Monday 25 February 2008

Get the best from Outlook 2007 and Exchange 2007 - Part 2

Here's part 2 of my Top-10 tips for Outlook and Exchange 2007. If you have some others of your own please share them!

6. Quickly Add a Contact from an E-mail
This is a neat trick to keep your list of Contacts current and complete. When the message is open right-click on the person’s name in the From field and select Add to Contacts.
Take a look at that menu – you can also see someone’s Free/Busy status if it’s visible to you!

7. Get Organised and colour co-ordinated
This is new for Outlook 2007 - Colour Categories. You are able to easily personalise and add categories to any type of information – messages, calendar items, contacts and tasks.
It’s simple;
Right-click – Categorize
You can add and modify colour categories to give you a simple visual way to easily organise your data and search for information. I have categories for “Business Development”, “Management Team”, “Planning”, “Personal” etc.


8. Feed Outlook with RSS
With Outlook 2007, you can read and manage RSS feeds and blogs from within your mailbox. It’s the right place to do this and you no longer have to leave Outlook to quickly browse the latest news and sports, industry news or favourite blog posts. Of course, you just don’t get the same online experience without a bit of Flash or a few ads.

9. Use OWA on an Exchange 2007-SP1 server
Outlook Web Access is a quick and simple, yet sophisticated interface to your mailbox. OWA has improved significantly in Exchange 2007-SP1 with functionality on a par with Outlook 2003. You how have the ability to set different Out Of Office messages for internal and external recipients, both with a reminder to turn it off, or an expiry time; your folders automatically update when new mail arrives, no need to refresh all the time now; reminders are displayed in a drop-down, and not a pop-up that often got blocked; Auto-complete works when adding email addresses to a new mail; Calendaring is very good now with smart scheduling; the list goes on.

10. Make sure you use “Outlook Anywhere” (aka “Cached Exchange Mode”)
You work in a local copy of your mailbox (it also allows you to work on email offline) and Outlook connects to Exchange in the background and doesn't hang if there is a break in communication with the Exchange environment. 60% of connections to Exchange use a cached mailbox. For users of laptops, mobile workers, or if you’re on a slower or less reliable network connection, it's a necessity.
In Exchange 2007, Outlook Anywhere performance is much improved over the Cached-Exchange-Mode in Exchange 2003.

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