E-MAILS

Addresses

You will normally be given an e-mail address when you start work, which will have the following structure that you type in lower case with no spaces:

	name@domain name
e.g.	jackie_sherman@smallisbeautiful.co.uk
or	j.sherman@ smallisbeautiful.com

When receiving e-mails, the system often displays a name rather than full e-mail address e.g.Jackie Sherman, but the address will still be available if you right-click the From box and select Properties.

If you receive an e-mail from someone who has the domain name hotmail.co.uk or yahoo.co.uk, take care: it means this is a private e-mail address and, unless freelance or self-employed, they may therefore not work for a legitimate business.

Creating messages

E-mails sent to your e-mail address will arrive in the Inbox. To read one, double click the message and it will open into its own window. You may have a preview pane showing where you can also read the message, and you can turn this on or off via the View menu.

Click the Inbox folder and then the New button to create a new message and make sure you always complete the following boxes accurately:

To: the full e-mail address of anyone you are writing to – for more than one recipient, separate their addresses with a semi-colon and always ensure they are typed 100% accurately or the message will not be sent.

Cc: the full e-mail address of anyone receiving a copy of the message

Subject: a brief summary of the contents of the message, so that those you write to can see at a glance whether it is worth opening the message now or later

Main message window: as mentioned in the chapter on word processing, business messages should remain formal in tone although you may find you soon feel able to address people by their first name rather than using the conventions of Mr. or Mrs. as in business letters.

If you are always online, clicking the Send button will send the message straight away. Otherwise, it will be placed in the Outbox ready for sending. To retain a message to work on later, click Save and it will be stored in your Drafts folder.

For really urgent messages, click the exclamation mark button to add a high priority banner to the message, or find the option from View – Options.

Recall address from Contacts

To save time typing out e-mail addresses accurately, click one of the book symbols in the message window. Select the name(s) and click the appropriate button to add them to the correct boxes.

Blind copies for confidential messages

The Bcc box allows you to send copies of your message in secret to other people. It is particularly useful if you want to write to a number of people but don’t want them viewing each other’s full e-mail address. If you address the message to yourself (or leave the To: box blank) but add their names in the Bcc box, all they will see is your name or their own at the top of the message when it arrives.

Open the Bcc box when composing a message by selecting Bcc Field from the View menu.

Responding to messages

When you receive and open a message, you will see buttons labelled Reply, Reply to All and Forward at the top.

Click Reply to send a message to the author of the e-mail only. Boxes containing their e-mail address and the subject of the message, prefixed by Re: will be completed already.

Click Reply to All only if you want to send your reply to everyone who received a copy of the original message. Otherwise they will all see your comments – which may be of a personal nature!

Click Forward to send on the message (and any attachments) to a third person. The box containing the subject of the message will be completed already, prefixed by Fw.

Attaching files to e-mails

There are three different ways to attach a file to an e-mail: as you create the message; from the desktop; or from the file itself.

When creating a message

With your message window open, click the paperclip icon labelled Insert File.

This opens your computer and you can browse for the file(s) you wish to send. Select one, or hold down Ctrl to select several files before clicking the Insert button.

Back in your message, you will see your attached file(s) displayed in a new Attach window above the main message. Each will show the type of file and its size. Remember that anything over 2 MB may take a while to send or to download into your recipient’s Inbox, so zip or compress files that are very large (see Chapter 8 for further details of how to zip files).

From the desktop

Locate any files you want to send from My Documents, a sub-folder or a floppy disk and right-click to display the menu. Select the Send To option and click Mail Recipient.

A new message window will open with the file already showing in the Attach box. You will probably need to amend the automatic subject and message details that will appear but can then treat the message as a normal e-mail.

From within an application

If you finish creating a document and decide you want to send it as an attachment, open the File menu and click Send to – Mail Recipient (as Attachment). You will once again open a new message window showing the file already attached. Complete the details and send as normal, bearing in mind that you must not close the file until your message has been sent.

(There is also a button on most Office toolbars which will offer e-mail headings and will allow you to create a message and send a file as the message text.)

Open an attachment

Double-click the file name showing in the Attach box to open an attachment you have been sent. You are likely to be directed to save it first, in case it carries a virus.

Signatures

Business e-mails often contain information about the sender e.g. full job title, postal address and direct line. To add such details to your messages quickly, create one or more signatures. You can set the system to add this to every message, or select an appropriate signature as and when it is required.

• 1.Go to Tools – Options, click the Mail Format tab and then click the Signatures button.

• 2.Click New in the window that opens, name the signature, click Next and then type in all the details.

• 3.Click Finish, check the details are correct and then click OK. Repeat the process if you have more than one identity and require several different signatures.
• 4.Make sure you select None in the Signature for new messages: box if you want to use signatures sparingly. Otherwise, your new signature will be added automatically every time you write a message.

• 5.To add a signature to a message manually, click at the end of the message text and open the Insert menu. Click Signature and, if there are more than one, select from the names listed.

Message options

For messages where it is important to know it has been read, you can request a receipt. Open the View – Options menu and click in the box for a reply if the message is read.

You can also include a voting button if you want people to let you know if they can attend a meeting or if they approve of a plan. Their message will include a labelled button which they can click to send an automatic reply.

Out of Office messages

If you will be away from your desk for a time and want your messages replied to, you can set the computer to send out a standard ‘I will be away’ holding reply automatically. Do this by clicking Tools – Out of Office Assistant, selecting the ‘currently out....’ option and typing in the message people will receive. If you want a particular colleague to deal with your messages, click Add Rule and specify where messages from particular people should be forwarded.

Don’t forget to take off these settings when you return by clicking the ‘currently in the office’ option.

Managing messages

It is easy to allow your incoming messages to fill the Inbox, but this is not only inefficient, in some organisations there is a limit to the number of e-mails you can store. So here are several things you can do to manage your messages:

Delete unwanted messages

• If you are keeping messages because they contain useful information such as an address or phone number, first copy the details to an appropriate place e.g. your Contacts. You are then free to delete the message.
• For snippets of information, an alternative is to copy the message details into a Note before deleting the e-mail.
• To keep the full or partial contents of a message safely, open the File menu and select Save As. You can then store a copy of the e-mail with related files in your My Documents filing system. A different method is to copy the contents to a word processed or other relevant document – select the contents, right-click, click Copy and then paste into your document.
• Where messages have attachments you want to keep, save these outside Outlook. You don’t even need to open the message, simply select it in the Inbox, open the File menu and select Save Attachments. Find a suitable location for the attachment(s) and click Save.

File messages

For messages you need to keep within Outlook, make sure you move them out of the Inbox as soon as you can into a suitably labelled folder. New incoming messages will then be clearly visible in the empty Inbox.

Make a folder by right-clicking the Inbox and selecting New Folder. Type a name for the new folder and then click OK. You can now drag any relevant messages across from the Inbox into the new folder.

Archive old messages

Some messages may need to be kept for months or even years, even though they are rarely referred to. The best way to deal with these is to archive them. This involves setting up an archive file to which your old messages are continually added. The messages are first copied to the archive file and then deleted from your mailbox.

There are three steps to this process:

• 1.Decide how long to keep messages before they are archived.
• 2.Set Outlook to check the system on a regular basis and move old messages automatically to the archive file.
• 3.Arrange a link to the archive file so that messages can be retrieved easily.

Decide how long to keep messages

Outlook has default archive settings for many folders e.g. two months for sent messages, but you may want to retain certain types of message longer or shorter than this and will always need to set a time for the Inbox. To select a specific date, open the File menu and click Archive.

Click the Archive this folder . .. button and select the target folder from the list. Now pick a date from the calendar when messages will be moved to the archive.

The system will set up a default archive file named archive.pst within Outlook, but you may be asked to create a new one on a different drive. The file is a type known as a Personal Folders File (.pst) and you should give it a name that clearly labels it as an archive file.

You can change the archive settings for any folder from the main Outlook Folders List if you prefer by right-clicking it and then clicking Properties. Select the Auto-Archive tab and click Archive this folder using these settings.

If you want to remove old messages permanently, set the system to delete them once they reach the archive age.

Turn on AutoArchive

To set Outlook to carry out the archiving process automatically, select Tools -Options and click the Other tab. Click AutoArchive and decide when to run the checking process e.g. every 14 days. You can ask for a prompt on screen whenever the process is taking place.

Linking the archive file to Outlook

The archive folder will retain the exact format of your current Outlook folders, and you can add it to the Folder List. To see an old e-mail, open the Archive folder and click the relevant Inbox or Sent folder or sub-folder to display the contents in the normal way.

For stand-alone machines, go to File – Open, click Outlook Data Files in XP machines (Personal Folders File in Windows 2000) and select the archive file. When you return to Outlook, you will see a new folder labelled Archive Folders containing a copy of all your folders. Click the + sign to display a folder and then open the old messages from here.

For networked computers e.g.Windows 2000 machines, Go to Tools – Services, click Add and in the Available information services window click Personal Folders – OK. Locate your archive file and then click Open. When you close the window you will see your Archive Folders in the folder list.

Message rules

The most efficient way to deal with incoming messages is to set up rules. For example, you can set Outlook to move all messages from John Smith directly into an Inbox folder labelled John’s Mail or move anything with ‘Congratulations’ in the subject box straight to your Deleted Items folder.

To set up rules, open the Inbox and select Organize from the Tools menu or click the toolbar button . A window will open above your Inbox messages with various boxes already completed.

If you want to move an individual message without setting up rules, you can use the top boxes labelled Move message selected below to . . . Click the message, select the appropriate folder to move it to and click the Move button.

You may simply like a quick way to identify certain messages – click the Using Colours link to colour particular messages when they arrive in your Inbox.

If you want to create a rule that will move messages from a particular sender to a specified folder each time they write, check that the correct folder name is showing in the box and click the Create button.

You will be told that the new rule will be applied to all new messages. You can also have the rule applied ‘retrospectively’ to any messages from the sender presently in your Inbox.

For more complex rules, click the link to the Rules Wizard. (You can also right-click a message and select Create Rule – this will offer a slightly different route to that set out below).

If you have already created a rule, it will be showing in the window and you can select it and click the Rename button to give it a shorter or clearer name, or click Delete to remove it completely.

To create a new rule, click the New button. You will be offered a range of the most common rule templates you are likely to need, but if nothing is suitable, you can also create your own rule from scratch.

To move incoming messages from someone in your Contacts address book to a named folder, check that the first option in the top window (Move new messages from someone) is selected and then click the people or distribution list link in the lower window. This will take you to your Contacts where you can select the sender’s e-mail address.

Click OK and now click the link to the specified folder. Select it from the list or click New to create one at this point.

Back in the Wizard, details of your new rule will now be displayed in the lower window.

The Wizard now takes you through a series of options that will allow you to add caveats or extra features to your rule before you confirm all the details and give the rule a name. You can also set Outlook to move any old messages to their destination according to your new rule.

If you receive too much junk mail or any unsavoury messages, either create a rule that moves them to the Deleted Items folder (if you can specify the sender or words in the subject box), or right-click, select Junk E-mail and add them to the appropriate senders list. A new folder will be created within your Deleted Items folder in which the messages will be stored, so that you can check them before they are deleted.

View or edit this list e.g. to remove an address added by mistake, by opening the Organize window, click Junk E-Mail, then click ‘for more options click here’ and then click the Edit link.

Searching

We all lose messages at some time, so being able to find them again is a useful skill. A quick way is to re-sort the contents of a folder. Re-arrange your messages by clicking the column heading e.g. to organise by name alphabetically or by date received. Each click will reverse the order in that particular field/category.

To find messages more systematically, use the Find function. Click the button or select the option from the Tools menu to open the Find window.

You could use the limited boxes (labelled Look for . .. and Search In .. .) that will appear, or you may prefer to click Options – Advanced Find to search in more detail. Now enter as much information as you can about the missing message e.g. who it is from, the subject of the message etc. and then click the Find Now button.

If the probable storage folder is not listed in the In: window, click Browse to display all the Outlook folders and click the correct folder name. All sub-folders will be searched at the same time.

If time is relevant, you can click in the Time: box to select when the message was created or received and limit the settings to options such as today, within the last seven days or last month.

After clicking the Find Now button, any relevant messages will be displayed in a lower box that will open automatically.