Oxford University Computing Services

Outlook: E-mail and more

• Tony Brett

• Oxford University Computing Services

• December 2005

Agenda

• What is Outlook?

• Security Warning

• Configuring for E-mail

• POP or IMAP?
• Use with an Exchange Server

• Junk Mail Settings

• Sending E-mail

• Using Folders

• Archiving Messages

• Searching for Messages

• Address Book

• Filtering – using Rules

• What else can Outlook do?

What is Outlook?

• “Productivity” package

• E-mail

• Notes

• Journal

• Task List

• Address book

• Can work with Exchange to group working

Security Warning

• Many E-mail viruses/worms etc. exploit outlook security vulnerabilities

• Keep it up-to-date!

• Use Windowsupdate/Officeupdate

• Turn off preview pane/auto preview

• Don’t open attachments or click on links you’re not expecting

Configuring E-mail

• See OUCS Web Site

• Use POP for offline working

• Use IMAP for multi-location working

• Use secure settings

• Don’t let outlook save your password

• A Herald account can be used for far more than E-mail in the wrong hands!

Junk Mail Settings

• Outlook 2003 Automatically deals with junk mail

• You can control how much it deletes
• Can use this instead of Herald junk mail filtering

Sending E-mail

• Normal Compose Window

• Best to send in Plain Text

• Not everyone has Outlook!

• Copies can be kept in Sent Items

• Can use Signatures

• Message Priority can be set

• Attachments

• Don’t use attachments when a plain text message would do just as well

Using Folders

• New Mail comes in to INBOX

• Local folders under Outlook Today (Personal Folders)

• IMAP Puts them in a different hierarchy

• IMAP folders need purge after delete

• Folders can be made within folders

• Right-click on folder to access folder functions

• “Deleted items” is a special folder

• Can configure which columns to see

• Note difference between “sent” and “received”

Archiving Messages

• Large folders can get slow and cumbersome

• Moving messages from IMAP folders to local folders reduces herald quota use

• Archiving moves messages off to a file for storage

• Can be done automatically

• Get messages back using “import” in file menu

Searching for Messages

• Simple “Find” is often sufficient to find particular people or subjects

• Advanced “Find” is much more flexible

• Can use to find spam
• Mailing list manipulation

• Better to use rules if you want to actually do something with messages that are found

Address Book

• Useful for storing contacts and making groups

• Can input names manually or extract from messages

• Group are useful for occasional sending to multiple people

• Maillists can be better if others need to use them

• Can use for phone numbers, postal addresses etc.

• Can often sync with mobile phones, handhelds etc.

Filtering – Using Rules

• Rules act immediately on POP or IMAP

• Only if Outlook is running!

• Server-side filtering is better if you’re using IMAP

• If you’re using a POP Spam filter then a rule is usually used to move the mail into a spam folder

• Rules can save a lot of time, especially with high-volume mailing lists

What else can Outlook do?

• Calendaring – syncing with PDAs/Mobile Phones

• Group Scheduling with Exchange Server

• Keeping Notes

• Task-tracking

• Keeping track of what you should be doing!

• Journaling

• keeping track of what you did!

Resources & Questions

• http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/email/config/outlook2002/

• http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/email/config/outlook2003/

• http://office.microsoft.com/