IT
Tips – December 2013
It’s December. That means we’re in for
lots of fun actives to distract us from the ice and snow. I believe we have one
such activity on December 20th.
Be merry, spend time with loved ones and
most of all don’t forget to READ THIS ENTIRE TIP. You’ll be happy you did. ;)
What’s Inside:
Tech Section
·
Delay Outlook Sent Email
Kudos
·
Thank you Katelyn!
Delay
Outlook Sent Email
Take a moment to imagine the crushing shame of embarrassment.
What’s the most embarrassing thing that comes to mind? Those dreams where you’re
in high school without pants? No! I’m talking about sending an email you didn’t
mean to send. There is no waking up from that!
It doesn’t get much worse than clicking send on a confidential
email JUST as you realize it’s addressed to the wrong person. Don’t count on
the recall button because it’s nearly useless. Yikes!
 |
| Why did I send that email?! |
These embarrassing situations can be avoided with a simple
Outlook rule. That’s right; Outlook Rules are more powerful than you think.
They’re even capable of delaying that blundered email so you have a minute to
save face!
You can delay your sent email based on recipient, specific
words (like “confidential“), predetermined categories and many other conditions.
Heck, you can choose to delay all of the email you send just to be safe.
How did you go from
no pants to Outlook rules? Forget it… how do I create the rule?!
I thought you’d never ask. Follow along and in a few short
steps, you’ll be a safer sender.
Please note: In
an effort to future-proof this tip, I will include Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2013 instructions where necessary.
There are a lot of different ways to delay your email so I
will provide a few different examples. This first example will check the
subject line and body of all outgoing email. If the word “confidential” exists
in the subject or body, it will be delayed for 5 minutes. This will give you a
chance to pull the plug if you accidentally send it.
First, you’ll need to open Outlook (an unexpected first
step, I’m sure).
In Outlook 2013, click on File -> Manage Rules &
Alerts.
For Outlook 2007, you’ll need to click Tools -> Rules and
Alerts.
This will bring you to the Rules and Alerts window.
In Outlook 2013, you must click on “New Rule”. Then select “Apply rule
on messages I send” and click Next.
Outlook 2007 users will click on “New Rule”. Then select “Check messages after sending” and click Next.
At this step you will select the condition or conditions which trigger your rule. (The following screens are virtually identical on Office 2013 and 2007 so I’ll include single screenshots here.)
As you can see, I wasn’t lying; there are a ton of options.
However, in this example, we want any email with the word “confidential” to be
delayed.
Click the checkbox next to “with specific words in the
subject or body”.
Now click on the “specific words” link that appeared below. Then type “confidential”
in the top field, click the Add button and click OK.
Click Next and you’re almost finished. From here, click the checkbox
next to “defer delivery by a
number of minutes” and then click the “a number of” link down below.
Finally, choose the number of minutes that you’d like the
email to wait in your Outbox, click OK and then Finish.
You will receive a message that says, “This is a client-only
rule, and will process only when Outlook is running” (or “This rule will only
run when you check your email in Outlook. If Outlook isn’t running, this rule
won’t work for your email you check online or from another device” in Outlook
2013). This message is important and a bit ambiguous. Put simply, it means the
rule will only work for email you send using Outlook; email sent from webmail
or your iPhone will NOT be delayed by
the rule.
On to the next example!
This time we will have Outlook delay any email you send with
an attachment. Outlook has a predefined condition for this functionality that
requires no customization.
First, follow the aforementioned steps to get to the “select
conditions” screen. This time we will check “which has an attachment” and click
Next.
From here you’ll use the same steps as before. Select “defer
delivery by a number of
minutes”, click the “a
number of” link below and designate how long you want it delayed.
Then click OK, Finish and OK on the pop-up warning.
What if I want to
delay ALL email that I send?
This is another predefined condition.
To delay all email you send, use the “on this computer only” condition.
A summary of noteworthy points:
·
There is a lot of functionality available in
these rules. This means two things:
1.
You can experiment and get very specific with
how you delay email.
2.
You must be careful when experimenting.
·
Delay send rules will only work for email you
send using Outlook on your PC. Email you send from webmail or your iPhone will NOT be delayed.
·
If you create a rule that matches a word (such
as the “confidential” example), you will need to have the spelling in your
email match the rule. That means if you erroneously entered the word
confidential in an email, the rule will not pick it up to delay the message.
OK, I have my rule made. How do I delete
the delayed email if I do make a mistake?
The rule causes any email that matches
the rule’s condition(s) to sit in your Outbox. It will sit in the Outbox for
the number of minutes you designated in the rule.
If you send an “oops” email, simply
go to your Outbox folder and delete
the message.
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| Outbox in Outlook 2007 |
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| Outbox in Outlook 2013 |
A big thank you to Katelyn Chaffee for suggesting this month’s
IT Tip. Katelyn, your high-five is in the mail…
Oh, by the way…
For those of you that read all the way through, here is a holiday treat!
Unfortunately,
Jib Jab is limited to five dancers and there are seven of us in IT. To avoid
making the difficult decision of omitting two lovely people, we decided to only
make a mockery of the men of IT. Karen, Terese and Abby will be featured
someday (whether they like it or not)!
Have a great month, everyone!
-Keith
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