Folders:
You can easily create subfolders in the Inbox folder, or even create folders other than Inbox.

Creating Folders:
To create a subfolder into Inbox, simply right-click 'Inbox' folder in the Folders List at the left, then choose 'New Folder'. To create a top-level folder, as Inbox itself, specify 'Personal Folders' as its location.

Moving/Copying Folders:
Just drag folders in the Folders List to move them in new locations. Although copying folders is considered an unusual task, but you can accomplish this by pressing Ctrl key while dragging.

As an example, create a new subfolder under Inbox called 'Ads'. You will need this to place email ads in. Another one called 'Official', where you put official emails from your website administrator or college emails for instance. You can also create 'Greeting Cards' to store incoming cards, and so on...

Moving/Copying Messages Into Folders:
Now that your folder structure is well organized, it is ready for receiving messages in it. Again it is a simple matter of dragging! Or right-click on an message item and choose 'Move to Folder...'.

*THE COOL THING!* Rules Wizard:
Now comes an important question; ain't there an automatic way to move messages? Yes, there is! And that's why Outlook is my favorite email client!

It all comes in 4 steps.

Click on Tools Menu/Rules Wizard. You will see a list of rules you previously created, initially it is empty.

ONE: Click on New... Now select the type of rule you want to create. In our case, 'Check messages when they arrive'.

TWO: Here is the subject essence; what condition(s) should be fulfilled to process messages. Check those you want to check for validity, Most popular are:

· Where my name is in the To box

· From people or distribution list

· Sent to people or distribution list

· With specific words in the subject

· Marked as importance (Message importance will be discussed later)

· Which has an attachment

· Suspected to be junk e-mail

· Contain adult content

Choose as many conditions as you wish. Notice that every time you choose one, it is added in a rectangular area (known as Rule description) below the conditions list so that you can customize the condition.

For example, if you choose 'From people or distribution list', you should specify exactly those 'people'. Whenever a condition is customizable, its name is underlined in the Rule description. Click on the underlined text, 'people or distribution list' in our case. The address book will be opened for you to choose contacts from it.

If you choose 'With specific words' condition, then you have to specify those 'words'. Again click the underlined text 'specific words' to add your specified words.

You may also need to specify the 'junk e-mail' senders, those who send you junk, unsolicited emails.

The same goes with 'Adult content' senders.

THREE: After you determine which conditions to evaluate to perform the action, you are ready to choose what to do with those email messages.

Available options are:

· Move messages to specified folder.

· Delete messages (put them in the 'Deleted Items' folder).

· Permanently delete messages. NO REMORSE! ;)

· Forward messages to specified people...

· Reply using a specified template. (Message templates are discussed later)

· Print messages.

· Notify me using a specific message.

· Play a sound! KEWL!

· Start an application! IMAGINE THIS!

FOUR: Exceptions.
You may want to override above conditions for some exceptions:

· Except if sent only to me

· Except if from people or distribution list...

· Except if contain specific words in the subject line...

And so on... the same conditions as in step two but 'excepted'!

Finally give your rule a name, then click on Finish.

You will notice that the newly created rule is added in the Rules list. Beside which a checkbox, that determines the rule state, either On or Off.
Note also that the order in which rules are executed is very important, because an action taken on a certain message may affect a later tested condition. For instance, if an action states that a message should be deleted, a further condition may not find this message!
You can easily control this order by the two buttons below the Rules list; 'Move Up' and 'Move Down'.

To immediately run a rule, click on 'Run Now' then choose which rule(s) to run and in which folder to run them. I mean: you may want to run a 'Junk e-mail' rule on emails only in the Ads subfolder but not Greeting Cards folder.

You can Modify/Rename/Copy any rule anytime you wish using the appropriate button.

Flagging Messages:
Sometimes we wish to flag a certain message for later reply or forward. Right-click a message item then choose 'Flag for Follow Up'.
Available options are, Flag to: Call, Don't Forward, Follow Up, For Your Information, Forward, No Response Necessary, Read, Reply, Reply to All and Review. You can also specify your own flag text. Of course, technically, there is no difference between all of these flags, they are just put for your own convenience.
You can also choose a date by which the flag is due, so that Outlook will remind you before it comes.

Setting Messages Importance:
You may wish to mark a certain message as a 'Highly' important one, or even as having 'Low' importance. One advantage of doing so is when sending such message to someone, he will receive this importance flag as well with the message. Also you may like to mark messages from your boss as of 'High' importance! and move them, using the Rules Wizard to a Boss-named folder!
Just right-click an item in the messages list and choose Options... At the top you can choose between 3 options; Low/Normal/High.
You may notice a RED exclamation mark prefixing the message item in the list if its importance is set to 'High'. Also a gray down arrow if it is of 'Low' importance.

Setting Expiration Date of Messages:
On the Options dialog, you will see a check box captioned 'Expires after'. Check it then choose a certain date on which the selected message will expire. When a message expires its name in the Items List will be grayed and will have a 'Strike Through' font effect, as if cancelled!

As an example, suppose someone sent you a greeting card. Ethically, you will probably want to reply by another card. But what if you decided to do this later due to a time-lack problem! Most probably you will forgot all about it :)
No problem, just flag the email message for Reply, set its Due Date as being after 3 days. Then modify its options for having an expiration date as the same previous.
Before the date comes you will be notified to 'Reply'. If you didn't reply by the expiration date, the message will expire and grayed to remind you forever of your inhumane attitude towards people who always remember you while you just ignore them!!

Using Message Templates:
If you are a webmaster, you will find it more convenient to prepare message templates and auto-reply to some recipients on receiving specific emails from them.
For example, you can create a rule specifying a condition such that if the word 'feedback' exists in the subject line, then move the message to the 'Feedback' folder and auto-reply using the feedback message template (for example, your feedback is gratefully received and is being processed!)
To create a message template, simply compose a new email messages by the 'New' button on the standard toolbar. After finishing, click on File Menu/Save as... Then specify the email file location on your computer and its type as 'Outlook Template (.oft)'.
To use your templates, click on File Menu/New/Choose Form... then 'Look in:' choose 'User templates in file system' from the drop-down list. If you don't see your template name in the list click on 'Browse' to locate it.
When you click OK a new email message will be created ready for you to specify recipients to send to.
Similarly, when creating a rule, choose the message template in the same way.

The ICQ Toolbar!
ICQ! Have anyone just said ICQ?! I don't know why do I always attach that ICQ in each article! Anyway... if you have both Outlook and ICQ installed on your system, you will find the ICQ toolbar on your Outlook main window. When you browse through your messages, a match is done between the sender's e-mail address and his ICQ number, if he/she exists in your contacts list on ICQ. Consequently, some buttons are activated, you can then send an ICQ instant message, a file request, a URL directly from Outlook! If the contact doesn't exist on you ICQ's contacts list, you can send him an invitation to join the ICQ network!

hoof! At last we finished. I hope you've learnt some interesting and useful issues about Microsoft's POPular e-mail client! we will meet again very soon.