Many organizations choose email client Microsoft Outlook due to its convenience and helpful features. Ironically, some employees and team leaders are never made aware of everything Outlook has to offer. Here are four features you may not even know you’re missing out on.
Scheduling Emails
Most of us set specific work hours and make those times clear to clients and coworkers. It’s important to maintain those boundaries so others don’t expect us to immediately respond to their emails at odd hours or over the weekend. But we also may like to work outside of those set hours, at a time when we are feeling more productive or just have some room in our schedule. Luckily, Microsoft Outlook allows you to write an email and schedule when you want it to go out. This means your contacts will never know that you actually drafted your email at 2 AM during a bout of insomnia.
Using Quick Parts
Are you always sending similar emails to coworkers and clients? Did you know you don’t have to type out the same phrases again and again? This is thanks to the Quick Parts gallery, which allows users to create, store, and find reusable pieces of content, including AutoText.
You may have noticed that Outlook already offers predictive AutoText, but most people don’t know that you can actually create custom AutoText options that will pop up whenever you need them. For example, if you often end emails with, “Please let me know if you have any additional questions,” you can store that phrase and recall it easily using a keyword. There’s no telling how much time Quick Parts saves Outlook and Word users each day! It’s a great time saving feature in 2022, when so many of us spend hours each day writing and responding to emails.
Creating Rules
If you receive dozens or even hundreds of emails each day, you probably have your own system in place to tame the chaos. Even if you pride yourself on the tidiness of your inbox, Outlook’s built-in features can take your organization skills to the next level. You can easily assign rules to emails of a certain type, such as newsletters or those from a specific sender. For example, say you receive a steady stream of “To Dos” from your supervisor, but you’ve set aside a certain hour of your day to address those action items. You can set a rule to have those emails go right into your “To Do” folder so they don’t sit in your inbox all day or overnight. The organizing possibilities are virtually endless when you take full advantage of this feature.
Sharing Calendars
Many people know how to access their calendar within Outlook, making it easy to schedule meetings and track deadlines. But did you know that you can give others access to your calendar, too? With Outlook, you can choose who has access to your own calendar, whether that is just one coworker or the whole team. This feature can save time by clearly displaying each team member’s availability, making for better communication and teamwork.
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