14. Manage email automatically
In this chapter
Automatically reply to messages
Create rules to process messages
Manage messages by using Quick Steps
Practice files
No practice files are necessary to complete the practice tasks in this chapter.
To more easily manage information you receive through email, you can specify how Outlook 2016 alerts you to and processes incoming messages. When you travel or will be unavailable to respond to incoming email messages for a period of time, you can use the Automatic Replies feature to inform message senders of your status and to set expectations for message response times.
You can create rules to process messages that arrive while you’re out of the office, to ensure that information gets to the people who need it. You can also create rules that evaluate all your incoming or outgoing messages and perform actions with the messages that meet specific conditions.
If you frequently perform a specific set of actions on messages that you receive, you can save time by saving the action series as a Quick Step. You can then perform the series of actions on items in your Inbox by clicking one button (or using a keyboard shortcut). Outlook comes with five built-in Quick Steps to get you started, and you can easily create your own.
This chapter guides you through procedures related to automatically replying to messages, creating rules to process messages, and managing messages by using Quick Steps.
Automatically reply to messages
If your organization is running Microsoft Exchange, you can use the Automatic Replies feature (previously called the Out Of Office Assistant) to inform people who send you email messages of your availability. When you turn on the Automatic Replies feature, Outlook replies automatically to messages received from other people (but only to the first message from each person). You provide whatever textual information you want within the body of the automatic reply message (commonly referred to as an out-of-office message, or OOF message).
Automatic replies can provide alternative contact information when you’re away
The purpose of the Automatic Replies feature is to provide standard information to message senders and co-workers. When you’re away from your computer, an automatic reply can set expectations for when a correspondent can expect a personal response from you. You don’t have to be physically out of the office to use this feature; some people use it to let other people know when responses will be delayed for other reasons, such as when they are working on a project that will prevent them from responding promptly to messages, or to inform customers who might be in different time zones of their standard working hours.
You can provide different messages to people within your organization and people external to your organization. The out-of-office functionality in Outlook is provided by Exchange Server. The specific automatic reply features might differ depending on the features that are turned on for your organization. If your organization has MailTips turned on, your automatic reply message is displayed to co-workers in a MailTip at the top of messages they address to you.
Automatic replies provide valuable information to co-workers
When you are using an Exchange account, automatic replies include the following features:
You can create two automatic reply messages—one that Outlook sends only to people in your organization (on the same domain) and another it sends either to everyone else or only to the people in your primary address book.
When you have separate internal and external messages, you can distinguish the information made available to co-workers, to friends and business contacts, and to the general public (including senders of spam). For example, you might include your itinerary and mobile phone number only in replies to internal contacts. For contacts not within your organization, you might include only your return date in your reply. For the general public, you might not send any reply at all.
You can specify the font, size, and color of automatic reply message text and apply bold, italic, or underline formatting.
You can format paragraphs as bulleted or numbered lists, and control the indent level.
You can specify start and end dates and times for your automatic reply messages so that you don’t have to remember to turn off automatic replies, or you can turn them on and off manually.
To set up automatic replies when you’ll be out of the office for a week, set the start time to the end of the day on the last day you’ll be in the office, and the end time to the end of the last day you’ll be out of the office. This ensures that anyone who sends a message that you won’t be able to respond to within a normal business response time period will receive an automatic reply.
The Automatic Replies feature is off until you explicitly turn it on; it does not coordinate with your free/busy information in the Calendar module.
You manage automatic replies from the Info page of the Backstage view.
When automatic replies are on, you can turn them off or modify them from the Info page
You configure and turn on automatic replies from the Automatic Replies dialog box. This dialog box includes two tabs: Inside My Organization and Outside My Organization. If automatic replies are turned off, the content pane and commands are unavailable on both tabs. When you turn on automatic replies, the commands become available and you can set the date range, enter a message in the content pane, and format the text much as you would any message text.
The Outside My Organization tab includes options for sending automatic replies to all people outside of your organization, only to people with email addresses that are present in your primary Outlook address book, or not at all.
You can specify types of external message senders who will receive your automatic reply
When automatic replies are turned on, an InfoBar appears in the app window below the ribbon, and an Automatic Replies button appears on the status bar. You can manage your automatic replies by using these tools, or from the Info page of the Backstage view.
The InfoBar is displayed in every module
See Also
For information about using rules to automatically forward, reply to, delete, alert you to, or otherwise process incoming messages, see “Create rules to process messages” later in this chapter.
1. Display the Info page of the Backstage view. In the account list at the top of the page, select the Exchange account for which you want to configure automatic replies. Then click the Automatic Replies button.
Important
The functionality in this procedure is available only for Exchange accounts. If you select another account type, the Automatic Replies button is not available on the Info page.
2. In the Automatic Replies dialog box, click Send automatic replies to activate the time range check box, content pane, and formatting commands.
3. If you want Outlook to turn automatic replies on and off for you, do the following:
a. Select the Only send during this time range check box.
b. In the Start time area, enter or select the date and time you want Outlook to start sending replies.
c. In the End time area, enter or select the date and time you want Outlook to stop sending replies.
If you don’t select the check box, Outlook will send automatic replies from the time you turn them on until you turn them off manually.
4. On the Inside My Organization tab, in the content pane, enter a message you want Outlook to send to message senders within your organization. Use the tools above the content pane to format the message text.
5. Display the Outside My Organization tab.
6. If you want Outlook to send automatic replies only to people within your organ-ization, clear the Auto-reply to people outside my organization check box, and then skip to step 9.
7. If you want Outlook to send automatic replies to both internal and external message senders, select the Auto-reply to people outside my organization check box, if necessary, and then do either of the following:
• To send external replies only to message senders whose email addresses are saved in your primary address book, click My Contacts only.
• To send external replies to any message senders outside of your organization, click Anyone outside my organization.
8. On the Outside My Organization tab, in the content pane, enter a message you want Outlook to send to the external message senders you selected in step 7. Use the tools above the content pane to format the message text.
9. On either tab, click OK to turn on automatic replies and return to the Info page.
Tip
If you make changes to either the internal or the external reply message, but not to both, when you close the Automatic Replies dialog box, Outlook displays a message box that asks whether you want to change the other reply message. This useful reminder helps ensure that you keep both versions up to date.
To turn off automatic replies
1. Do any of the following:
• On the information bar, click Turn off.
• On the Info page of the Backstage view, in the Automatic Replies area, click Turn off.
• On the status bar or on the Info page of the Backstage view, click the Automatic Replies button. In the Automatic Replies dialog box, click Do not send automatic replies, and then click OK.
Manage messages while you’re away
1. In the Automatic Replies dialog box, click Rules to open the Automatic Reply Rules dialog box. Then click Add Rule to open the Edit Rule dialog box.
Create simple rules that Outlook applies only when automatic replies are turned on
2. In the Edit Rule dialog box, enter or select the conditions that will trigger the rule, select the check boxes of the actions you want Outlook to perform, and provide any additional information that is necessary.
3. Click OK in each of the open dialog boxes to create the rule. Outlook will apply the rule when automatic replies are turned on.
Create rules to process messages
You can have Outlook evaluate your incoming or outgoing email messages and take various actions with them based on sets of instructions you set up, called rules. You can create rules based on different message criteria, such as the message sender, message recipients, message content, attachments, and importance. By using rules, you can have Outlook move, copy, delete, forward, redirect, reply to, or otherwise process messages based on the criteria you specify. You can choose from a collection of standard rules or create your own.
If you have an Exchange Server account, you can set up rules that are applied to messages as they are received or processed by your Exchange server, and rules that go into effect only when you indicate that you are unavailable, by setting up an automatic reply. For any type of email account, you can set up rules that are applied to messages stored on your computer.
See Also
For information about configuring Outlook to respond to and process messages for you, see “Automatically reply to messages” earlier in this chapter.
Outlook provides a wizard to walk you through the process of creating rules. You can base a rule on a template provided by Outlook, or you can start from a blank rule for incoming or outgoing messages.
When you start from a rule template, the wizard displays placeholders for the specific conditions and actions associated with the rule, and you replace the placeholders with values to create the rule. For example, if you choose the Move messages with specific words in the subject to a folder template, the description includes placeholders for the words that will be in the subject of the incoming messages you want to move, and for the name of the folder you want to move the messages to.
Rule templates provide structure, and you provide details
When you create a rule based on a blank rule, you specify whether to apply the rule to messages that you send or that you receive, select conditions and actions to define the rule, and provide the values for the conditions and actions.
You can specify multiple conditions and multiple actions
You can add conditions and actions to any rule, regardless of whether you create it from a template or from a blank rule. You can also set exceptions to the rules.
Conditions, actions, and exceptions vary for incoming and outgoing message rules
To create a rule from a rule template
1. On the Info page of the Backstage view, click the Manage Rules & Alerts button to display the Email Rules tab of the Rules And Alerts dialog box.
2. On the E-mail Rules tab, click New Rule to start the Rules Wizard.
Select a template or blank rule to start
3. In the Step 1: Select a template pane, click any rule template (those in the Stay Organized and Stay Up To Date sections). The conditions and actions associated with the template appear in the Step 2 pane.
4. In the Step 2: Edit the rule description pane, click each of the underlined placeholders, and supply the value.
5. Click Next to display the list of conditions Outlook can evaluate for messages of the type that are managed by the selected template. The conditions that are already in effect are selected.
6. If you want Outlook to evaluate more conditions, do the following for each additional condition:
a. In the Step 1 pane, select the check box for the condition you want to add.
b. In the Step 2 pane, click the placeholder and provide the specific value.
7. Click Next to display the list of actions Outlook can perform with messages of the type that are managed by the selected template. The actions that are already in effect are selected.
8. If you want Outlook to perform more actions, do the following for each additional action:
a. In the Step 1 pane, select the check box for the action you want to add.
b. In the Step 2 pane, click the placeholder and provide the specific value.
9. Click Next to display the list of exceptions Outlook can evaluate for messages of the type that are managed by the selected template. If you want Outlook to process exceptions, do the following for each exception:
a. In the Step 1 pane, select the check box for the exception you want to add.
b. In the Step 2 pane, click the placeholder and provide the specific value.
10. Click Next to display the final page of the Rules Wizard.
You can run the rule on existing messages
11. In the Step 1 section of the summary page, in the Specify a name for this rule box, edit the suggested name as necessary to provide a clear description.
12. In the Step 2 section of the summary page, do any of the following:
a. If you want to run the rule on messages you’ve already received, select the Run this rule now on messages already in Inbox check box.
b. If you want to run the rule on messages that you receive in the future, select the Turn on this rule check box.
c. If you want the rule to apply to all the email accounts you use in Outlook, select the Create this rule on all accounts check box.
13. In the Step 3 section of the summary page, review the rule conditions, actions, and exceptions. Make any changes that you want.
14. Click Finish to save the rule. In the Rules And Alerts dialog box, a selected check box to the left of the rule name indicates that the rule is active.
You can review all existing rules from this dialog box
15. In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, click OK.
To create a rule from a blank template
1. On the Info page of the Backstage view, click the Manage Rules & Alerts button to display the Email Rules tab of the Rules And Alerts dialog box.
2. On the E-mail Rules tab, click New Rule to start the Rules Wizard.
3. In the Step 1: Select a template pane, click Apply rule on messages I receive or Apply rule on messages I send.
4. Click Next to display the list of conditions Outlook can evaluate for messages of the selected type. For each condition you want Outlook to evaluate, do the following:
a. In the Step 1 pane, select the check box for the condition you want to evaluate.
b. In the Step 2 pane, click the placeholder and provide the specific value.
If you don’t select any conditions, Outlook will evaluate all incoming or outgoing messages. This is a valid option.
5. Click Next to display the list of actions Outlook can perform with messages of the selected type. For each action you want Outlook to perform with messages that meet the specified conditions, do the following:
a. In the Step 1 pane, select the check box for the action you want to perform.
b. In the Step 2 pane, click the placeholder and provide the specific value.
6. Click Next to display the list of exceptions Outlook can evaluate for messages of the selected type. If you want Outlook to process exceptions, do the following for each exception:
a. In the Step 1 pane, select the check box for the exception you want to add.
b. In the Step 2 pane, click the placeholder and provide the specific value.
7. Click Next to display the final page of the Rules Wizard.
8. In the Step 1 section of the summary page, in the Specify a name for this rule box, edit the suggested name as necessary to provide a clear description.
9. In the Step 2 section of the summary page, do any of the following:
a. If you want to run the rule on messages you’ve already received, select the Run this rule now on messages already in Inbox check box.
b. If you want to run the rule on messages that you receive in the future, select the Turn on this rule check box.
c. If you want the rule to apply to all the email accounts you use in Outlook, select the Create this rule on all accounts check box.
10. In the Step 3 section of the summary page, review the rule conditions, actions, and exceptions. Make any changes that you want.
11. Click Finish to save the rule. In the Rules And Alerts dialog box, a selected check box to the left of the rule name indicates that the rule is active.
12. In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, click OK.
To manage rules
1. On the Info page of the Backstage view, click the Manage Rules & Alerts button to display the Email Rules tab of the Rules And Alerts dialog box.
2. Do any of the following:
• To turn off a rule, clear the check box to the left of the rule name.
• To modify a rule, click the rule name (not the check box), click the Change Rule button, and then click Edit Rule Settings to display the rule in the Rules Wizard. Modify the conditions, actions, or exceptions of the rule, and then click Finish to save your changes.
• To delete a rule, click the rule name (not the check box), click the Delete button, and then in the Microsoft Outlook dialog box that opens, click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the rule.
3. In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, click OK.
Manage messages by using Quick Steps
Quick Steps are sets of processes that you can perform on an email message in your Inbox (only) by clicking a button. If you frequently perform multiple tasks with a single message, you might find that you can save time by creating a Quick Step. For example, you can reply to an email message and delete the original message, or you can flag a message for follow-up and move it to a specific folder.
Quick Steps are available from the Quick Steps gallery on the Home tab of the Mail module, and from the shortcut menu that appears when you right-click a message or group of messages. If you use Quick Steps frequently, you can save even more time by assigning keyboard shortcuts to up to nine of them.
A new installation of Outlook includes these five built-in Quick Steps:
Move To Moves the selected message to a folder that you specify the first time you use the Quick Step and marks the message as read. After you specify the folder, the Quick Step name changes to include the folder name.
To Manager Forwards the selected message to a person or people you specify the first time you use the Quick Step. You can edit the Quick Step to include Cc and Bcc recipients, a specific message subject, a follow-up flag, a level of importance, and specific message text, and to send the message one minute after you click the Quick Step command.
Team Email Creates a message to a person or people you specify the first time you use the Quick Step. You can edit the Quick Step to include Cc and Bcc recipients, a specific message subject, a follow-up flag, a level of importance, and specific message text, and to send the message one minute after you click the Quick Step command.
Done Moves the selected message to a folder that you specify the first time you use the Quick Step, marks the message as read, and marks the message as complete so that a check mark is displayed in the follow-up flag location.
Reply & Delete Creates a response to the original message sender and immediately deletes the original message.
Important
The Reply & Delete Quick Step deletes the original message before you send the reply. If you close the response message composition window without sending it, the original message will no longer be in your Inbox. If you want to respond to the original message, you first need to retrieve it from your Deleted Items folder.
A Quick Step can perform up to 12 actions. You can modify the actions performed by existing Quick Steps, or you can create your own. You can choose from 25 actions in six categories: Filing; Change Status; Categories, Tasks and Flags; Respond; Appointment; and Conversations.
Quick Steps can perform many types of actions
Tip
If you connect to multiple accounts, the Quick Steps in each Mail module are specific to that account. Only the Quick Steps that can be performed on the selected message or messages will be shown as available.
To configure a built-in Quick Step for use
1. On the Home tab, in the Quick Steps gallery, click the Quick Step to open the First Time Setup dialog box.
Some generic Quick Steps require that you supply information the first time you use them
2. Do either of the following, and then click Save:
• For the Move To or Done Quick Step, specify a destination folder by clicking it in the Move to folder list.
Tip
If the Move To Folder list doesn’t include the folder you want to use, click Other Folder and then, in the Select Folder dialog box, browse to the folder.
• For the To Manager or Team Email Quick Step, specify one or more message recipients in the To box.
To use a Quick Step
1. In the Inbox, select one or more messages.
2. ln the Quick Steps gallery, click the Quick Step that you want to run.
1. In the Quick Steps gallery, right-click the Quick Step, and then click Edit to open the Edit Quick Step dialog box.
You can add, change, or remove actions
2. Do any of the following, and then click Save:
• In the Name box, enter a new name for the Quick Step.
• In the Actions section, modify the actions the Quick Step performs.
• In the Shortcut key list, click a key combination.
• In the Tooltip text box, enter the text that you want to appear when you point to the Quick Step in the gallery.
1. On the Home tab, in the Quick Steps group, click the More button to expand the menu, and then click Create New to open the Edit Quick Step dialog box.
2. In the Name box, replace My Quick Step with the name you want.
3. In the Actions section, click the Choose an action arrow, and then click the first action you want the Quick Step to perform.
4. Depending on the action you select, you might be prompted to provide specific information such as a recipient, folder, or category. Provide the requested information.
5. For each additional action that you want to Quick Step to perform, click Add Action, select the action, and provide any necessary specifics.
Tip
Some actions might not be available in subsequent action lists, if they can’t be performed after the preceding actions.
6. If you want to assign a keyboard shortcut to the Quick Step, expand the Shortcut key list, and then click the keyboard shortcut you want to use. (Options are Ctrl+F1 through Ctrl+F9.)
7. If you want Outlook to display information when you point to the Quick Step in the gallery, enter that text in the Tooltip text box.
Tooltips can help you remember the purpose of each Quick Step
8. In the Edit Quick Step dialog box, click Finish to add the new Quick Step to the Quick Steps gallery.
To reorder the Quick Steps in the Quick Step gallery
1. On the Home tab, in the Quick Steps group, click the More button to display the gallery and menu, and then click Manage Quick Steps to open the Manage Quick Steps dialog box.
2. In the Quick step list on the left, click the Quick Step you want to move. Then click the Up or Down button to change the position of the Quick Step in the list and gallery.
3. Click OK to save the change and close the dialog box.
Skills review
In this chapter, you learned how to:
Automatically reply to messages
Create rules to process messages
Manage messages by using Quick Steps
Automatically reply to messages
Perform the following tasks:
1. Create an automatic reply message to senders within your organization.
2. Turn on automatic replies, and notice the indicators that appear in the Backstage view and in the app window.
3. Send a message to yourself, and review the automatic reply message that you receive.
4. Consider the different circumstances in which you could benefit from the use of automatic replies.
5. Turn off automatic replies.
Create rules to process messages
Perform the following tasks:
1. Create a rule that displays an alert when you receive a message from yourself. While working in the Rules Wizard, consider the types of incoming or outgoing message rules that might be useful to you.
2. Save the rule with the name Alert Me, and turn on the rule.
3. Send a message to yourself, and notice the result.
4. Turn off the rule, and then delete it.
5. If you want to create any rules to process incoming or outgoing messages, do so.
1. Investigate the existing Quick Steps and consider which of them might be useful to you.
2. If you want to configure a built-in Quick Step for a specific purpose, do so.
3. Create a custom Quick Step that performs a process or multiple processes that you perform manually on email messages that you receive. Give the Quick Step a meaningful name and provide explanatory tooltip text. Then save the Quick Step.
4. On the Home tab, in the Quick Steps group, point to your custom Quick Step and confirm that the tooltip text appears.
5. Select one or more messages in your Inbox and run the custom Quick Step. Evaluate the results.
6. Create any additional Quick Steps that you want. Assign a keyboard shortcut to any Quick Steps that you anticipate you will use often.