This document provides tips and steps for using various Outlook email functions to save time and improve efficiency. These include sending emails to distribution lists, creating one-click buttons, understanding when to use reply vs reply all, using auto-correct, setting out-of-office messages, creating folders to organize emails, making rules to sort emails, prioritizing senders with colors and fonts, delaying email sends, and dragging emails to create contacts, appointments or tasks. Detailed steps are provided for each function.

1. Time-Saving and Efficiency Tips, Hints, and Steps
for Administrative roles
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2. Outlook® 2010 Mail
 Sending email to group distribution list
 Good for: sending message to customer groups, contact roles without
having to send the same message individually to each person.
 Creating One-Click buttons
 Good for: frequently used tasks with individuals, such as sending new
email to your manager, CC’ing work group, forwarding to backup
person, assigning task, etc.
 Reply vs. Reply All
 Reply is good for: getting response or info back to the sender only;
keeps email traffic down by not Replying All.
 Reply All is good for: getting response or info back to the sender(s), the
CC list group or individuals, and any BCC recipients; for getting
information that everyone involved in original messages needs to know.
Be aware that some distribution lists are blind or are entire
departments, so everyone in these groups or distribution list will see
your message.
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3. Outlook® 2010 Mail (continued)
 Using Auto Correct for auto-completion of long words,
phrases, addresses, etc.
 Good for: saving time; using the Auto Correct to complete
frequently-used messages, text, driving directions, numbers,
and so on.
 Setting your Out-of-Office Auto-Reply
 Good for: letting people know you’re out and unavailable; you
aren’t in to immediately respond to requests; let others know
when you will be back, and whom to check with for things that
can’t wait.
 Creating Inbox folders
 Good for: sorting, organizing in a way that makes sense to
you.
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4. Outlook® 2010 Mail (continued)
 Creating Rules to manage and sort incoming emails
 Good for: routing regularly received
emails, notifications to pre-determined folders; helping
to cut down on number of inbound emails that need to be
individually reviewed and sorted; easily working on like-
item email tasks for ease and efficiency.
 Using colors, fonts to prioritize senders in Inbox
 Good for: making emails from particular senders stand
out from all the others; allows you to focus on specific
messages, tasks from these senders. Helpful for people
who get a high volume of inbound email messages every
day.
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5. Outlook® 2010 Mail (continued)
 Delaying Send by 2 minutes
 Good for: re-do situations, such as forgetting to attach
files to emails, rethinking email text.
 Dragging email message to Contacts, Calendar or
Tasks
 Good for: quickly creating a contact record,
appointment, or task without having to toggle back and
forth between email and function to create.
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6. Sending email to group distribution
list
 Steps:
 Click on Mail, New E-Mail or One-Click New E-Mail.
 Click on To line button, and under Address Book, select
Contacts under your name. All your personal contacts
and groups appear.
 Select the appropriate group, click To, and OK.
 If sending to internal company groups, you can click on
the group plus-sign to expand and display group
members.
 Handle as regular email message, and Send.
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7. Creating One-Click buttons
 Steps: Create One-Click buttons that are useful to you. In
this example, we’ll create a One-Click button for
forwarding an email to your manager.
 From Mail, Home tab, go to the Quick Steps section in the top
middle. Click on the Manage Quick Steps arrow.
 Under Quick step, select To Manager.
 Click on Edit to verify it’s displaying your manager in the To
field. It pulls the info from the company Outlook® contacts.
 If correct, click Save, and OK.
 TO use, open the email you want to forward.
 In the Quick Steps options in your email Message tab, scroll
down to select To Manager.
 Add any notes or comments, and Send.
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8. Reply vs. Reply All
 Reply is good for: getting response or info back to the sender
only; keeps email traffic down by not Replying All.
 Reply All is good for: getting response or info back to the
sender(s), the CC list group or individuals, and any BCC
recipients; for getting information that everyone involved in
original messages needs to know. Be aware that some
distribution lists are blind or are entire departments, so everyone
in these groups or distribution list will see your message.
 To help decide which to use, ask yourself: Are high email
volumes an issue at my company? Does everyone need to see my
response to the original sender? Is my message substantive,
helpful, or is it more pertinent to the sender?
 Unless working on a team or cross-departmental project, Reply is
usually better in most cases.
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9. Using Auto Correct for auto-
completion
 Steps: For this example, we’ll create an auto-correct to
create a thank you and welcome message to customers and
prospects that sign up for a weekly newsletter.
 From Mail, click on File tab, click on Options, Mail.
 On the right-hand side, click on Spelling and
Autocorrect, then Auto Correct Options.
 Under the AutoCorrect tab, see Replace text as you type in the
middle.
 Enter the trigger or code you want auto-completed. Make
sure it’s not something very common, yet easy to remember.
For this example, in the Replace field text we’ll enter
Tywelcome.
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10. Using Auto Correct for auto-
completion (continued)
 Then enter what you’d like to be spelled out in the With
field: “Thank you for registering, and welcome to our
weekly newsletter! We hope you will find it
timely, interesting, and full of valuable industry
information.”
 Click Add, and OK several times.
 To use, open a new email message, and type the trigger
or Replace text: Tywelcome (with space after). It will
autocorrect with the message.
 If it doesn’t, make sure you typed the Replace text
exactly as you entered it. In this example, if you type
tywelcome, it won’t be recognized.
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11. Setting your Out-of-Office Auto-
Reply
 Steps:
 Click on Mail, then File tab.
 Under Account Information in the middle, click on the
Automatic Replies button.
 Select Send automatic replies; check Only send during
this time range, and enter your Start and End dates and
times.
 On the Inside My Organization, type your auto-reply
message letting people know you’re out, when you’ll
return, and whom to contact, if applicable, and how.
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12. Setting your Out-of-Office Auto-
Reply (continued)
 Example:
Hi - I'm out today and returning Friday, November 18th.
For concierge service, please contact Priscilla Fatine in Chicago; pfatine@xtra.com.
For urgent cash delivery/pickup, please contact Brinks at 800-555-5555; ask for
Ainsley; reference account number R566399.
For administrative support, please contact Ms. Quinn at x1000; press *3 to leave
priority voicemail.
Thanks!
April Griffith
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13. Setting your Out-of-Office Auto-
Reply (continued)
 Click on the Outside My Organization, and type your auto-reply
message here. Your inside and outside messages will probably be
different – one will probably have more information, and the other,
less. Example:
Hi - I'm out today and returning Friday, November 18th, and will be
checking my messages and voicemail then.
For immediate assistance, please call the regional headquarters at 206-
555-5555.
Thanks!
April Griffith
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14. Creating Inbox folders
 Steps: Decide first how you want to organize your
email folders – by
task, responsibility, region, customer, category, etc. It
needs to make sense to you, and be something that you
can easily use and refer to. In this example, we’ll create
folders in your Inbox for organizing emails related to
specific international customers.
 In Mail, right-mouse click on Inbox, select New Folder.
 Create New Folder window appears. Name your folder.
Example, International Customers.
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15. Creating Inbox folders (continued)
 Next, find the folder you just created, and right-mouse
click, select New Folder.
 Name this subfolder; example – France
 Find the France folder you just created, right-mouse
click, select New Folder, name Paris.
 Continue adding other folders to accommodate
additional International Customers.
 You can make this as detailed or simple as you like.
 Then, move your relevant email to the appropriate
folders for future reference.
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16. Creating Rules to manage and sort
incoming emails
 Steps: creating rules works best when you already have
your email inbox folder organized. There are many
ways to organize your emails and inbox folders; the
right way is the way that works best for you! In this
example, you want to have emails that are sent to
Global Executive Assistants to go to a folder you
created called Global EA’s:
 Click on Mail, then find an email that was sent to the
mail group Global Executive Assistants, then click on it
to highlight.
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17. Creating Rules to manage and sort
incoming emails (continued)
 Click on the Rules folder under the Home (default) tab, then
Create Rule.
 Under When I get e-mail with all of the selected conditions,
check the Sent to box – it will populate with Global Executive
Assistants.
 Under Do the following, check the Move the item to folder
box, then click on Select Folder button.
 Rules and Alerts windows opens, and find your Global EA’s
folder you created. Click on it to highlight, then click OK.
 You can close and re-launch Outlook® to start the rules, or
Click on Rules, Manage Rules & Alerts, then Run Rules Now,
Select All, Run Now, and Close.
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18. Using colors, fonts to prioritize
senders in Inbox
 Steps: In this example, we’ll use colors and font to make emails
from manager stand out.
 From Mail, click on View tab, then View Settings. Advanced View
Settings: Messages window appears.
 Click on Conditional Formatting, Add.
 Click the Name of this properties rules; example – Manager.
 Click Font, choose font that will contrast with your other inbound
email traffic. Change style from Regular to Bold, size 2 points
bigger, and color anything besides black or red that’s easy to read.
 Click on Condition, and under Messages tab, click on From and add
your manager’s name, then click on OK several times.
 Close and re-launch Outlook®.
 When you next receive an email from your manager, it will stand
out in your Inbox.
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19. Delaying Send by 2 minutes
 Steps:
 From Mail, click File tab, Manage Rules & Alerts button, click
on New Rule.
 Rules Wizard opens. Under Start from a blank rule, click
on Apply rule on messages I send, click Next.
 Don’t select any Step 1 conditions; click Next again.
 Select defer delivery by a number of minutes.
 Under Step 2 – edit the rule description, click on a number of.
Deferred Delivery window appears, select 1 or 2 minutes, OK,
then Finish and OK.
 Close and re-launch Outlook®. Any messages you send will
now rest in your Outbox for the amount of minutes you
selected, and can be reopened, edited, and deleted.
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20. Dragging email message to
Contacts, Calendar or Tasks
 Steps:
 Find an email that you want to use to create a contact.
 Click and drag the email to Contacts.
 A new contact record opens and auto-populates with the
sender info it detects. The email text will be in the
Notes portion of the Contact record.
 Save & Close.
 The same principle works for creating an appointment
or task.
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21. Questions?
 There are many more Outlook® 2010 functions and
features available; they are all excellent and valuable
tools.
 If you have questions or would like to review specific
steps, please see my function-specific presentations, or
contact me.
I hope you find this information helpful;
good luck and best wishes!
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