Applying rules to your Outlook inbox will help you manage your time and help you focus on what really matters as a Compensation manager. You can send messages straight to their folder, assign categories to some messages, manage your RSS feeds and newsletters automatically, highlight messages from important stakeholders etc.

1. CREATE RULES IN
OUTLOOK
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2. The problem
 Your Outlook inbox is overflowing.
 You work on multiple Compensation & Benefits
projects at the same time.
 Your team members are assigned to different
workstreams and you need to organise the
follow-up you perform on their work
 You have subscribed to newsletters and RSS
feeds to keep abreast of industry and Rewards
news.
© Sandrine Bardot and CompensationInsider.com 2012

3. The solution
 Set up rules in Outlook to automatically take
care of part of the inflow to your inbox.
 You can now focus your attention on what
needs to be taken care of instead of manual
follow-up of all incoming mails.
© Sandrine Bardot and CompensationInsider.com 2012

4. Tools > Rules and Alerts > New
Rule
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5. Example: Select Move messages
from someone to a folder and click
Next to:
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6. You can select multiple conditions -
make the rule wide/narrow as
needed
© Sandrine Bardot and CompensationInsider.com 2012

7. Specify your needs for each
condition
 Do it for underlined values in blue, eg :
 “from people or distribution list” : brings up your
Outlook address book
 “with specific words in the subject or body” :
brings a pop-up for you to type the words you
need.
© Sandrine Bardot and CompensationInsider.com 2012

8. For example, specify :
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9. Click Next and select the action
you want for this rule :
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10. Again, you can select then edit
multiple actions at the same time.
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11. Click Next, select exceptions if
necessary
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12. Click Next again, it brings you to
the final step :
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13. Final step
 Give a name to your rule, turn it on and run it
in your inbox if needed, check how it looks for
errors and click finish.
 The rule is created and will apply when you
are on Outlook.
© Sandrine Bardot and CompensationInsider.com 2012

14. Want to know more ?
 On my blog CompensationInsider.com, I share
Excel, social media, presentation and other
useful “technical” tips for Compensation &
Benefits and HR professionals, every other
Sunday. I also cover C&B topics and career
advice the rest of the week. Feel free to check
it out and subscribe by email or RSS.
 Find out more about me and why I started this
blog.
© Sandrine Bardot and CompensationInsider.com 2012