Outlook 2002

Email is an increasingly important tool for interacting with others. When you use email frequently, you need to be able to manage all of the information related to your communications. Microsoft® Outlook® 2002 is the solution. You and your students can use Outlook to:

  • Manage information.Create rules that automatically process email; work with multiple email accounts; create categories to keep track of messages, appointments, contacts, and other items; and search for a specific email message, contact, or calendar item.
  • Communicate efficiently.Take advantage of the integration of Outlook email tools with other Microsoft Office programs: Send a document from Microsoft Word, with an introduction; edit your email by using the tools in Word; and use Smart Tags. Use instant messaging to communicate in real time.
  • Manage contact information.Save information about contacts, such as addresses and phone and fax numbers, and file that information in the way that works best for you; use Microsoft SharePoint™ Team Services to share contacts.
  • Manage time.Use the Outlook calendar to organise meetings and appointments; schedule or propose meetings and conferences for times when the most people are free.

Suppose you are teaching an integrated science and history course. You and a fellow teacher have just assigned a collaborative research project about the history and preservation of shipwrecks in Australian waters. As part of the assignment, you require students to interview at least one professional in the nautical field. You also plan trips to museums and science centres where students can learn more. You will use email to manage correspondence and to coordinate schedules with everyone involved in the assignment: students, your fellow teacher, and an expedition team in the field.

New for Outlook 2002

Outlook 2002 offers many new features that make the Outlook messaging and collaboration client easier than ever to use. These features include:

  • Improved Find options.The Find pane is replaced with a streamlined Find Bar that offers more powerful ways to search your Outlook folders for information.
  • Integrated Address Bar.You can now go to a Web page without leaving Outlook. In the Address Bar (which appears under the Standard toolbar), just type the URL for the page, or choose the URL from a list. Buttons incorporated into the bar can also stop a Web page from appearing or can refresh a page.
  • Ability to send a Word document with an introduction.You can access the Outlook user interface from within Word to send a Word document as the body of an email message, with an introduction at the top. This is an alternative to sending a document as an attachment.
  • Multiple email accounts.If you, like most people, have more than one email account (such as one for school and a Microsoft MSN® Hotmail® account for personal use), you can now incorporate all of those different email accounts into Outlook. This makes managing multiple email accounts easy, because you have one place to access all your email.
  • Word as email editor.The text editing tools of Microsoft Word are available by default from Outlook 2002 to help you edit your email messages.
  • Instant messaging integration.When you have MSN Messenger Service installed on your computer, Outlook can show you if the person who just sent you email is online, and with one click of the mouse, you can begin a chat session with that person.
  • Ability to propose a new meeting time.When someone sends you a meeting request that doesn’t fit with your schedule, you can determine the next available free time for all invitees and propose a new time for the meeting, instead of declining and waiting for a new request.
  • Colour-coded appointments.You can assign colours to individual and recurring appointments for quick identification.
  • Multiple reminders in a single dialog box.If multiple reminders occur at the same time, Outlook 2002 combines them into one dialog box. This reduces clutter, especially when you start Outlook after the reminder time for several items has passed, such as when you come back from being out of the office. You can dismiss reminders individually, or all at once with the Dismiss All button.

  • Email addresses automatically completed as you type.As you start typing an email address into the To, Cc, or Bcc boxes of a message, Outlook offers a list of recently used names. If you previously sent messages to that address, you can choose from the list instead of continuing to type.
  • Mailbox Cleanup.You can use this feature to archive or delete old items from a single location.
  • Security.Outlook 2002 offers new protection against computer viruses. For example, by default, it blocks certain attachment files (such as .bat, .exe, .vbs, and .js) that might contain viruses. If you receive one of these file types in a message, you will not be able to see or access the attachment. However, your Inbox will display the paperclip icon in the Attachment column to let you know that the message has an attachment, and you will see a list of the blocked attachment files in the Information Bar at the top of your message. Additionally, if another program tries to access your address book or contacts list, Outlook now displays a warning and gives you the option to deny or allow the action.
  • Accessibility.Outlook 2002 includes an option to automatically display any outgoing and incoming Rich Text Format (RTF) messages in a draft font so that it’s easier to see text against the background. In addition, all Office XP programs support Microsoft Active Accessibility 2.0, which makes accessibility aids, such as screen readers or screen enlargers, more effective.

Exploring Outlook 2002

When you open Outlook, you see the Inbox window. From here, you can access and read new email messages, compose new messages, and take advantage of many of the tools that Outlook 2002 offers. To change the appearance of your Inbox, simply click View on the Standard toolbar.

Outlook shortcuts

The shortcut icons on the Outlook Bar (on the left side of the main Outlook window) help you access your favourite Outlook features and folders with one click of the mouse. You can customise the Outlook Bar to create your own shortcuts for the folders you use most frequently. For example, you may want to create a Shipwrecks Assignment folder in your Inbox where you can store and access all the correspondence related to the assignment. You can then create a shortcut to that folder for quick access.

To create a folder

  1. On the File menu, point to Folder, and then click New Folder.
  2. In the Create New Folder dialog box, in the Name box, type Shipwrecks Assignment.
  3. In the Select where to place the folder box, click the highest-level folder (Mailbox –Your Name), and then click OK.

To add a shortcut to the Outlook Bar

  1. On the Outlook Bar, right-click the grey background area between or below the icons currently in the list, and then on the shortcut menu, click Outlook Bar Shortcut.
  1. In the Add to Outlook Bar dialog box, click the Shipwrecks Assignment folder, and then click OK. A shortcut to the Shipwrecks Assignment folder is added to the Outlook Bar.

NoteOutlook places the new shortcut at the bottom of the list of shortcuts. To move it to a different position in the list, simply click and drag it.

Managing Information

Outlook2002 offers several features that you can use to manage and organise information. These features are especially convenient because you can access all of the email accounts you have—even if they’re on different servers—from one Outlook screen.

Creating and using rules

You probably receive large volumes of mail from several different groups (mail from students, mail from other faculty and administrators, personal mail, even junk mail), so you need some way to manage your messages. In Outlook 2002, you can use rules to sort and process your messages before you even look at them.

A rule is a set of conditions and actions for processing and organising your email messages. Conditions identify messages for processing, and actions determine what kind of processing is performed.

Among other possibilities, you can create rules to:

  • Assign categories to messages based on their contents.
  • Set up a notification, such as a message or a sound, when an important message arrives.
  • Move messages to a particular folder based on who sent them.
  • Flag messages from a particular person.
  • Assign categories to your sent messages based on their contents.
  • Delay delivery of messages by a specified amount of time.
  • Redirect an email message to a person or distribution list.
  • Automatically reply to a certain type of message with a specific message you create.
  • Colour code messages from different people or groups.

For example, you can instruct your students to include the phrase “shipwreck” in all subject lines related to the current project. You can then define a rule that instructs Outlook 2002 to put all messages that contain “shipwreck” in the subject line into a Shipwrecks Assignment folder in your list of project folders.

The Rules Wizard leads you through three basic steps to create a rule to manage your messages: selecting a condition, applying an action to the items returned by the condition, and entering exceptions to the condition.

To create a rule

  1. On the Tools menu, click Rules Wizard.
  1. In the Apply changes to this folder list, click the Inbox that you want.
  2. Click New. The Rules Wizard displays a list of the different types of rules you can create, along with a description of the rule in the Rule description box.
  3. To use a template with prespecified actions and conditions, click Start creating a rule from a template.
  4. Click Move messages based on content.
  5. In the Rule description box, click specific words. In the Search Text dialog box, type shipwreck in the upper box, and then click Add. Click OK.
  6. In the Rule description box, click specified. Click the Shipwrecks Assignment folder, and then click OK.
  7. Click Next.

  1. Select the conditions for the rule. In this case, ensure that the with specific words in the subject or body check box is selected, and then click Next.
  2. Specify the action for the rule. In this case, ensure that the move it to the specified folder check box is selected, and then click Next.
  3. Specify any exceptions to the rule. In this case, there are none. Click Next.
  4. In the upper box, type a name for the rule (for example, Shipwrecks rule 1), and then select the Turn on this rule check box to activate it.
  5. Click Finish. The rule is added to the Rules Wizard list.
  6. Click OK to close the Rules Wizard.

Adding and using multiple email accounts

Another way to manage email is to maintain separate email accounts. You might have one email account on Microsoft Exchange Server at your school for exchanging mail with teachers, administration, and students, and an Internet account for personal messages.

With Outlook 2002, you can create multiple email accounts in a user profile, which consists of email accounts and address books. In the past, Outlook had separate Exchange Server and Internet modes; now, Outlook supports Exchange Server, Internet email account types (such as POP3, IMAP, and HTTP), and other server types. Which types of accounts are available to you depends on your Internet service provider (ISP) or network administrator. Based on this, you can choose to create a new email account; for example, if you want to join newsgroups or a mailing list related to education, you can set up an additional Internet email account to contain the large numbers of messages that these forums can generate.

To add an email account

  1. On the Tools menu, click Email Accounts to start the Email Accounts Wizard.
  1. Click Add a new email account, and then click Next.

  1. Select the email server used for your account, and then click Next.

NoteIf you are setting up an MSN email account, click POP3 for MSN Internet Access version 5.3 or earlier. If you are using a Hotmail account or other Internet-based email account, click HTTP.

  1. In the appropriate boxes, type the information for the specific email account; if you do not know the information, check with your ISP or network administrator. If you want to use Outlook to connect to a Hotmail account, all you need to know is your Hotmail email address and password.
  2. Complete one of the following steps:
  • If you are adding an Exchange Server account, click Check Names to verify that the server recognises your name. The name and server you entered should become underlined. Be sure your computer is connected to your network.
  • If you are adding a POP3 server account, click Test Account Settings to verify that your account is working. If there is missing or incorrect information, such as your password, you will be prompted to supply or correct it. Be sure your computer is connected to the Internet.

  1. If you want to configure additional settings, such as how you want your computer to connect to your email server, click More Settings. Otherwise, click Next.
  2. Click Finish.

To set up one account as the default

You will probably want to select one of your email accounts to open each time you open Outlook 2002. From this default account, you can easily open another account from within Outlook.

  1. On the Tools menu, click Email Accounts.
  1. Select View or change existing email accounts, and then click Next.
  2. In the list, click the email account you want, and then click Set as Default.

To specify the account from which you send a message

After you compose a message, you can decide which account you want to send it from by using the Accounts button. This button appears only if you have more than one account set up in Outlook.

  1. On the toolbar in the email message you just typed, click the Accounts button. The default account appears first in the list.
  1. Click the account that you want to use.

Assigning categories

Another handy way to organise the information you receive in email is to assign categories to different items.

A category is a keyword or phrase that helps you keep track of items such as email messages, appointments, contacts, tasks, journal entries, notes, and posted documents. You can use categories to keep track of different types of items that are related but stored in different folders. For example, you can keep track of all the meetings, contacts, and messages for your class separately from those for the expedition team by creating one category for Research Team (for your class) and another for Expedition Team. And if some items overlap (for example, messages that you send to both the class and the expedition team), you can assign those items to both categories.

Categories also give you a way to keep track of items without putting them in separate folders. For example, you can keep professional and personal tasks in the same task list. When you assign the tasks to categories, you can view them separately (on the View menu, point to Current View, and then click By Category).

Outlook supplies a list of categories, called the MasterCategoryList. You will find that many of the categories in the list are geared toward business needs, but it is easy to create custom categories for you and your students to use.

To create new categories

  1. On the Edit menu, click Categories.
  1. In the Categories dialog box, click MasterCategoryList.
  2. In the MasterCategoryList dialog box, in the New category box, type a name for the category (for example, type Expedition Team), and then click Add.

  1. To create more categories, repeat steps 3 and 4.
  2. Click OK, and then click OK again.

To assign items to a category

  1. Select the item you want to assign to the category.
  1. On the Edit menu, click Categories.
  2. In the Available categories box, select the check boxes next to the categories you want.
    If the category you want is not available, you can quickly add a new category to the MasterCategoryList. Type the category name in the Item(s) belonging to these categories box, and then click Add to List.