Outlook, Best Practices

• Calendars, Outlook Desktop Application
  • Permissions & Sharing
  • Appointments
• Calendars, Office 365 WebEmail, Outlook Desktop ApplicationEmail, Office 365 Web
  • Permissions & Sharing
  • Appointments
  • Junk, Rules and Sweep  

FOREWORD: Versions

This page contains best practices and instructions for using the Microsoft Outlook and Outlook 365 Web applications. Theres been some confusion about which version of Outlook maximizes the new features of Office 365. While they each have their own style of interface, and while both have unique features, you dont have to stick with one or the other. It is recommended, however, to use the Microsoft Outlook application while on campus, and to use the 365 Web version as a supplement.

Calendars

Outlook 2010 / 2013 / 2016

The following section will detail the recommended settings and procedures for securing or sharing your Office calendar. First, lets go over permissions.

Permissions

Under Outlook, your calendar has several security settings that enable or disable access to other users. By default, your calendar settings should be set to Free / Busy Time. This means that other users trying to access your calendar can see the time blocks of your appointments, but not the details.

• To access your Calendar permissions, open your Outlook program and access the Calendar section.
• Right-click on Calendar under the heading My Calendars. It should be located on the left side of the screen.
• Left-click on Permissions.
• A new window will appear. At the top, there will be a user named Default, followed by a permission level. It should be set to Free / Busy Time.

In the event that your Default setting is not set to Free / Busy Time:
Left-click Default. Underneath, there will be a dropdown menu that lists all available permission levels, from Reviewer to Editor. Select Free / Busy Time from the list, then click Apply.

Sharing

Sharing your calendar allows other users to see your schedule. Depending on the level of access, they can view, modify, or add calendar appointments for you. This is a two-step process. It involves the person sharing the calendar, and the person receiving access.

To grant access to your calendar, you must add the users to your Permissions group. Follow the steps under Permissions(tab) to access your calendar settings. Then:

• Click Add
• In the new window that appears, search for the name of the user(s) youre adding in the search bar.
• Click their name, and click Add. When you are finished adding users, click OK.

The users will appear in your Permissions group. You can assign access levels based on how much control you wish to give. The permission levels are shown below.

Pay attention to the details of the permissions.

Levels of Access

Once the users permissions have been set, your calendar can be shared. The user will add the shared calendar under his/her Outlook program by doing the following.

In the Calendars sections of Outlook, under the Manage Calendars subsection, click Open Calendar.

Click From Address Book

In the Address Book window, find the user who has given you access to their calendar. (The below example has blanked out the users list. You will see users sorted by last name.)

Add users by clicking on them and clicking the Calendar button. When you are finished, click OK. The users calendar will now show up under a new subheading called Shared Calendars.

Calendars and Sharing under Office 365 Web

• Go to 365 Web Application ( http://mail.etsu.edu ).
• Go to Calendars and find My Calendars.
• Right click and select Share Calendar

Add information about who you wish to share your calendar with, and select how much information you wish to share.

In the example above, if I share my calendar with Full Details, more than just Free or Busy can be seen.  Peers in my sharing list can see my appointments and notes I have added.  If I dont want someone to see some event, I can set the event as Private. I can see the list of folks who I am sharing my calendar with and change their permissions at any time.

Calendars that have been shared with me will appear under Peoples Calendar. Public Folders/Calendars will appear under Other Calendars and below that I can see Groups I have created or belong to.

PST (Personal Folders)

PSTs (also known as Personal Folders) are collections of email that have been taken off the mail server. In the past, this was to conserve inbox space. With the introduction of the new inbox space limit (50GB), this storage method has been deprecated. Still, you may have one or more PSTs on your local computer.

To view the contents of PSTs, you must attach them to your Outlook mailbox. Heres how.

•  Under Outlook, Click File.
• Click Open & Export
• Click Open Outlook Data File

Navigate to the location of your PST. In most cases, itll be in a folder called Outlook Files under your Documents folder. If you have trouble finding your PST files, please contact the Help Desk for assistance.

Once you find the PST file, select it and click Open.

The PST file will now be displayed under your Outlook Mailbox as a separate entity, either called Archives, or Personal Folders.

• Create an appointment in Desktop Outlook
• In Calendar, click the Home tab.
• In the New group, click New Appointment. Alternately, you can right-click a time block in your calendar grid and click New Appointment.

• In the Subject box, type a description.
• In the Location box, type the location.
• Enter the start and end times.

Create an appointment in OWA (Online Web Access) Outlook

Go to Calendar > New > Calendar event.

Fill in the details and Save and or Attach a file.

Junk

You may find unwanted or unnecessary email cluttering your inbox, and wish to add them to the junk mail filter. There are a few ways to do this.

For an individual email sender:

• Right-click the offending email and move the mouse over Junk. 
• Select Block Sender.
• For an entire domain (I.E. the sent emails base location):
  • Right-click the offending email and move the mouse over Junk
  • Select Junk E-mail Options
  • In the new window, left-click the Blocked Senders tab.
  • Enter the domain of the email you wish to block, as seen below.

 Junk on OWA

Locate the Junk icon on the Toolbar (Ribbon) or go to settings and define the OWA Junk behavior and details. Setting options include reporting unwanted email.

Another Junk removal option: Use SWEEP

In fact, Sweep can help you manage your inbox with a simple set of actions. Sweep can set up rules from junk removal instructions the author provides related to a selected email. 

When you select a message and click the Sweep icon, youll see four options based on the sender of that email.

• Delete all messages from the Inbox folder (from that sender).
• Delete all messages from the Inbox folder and any future messages (from that sender).
• Always keep the latest message (from that sender) and delete the rest.
• Always delete messages (from that sender) older than 10 days.

Its up to you how and when to institute these rules, but one great use is for the ubiquitous coupon and sale emails that many of us get. Perhaps you do want to stay informed about deals at your favorite store, but after 10 days, many of those emails become outdated. You could choose the final option, Always delete messages older than 10 days, and you no longer have to take any action on those outdated emailsSweep takes care of it for you.

Once you institute a Sweep rule, youll be able to see it by clicking on View rules in the sweep dialog box, or go to Options -> Mail -> Inbox and sweep rules.

 Rules Management / Creation Desktop Software

h3Depending on preference, you may want certain emails to be forward to a specific folder, or trigger an alert when a specific type of message arrives. Outlook provides a template for creating these events, called Rules and Alerts. Below is a basic guide to activating and navigating the rules menu.

For this example, a rule will be created that moves all emails with example in the Subject line to the Clutter folder, UNLESS the email is marked as High Importance. 

For Preconfigured Rules:

Access the Rules menu by either left-clicking the Rules button at the top center of the email window, or clicking File at the top left, and selecting Manage Rules and Alerts.

In the window, under the E-mail Rules tab, click New Rule.

h3The Rules Wizard will appear. Under Step 1, select the template that you want from the available categories.

Under Step 2, click the appropriate underlined value. Each option will open the related window (I.E. Address Book for people or public group). Click next.

Under Step 1, select the conditions that you want the messages to meet for the rule to apply.

Under Step 2, click an underlined value for any condition that you added, and then specify the value, then click Next.

Under Step 1, select the action that you want to take when the specified conditions are met.

Under Step 2, click an underlined value for any action that you added, specify the value, and then click Next.

Under Step 1, select any exceptions, and then click Next.

Under Step 2, click an underlined value for any exception that you added, specify the value, and then click Next.

• Under Step 1, enter a name for your new rule.
• Under Step 2, select the check boxes for the options you want:
• If you want to run this rule on messages that already are in your Inbox, select the Run this rule now on messages already in Inbox check box.
• If you want the rule to be activated right away, ensure Turn on this rule is checked. You can disable it at any time from the Manage Rules menu.

Click Finish.

To see the newly created rule, return to the Manage Rules and Alerts menu.

You can disable any of your rules at any time by unchecking the box next to their names.

To create a new rule from scratch:

• Access the Rules menu by either left-clicking the Rules button at the top center of the email window, or clicking File at the top left, and selecting Manage Rules and Alerts.
• In the window, under the E-mail Rules tab, click New Rule.
• Under Start from a blank rule, click either Apply rule on message I receive or Apply rule on message I send, and then click Next.

The next series of screens are exactly the same as using a preconfigured rule, so refer to the above guide.