A Positive Outlook for 2004-05
Microsoft Outlook 2002
for
Educators
Microsoft Outlook for Educators
Table of Contents
Creating a Distribution List…………………………………………..3
Scheduling an Appointment……………………………….……...…4
Recurring Appointments……………………………………………..5
Meeting Requests…………………………………………….……....6
Managing Multiple Calendars………………………………………..9
Mailbox Size Management…………………………………………..10
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
Creating a Distribution List
If you have a group of recipients that you are sending emails to on a regular basis, you may want
to create a distribution list to avoid having to search for email addresses or names when you
wish to send the latest notice out.
You can create a distribution list by going to the NEW button and selecting Distribution List.
Type the list name
here.
Click on this
button to add
members to
your group.
You will need to name your distribution list. For example, the name used in the above screen
capture is “Language Arts Team”. To add members to your group, simply click on Select
Members and then select the recipients from the global address book or your contacts.
Once created, your distribution lists can be found in the Contacts folder.
Note: There are distribution lists that exist on the “global” level and for your particular school.
th
For example, your school should have distribution lists that already exist for “All 8 Grade
Teachers”, “Math Teachers”, and more. In addition, you also have “county lists” that include all
district personnel and more.
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
Calendar
Scheduling an Appointment
Wouldn’t it be nice if our computers could remind us to do things like attend a meeting, take a
lunch break, or return a phone call? Well, if you did not know, Outlook has a useful tool for such
quandaries. To set an appointment, follow these steps:
1. From the Outlook folder area, click on Calendar.
2. There are many ways you can set an appointment. You can highlight the block of time
for the appointment directly on the calendar (daily view), or you can go to the New button
and select Appointment.
Calendar in Daily View
3. You will then be presented with a dialog box which has many options. See the diagram
below for details.
Subject and
Location
Start and
end times
You can use this open notes
area to type an agenda or
Reminder miscellaneous items that are
settings vital to the appointment.
4. Fill in the details as necessary. Remember, if you would like a reminder notice (and an
optional sound), you must check the box for reminder and then set a time for the
reminder to appear.
5. When you have completed the details to your specifications, simply click on Save and
Close to complete the action. You will then notice that your appointment will appear on
your calendar (in daily view).
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
Recurring Appointments
To avoid having to replicate appointments every day, week, month, etc. you can utilize the
recurring appointment feature in Outlook. This will allow you to create recurring appointments for
such things as monthly staff meetings or birthdays (as well as a variety of others).
To make an appointment (or a meeting) into a recurring appointment, simply locate the
recurrence button (from within the appointment dialog box) and click on it.
You will then have to select the recurrence settings (monthly, daily, days, etc.). See the diagram
below for specifics.
Outlook remembers the
times of the original
appointment
The
recurrence
can be
Daily,
Weekly,
Monthly or
Yearly
It remembers the original Start date
and you can choose for the
appointment to never end, end after a
certain number of occurrences or set
a specific date for it to end.
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
Meeting Requests
Creating a Meeting Request
A meeting is an appointment that includes invited attendees and optional resources. You
schedule a meeting by sending a meeting request to one or more individuals in your workgroup.
1. To create a meeting request, you must first click on Calendar. Click on Action from the
Menu Bar and then click on Plan a Meeting.
2. The first thing you want to do is to select your attendees. Click on the Add Others button
and then click on the Add from Address Book button.
3. The Select Attendees and Resources dialog box appears, listing the names of the
individuals in your Address Book. You will now specify the meeting attendees. Type in
the last name of the first attendee. When the name appears, click on it and then click on
the Required button. The first attendee is selected.
(Note: The Required -> button is used to select an individual whose attendance at the
meeting is required. The Optional -> button is used to select an individual whose
attendance is optional)
4. In the list of users, click on the name of the second attendee. Click the Required button
and the second attendee is selected. Click OK.
5. Now you are ready to find a time that all attendees are available. You can do this
manually or using the Auto Pick feature in Outlook. To do this manually, scroll across the
calendar of dates until you find a time slot that all attendees are available.
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6. To use the Auto Pick feature, click on the Options button and then select Auto Pick and
All People and Resources. Outlook will take you to the first available time and date.
7. Once you have found a date and time for your meeting, click on Make a Meeting.
8. Now you can type in a subject for your meeting, such as Department Meeting. Press the
Tab key to move on to the Location box.
9. Type in a location for your meeting. Then click in the message area (below the Reminder
option). Type in a message of your choice. This could include outcomes and topics to be
discussed.
10. Once you are all finished, click on the Send button to invite the attendees to the meeting.
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
Handling Meeting Requests
When a recipient of a meeting request receives the email, it will appear as it does in the diagram
below.
When they open the message, they will see the following.
Response
buttons
When the recipient clicks on one of the response buttons, Outlook will send a response email to
the meeting organizer (the original creator of the meeting). It will also schedule the meeting on
the recipient’s calendar automatically.
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
Multiple Calendars
You can create multiple calendars in Outlook to keep track of different activities. For
example, you may want to create a separate calendar to record staff leave requests.
1. To do this, first click on the calendar icon.
2. Then click on File and New Folder.
3. Name your new calendar, Leave Requests.
4. Then click on OK. You will now have a second Calendar on which you can
record specific activities. You can track all of your travel and mileage on a
separate calendar if you want to.
5. You can also create a resource calendar to be shared by your staff for use of a
conference room or equipment. This calendar would need to be set up in a Public
folder by your Technology Specialist or the ITS Department.
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
Outlook Mailbox Management
If you receive a message that looks like this, it means you are approaching capacity, and
should review your messages and attachments:
Your mailbox has exceeded one or more size
limits. Your mailbox size is currently 62123 KB.
Mailbox size limits:
You have received this warning because your
mailbox has exceeded 60000 KB.
This first message is only a warning, but after 10 more megabytes, your ability to
send e-mail will cease. You will always continue to receive messages.
What should I do?
1) Know your (general) enemy: Determine in just a few seconds which folders
are taking up all of your space:
In Outlook, you can see how much space is being taken up by which folders – i.e Inbox
or Sent, etc. by using the following procedure:
1 – Find "Outlook Today - [Mailbox - Your Name]" in the Folder List (if you don't have
the Folder List visible, click on the "View" menu and select "Folder List") and right-click
on it.
2 – Select "Properties" from the dialog box that appears.
3 – Click on the "Folder Size ..." button in the lower left hand corner.
4 – A dialog box will be displayed showing the total size of the mailbox, along with the
size of each folder inside the mailbox.
The size of each folder is listed in kilobytes not megabytes, so move the decimal 3 places
to the left to convert. i.e.. 23567k = 23.5 megabytes.
You will probably notice the Inbox and Sent items with large 5-digit numbers – these are
your culprits.
____________________________________________________________________________
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
2) Know your (specific) enemies: Determine in just a few seconds which
individual messages are taking up all of your space:
Here's how to view the size of each of the messages in your folders:
1 - Select the email folder you want to work with (INBOX or SENT)
2 - Right-click on the bar above the messages that contains the words “From ... Subject ...
Received”
3 - Select the "Field Chooser" menu item, e.g.:
(a box will appear displaying fields not currently displayed)
4 – Scroll down to the bottom of the list
5 – Left-click and hold the "Size" field and drag it to the “From ... Subject ... Received” bar (you
should see the size field moving with the mouse)
6 – Drop the size field between the Subject and Received headings (you should now see "From
... Subject ... Size ... Received" columns)
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
You can now click on this new size column heading to sort the folder items by size.
To change back to sorting by date received just click on the "Received" column heading.
Ok, I’ve sorted my Inbox and Sent messages by size, and deleted largest ones
that I don’t need, and emptied my Deleted Items folder, and my folder size (from
performing step 1 again) is still too high?
3) Personal Folders to the rescue.
Unless you utilize Personal Folders, all of your messages will reside on the
Exchange Server and count against your mailbox size limit. A Personal Folder is
a unique type of folder that resides on your local hard drive with the extension
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PST (Personal STorage). Note: Please keep your most important and current
messages on our server because we back it up for you every evening.
If you don’t show any Personal folders below your regular folders, here’s how to
create them.
To create Outlook Personal Folders for Outlook 98 and 2000:
Go to the Outlook TOOLS menu. Next, select the SERVICES option. You will then need to select
the ADD option and select PERSONAL FOLDERS from the list displayed. Next you will be
prompted to choose a name for your PST file – call it your FirstnameLastInitial.pst (i.e.
DennisO.pst) Once you have named the file (the default location is fine) select OPEN. On this
next screen you will be able to choose what you want the personal folder to be called WITHIN
YOUR OUTLOOK VIEW. Keep it Personal folders. No password encryption is necessary. When
you are done click OK and you will be returned to the SERVICES tab. Click OK and you will be
returned into your Outlook view.
At this point you can begin creating a folder structure under your Personal Folders. This can be
done in several ways. First, you can "right mouse click" on Personal Folders and choose New
Folder. You will be prompted to give the new folder a name and choose what type of information
will be stored in the folder (mail messages is the default). You can create as many folders as you
would like and arrange them any way you would like. As a reminder, YOU ARE WELCOME TO
CREATE FOLDERS IN ALL AREAS OF OUTLOOK (for example under your inbox) BUT ONLY
THE FOLDERS UNDER THE PERSONAL FOLDER AREA ARE STORED OFF THE SERVER.
Once you have created the desired folder structure you can begin moving messages by dragging
them from your inbox and dropping them to the desired folder. Another option is to drag entire
folders (other than Inbox and Sent) into your personal folder area. The goal is to move messages
that you need to keep off the Exchange Server and onto the Personal Folder area on your PC.
To create Outlook Personal Folders for Outlook 2002 (XP):
Go to the Outlook TOOLS menu. Next, select the Email Accounts option. Then Next, and then
New Outlook Data File, then Ok. Next you will be prompted to choose a name for your PST file –
rename it from Personal folders(1).pst to your FirstnameLastInitial.pst (i.e. DennisO.pst) Once
you have named the file (the default location is fine) select OK. Select No encryption, Ok, and
Finish.
At this point you can begin creating a folder structure under your Personal Folders. This can be
done in several ways. First, you can "right mouse click" on Personal Folders and choose New
Folder. You will be prompted to give the new folder a name and choose what type of information
will be stored in the folder (mail messages is the default). You can create as many folders as you
would like and arrange them any way you would like. As a reminder, YOU ARE WELCOME TO
CREATE FOLDERS IN ALL AREAS OF OUTLOOK (for example under your inbox) BUT ONLY
THE FOLDERS UNDER THE PERSONAL FOLDER AREA ARE STORED OFF THE SERVER.
Once you have created the desired folder structure you can begin moving messages by dragging
them from your inbox and dropping them to the desired folder. Another option is to drag entire
folders (other than Inbox and Sent) into your personal folder area. The goal is to move messages
that you need to keep off the Exchange Server and onto the Personal Folder area on your PC.
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Example of organizing your personal folders by creating sub-folders:
Just drag-n-drop messages or sub-folders to your Personal Folders.
___________________________________________________________
Remember – If you switch to a new computer, first have your tech save your
Personal Folders (PST) file to a server, and then move them over to your new
workstation.
What happens when I send a message to an Outlook user whose mailbox is
full?
Sending a message to someone who has reached their Outlook mailbox limit will generate a reply
from the System Administrator that looks something like this:
Your message did not reach some or all of the intended
recipients.
Subject:
Sent: 1/29/2003 3:59 PM
The following recipient(s) could not be reached:
on 1/29/2003 4:00 PM
The recipient was unavailable to take delivery of the
message
The MTS-ID of the original message is:
c=AU;a=;p=CURTIN;l=EXMSB03
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Microsoft Outlook for Educators
Outlook Voting Buttons
Outlook contains a built-in voting feature that allows users to easily collect responses to
questions. Voting responses will all come back to the sender and it will automatically
tally the results.
Here’s how to use it: Compose an e-mail, and then click View, Options. Check the “Use
voting buttons” box and enter the voting buttons responses separated by semicolons.
* Many users have Outlook configured to use Word as their e-mail editor. If you don’t
see “Use voting buttons” when you click on Options you are probably using Word; in this
case there is a separate Options button on the toolbar above the To: line.
In this example, an e-mail is sent out to school faculty to survey for the desired toppings
on a pizza. Be sure to state in the body of the message to “choose one of the voting
buttons above.”
The message arrives to the recipients as usual but a special button-bar is displayed:
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The official results of the pizza extra-ingredient preference survey are found by opening the
original survey message from your Sent folder. Then click the Tracking button. It will continue to
accept additional voting responses until you delete the original sent message.
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