Microsoft Outlook is, by far, one of the most commonly used e-mail clients used by both business and home e-mail users alike. Outlook comes with many helpful tools, such as a calendar, reading and composing e-mails, a place for your contacts, and offers several add-ons for various tools.
Microsoft Outlook’s real potential shines through when all of these uses work together to make your daily office life easier and more organized. These are some of the best features that Outlook can be used for to do just that.
Scheduling Meetings
Microsoft Outlook includes a robust calendar that can be used to track meetings, dates, sync appointments, and much more. In Outlook 2016, it goes even further with meetings - Outlook makes it easy to schedule meetings directly from within an e-mail.
Go to your calendar, click on the Home tab, and select ‘New Meeting’. A pop-up window will then display allowing you to schedule the meeting, invite users, and add other options, like setting reminders and composing a message within the meeting window. You can even set recurring meetings by selecting the Recurrence button from the Options section at the top.
Setting Auto Replies
Automatic replies are an extremely useful feature of Microsoft Outlook. These can be key for when you are in a meeting, away from the office, out on vacation or for an extended period of time. Setting an Automatic Reply will help clients and/or other staff know when you’re away without you having to message them back yourself, and it can be simply toggled on or off.
You can also easily set an Automatic Reply by going to the File menu in Outlook and choosing Automatic Replies. Then, you can specify the message and even set it for how long you plan on being away for. You can also fine-tune your Automatic Replies by using Rules to automatically reply to certain messages that meet a particular set of standards.
Get Notified When a Recipient Reads Your E-mail
With Microsoft Outlook 2016, you can be notified when an e-mail you send has been opened and read by the recipient. This can help when following up with a client or team member and improve communication.
You can quickly enable this from the Options tab and by checking the box ‘Request a Read Receipt’ to know when your message has been opened. You also get a Delivery Receipt form so that you know exactly when your message was delivered as well.
Additionally, you can better track your e-mails by navigating over to the File > Options > Mail section of Outlook. Scroll down to Tracking and check the box ‘Delivery receipt confirming the message was delivered to the recipient’s e-mail server’, and ‘Read receipt confirming the recipient viewed the message’.
Delay and Schedule E-mail Sends
There may be times when you want to send an e-mail at a specific time, or you want to send an e-mail at a time you may be away from your desk. Outlook has included a key tool called Delayed Delivery which can help you do just that.
To do this, you can go to the Options tab from the message you are composing and select ‘Delay Delivery’. Then, in the corresponding dialogue box, select when to send the message and, specify ‘Do not deliver before:’ and set the parameters that you would like the message to be delivered by.
After closing the Delivery options window, simply send your message and it will be delivered at the time you specified and can be cancelled if necessary.
Manage and Delegate Calendars in Outlook
The Calendar in Outlook is one of the most powerful features within this Office program. It’s easier than ever to manage your calendar and delegate access to it so others can manage your calendar or so that you can manage a person or teams calendar.
To delegate access to a calendar, go to Account Settings under the File tab. Then, select ‘Delegate Access’. From the corresponding dialogue box that opens, click ‘Add’, and then select the user you wish to grant permission to and select ‘OK’.
There are even different types of delegations you can specify, allowing delegates to be able to just read your calendar, edit your calendar, or fully manage it by adding and removing appointments all together. After setting the delegate options, click OK to send them access to open and manage the calendar you specified.
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