Riverbank It management

Get more from Microsoft Outlook by making it work harder for you. Here are some bright ideas from the Riverbank technical team.

Auto-complete e-mail addresses
When you are sending an e-mail type the first few characters of the e-mail address then get Outlook to look up the rest of the address. Press Ctrl K to force Outlook to do this lookup.

Speedy send for e-mail
Type your e-mail then pres Ctrl Enter. This is the keyboard shortcut for Send. Save yourself precious seconds (think – how many times do you press Send in a year?).

New e-mail notification
Do you find it distracting to have those notifications as each new e-mail arrives? If so, turn them off so you can concentrate on the work you should be doing. Click Tools | Options | Preferences Tab | e-mail options | Advanced e-mail options. Remove the tick from the option Show an envelope icon in the notification area.

Use Outlook tasks
The Outlook task list is a great way to manage your to-do list and remember vital events like birthdays, insurance renewals and anything else you mustn’t forget.

Outlook tasks are child’s play to use but just make a note of the sort of things you can do:
• Order your task list by date, by priority or by almost any other criterion you choose.
• Get yourself a magic memory. When someone says “I’ll do that for you by the end of the month” create a task for it so you remember to check that they have done it. • Use recurring tasks – ideal for things like birthdays and insurance renewals or monthly reports you have to prepare or expect to receive.

Give other people permission to help you
One of the big benefits of having Microsoft Exchange behind your Outlook is that it really does help you work as a team. One way to do this is to grant permissions for other people to access your Outlook. Give your colleagues the rights to see your calendar – don’t give them write access, just read access – and that will stop them interrupting you to see if you are free on a particular day.

If you are in meetings all day maybe someone else in the office could keep an eye on your inbox for you and alert you to any important and urgent e-mails? 

If you would like step-by-step instructions on how to grant permission to other users just drop me a line at malcolm@riverbank.co.uk.
 
Make use of public folders
Another strength of Exchange is the opportunity to use public folders. These are Outlook folders that are visible across your organisation. The obvious examples are a shared company-wide calendar and a list of company contacts. Others include shared project or customer folders.

Remember to set the permissions carefully – you want a system that gives the right level of access for all people but you might not want a free-for-all with everyone able to edit and delete everything.

If you would like to learn more about making use of public folders do get in touch - malcolm@riverbank.co.uk.