Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Office 2010 at Work

How to control your inbox and streamline communications

By Nancy BuchananMarch, 2010

This information is about prerelease software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. ©2010 Microsoft Corporation.

How to control your inbox and streamline communicationsMy Microsoft Outlook inbox is where it all happens for me.I send clients proposals. I answer clients’ questions. I deliver work to them. There is a constant back and forth. One project moves forward and another lays dormant until I receive client approval, or the answer to a question comes in.I am always on the lookout for ways to keep projects moving forward, which means me taking control of my inbox. I am excited about some new features in Outlook 2010 to help in this effort. I believe they can help you too.

Manage conversationsWith e-mail arriving in a steady stream during a normal work day, making a simple change to the way you view messages can make a huge difference in how many e-mail messages you need to address. For example, the illustration on the right shows that in this slice of my Outlook 2010 inbox there are seven messages.If I group messages by conversation, Outlook 2010 automatically collapses the messages into groups, thereby cutting this part of my inbox from seven items down to three. It is interesting to note that this new grouping actually reflects eight e-mail messages because it included an older message in the same conversation.I like that Outlook 2010 groups all messages

together because then I can act on them as a group — delete the conversation, and all of the messages are deleted at once.

This information is about prerelease software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. ©2010 Microsoft Corporation.

Outlook 2010 also understands that in long conversations, a lot of the messages contain the previous message in the body. In this conversation, Outlook automatically marks the first message in the conversation as “Read” because it is repeated in the second message.And when I use the new Clean Up feature it removes all of the duplicate messages from either this conversation or this folder or this folder and all sub-folders. Not only does this decrease the number of e-mail messages in my inbox, but it decreases the amount of storage space taken up by these extra messages.My favorite new feature in Outlook 2010 is the Ignore feature. If you have ever been stuck on a seemingly never-ending e-mail conversation with classic messages like “please remove me from this distribution list” and “stop asking to be removed from this distribution list” and “you idiot, you just added to the problem,” you will love this. Just right-click on a conversation and choose Ignore, and Outlook 2010 not only moves the entire conversation to your Deleted Items folder, but it moves all future messages in this conversation to your Deleted Items folder. Talk about a great way to decrease the number of incoming e-mail messages!

Take advantage of Quick StepsWhen I learned to use a computer many years ago, it was customary to create macros to take commonly used functionality in a program and make it repeatable by just typing a few keys on the keyboard. Quick Steps in Outlook 2010 are like macros made incredibly easy — just tell Outlook 2010 what you want to happen after you type the shortcut, and Outlook 2010 takes care of the rest.For example, if I get an e-mail that requires action on my part, I routinely mark it with High Importance, add the task to my Outlook Tasks, and schedule a meeting on my Outlook Calendar to block time to work on it. In Outlook 2010, in just a matter of seconds I created a Quick Step called “Really Important!” to automate those three steps.

This information is about prerelease software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. ©2010 Microsoft Corporation.

Now, when an important e-mail comes in I click “Really Important!” on the Quick Steps area of the Office Ribbon. Outlook 2010 marks the message with High Importance, creates a new Outlook task with the e-mail message in the body, and creates a new Outlook Meeting Request with the e-mail message in the body.

My custom Quick Step saves me time and assures that on truly important messages I follow all three steps every time.Outlook 2010 also comes with pre-configured Quick Steps that you can customize further. For example, you can

configure the Move To Quick Step to move messages to a specific folder, or you can use the To Manager to forward a message to your manager. But my favorite Quick Step is Reply & Delete. Select a message and then click Reply & Delete, and after you click Send with your reply message, Outlook 2010 automatically moves the original message into your Deleted Items folder. Reply & Delete really helps me save time on those quick-to-answer messages I get every day.

Don’t do something you will regretHave you ever sent an e-mail to a large group of people by accident? Or have you ever spent a lot of time composing an e-mail, only to find that the recipient is out of the office? I wish I could say that I haven’t experienced either, but I have. Outlook 2010 tries to help avoid these situations with new MailTips.

MailTips tell you how many people will receive your e-mail, including messages sent to distribution lists, so you can carefully reconsider sending your message to a huge number of people before it is too late. And MailTips also tell you which recipients have Out of Office (OOF) messages turned on, and if desired you can even see their OOF messages and then choose to remove them from the conversation. You no longer have to send your message and then find out which recipients are not even there to receive it.Another potential problem for organizations is having a user accidentally send a confidential e-mail message to someone outside of the

company. MailTips warn you that an outside party is on the To, CC, or BCC list before you send a confidential message, reducing the risk to the company and the embarrassment for you of inadvertently sending a wayward message.Note: MailTips require Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and IT staff administration. Contact your IT department to find out if MailTips have been implemented in your organization.

This information is about prerelease software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. ©2010 Microsoft Corporation.

Don’t put off what you can do right nowAs you become familiar with Office 2010 programs such as Outlook, you will notice that “presence,” the online availability of the people you work with, is everywhere. Presence is indicated by small graphics or “jelly beans” that indicate whether a person is available (green), in a meeting (red), or busy (yellow). When you click a name, a window appears that lists their name, photo, and status, and gives you options to send them e-mail, send them an instant message, call them, or more.I chose to send an instant message to Soumya, and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 opened as shown in the illustration to the right. I didn’t need to look up Soumya’s contact information because Communicator pulled it from the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 for me, nor did I have to leave Outlook 2010 in order to initiate the instant message. My instant messaging chat with Soumya allowed me to ask questions and get answers immediately without having to wait for an e-mail response.

Office Communicator also allows me to initiate a telephone call with anyone in my contacts list. I use an inexpensive microphone and speaker headset that I purchased at my office supply store to talk via Communicator. This Internet-based communication saves me money because normally calls to my clients would be long distance and therefore toll calls. Phone calls via Communicator, which I make often, save my business real time and money.

This information is about prerelease software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. ©2010 Microsoft Corporation.

Another reason I use Communicator to place calls with clients is that they often ask questions that are more easily answered with a demonstration. I can turn a phone call into a desktop or screen sharing call with just a few clicks, which allows my client to see what I see on my computer. These sessions allow me to provide a higher level of service without having to make a visit to see the client.Note: Instant messaging and presence require Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 with Microsoft Office.

Stay connected to social or business contactsSocial networking sites were initially adopted most rapidly by teenagers who needed a way to communicate with one another. However, they are increasingly used as a way to network with peers, vendors, and customers. Outlook 2010 makes it easy to stay connected to your social and business networks instead of managing each separately via the browser.

For example, when you receive an e-mail from someone, you can quickly add them to your Outlook 2010 Quick Contacts list. Your Quick Contacts list can be organized by categories that you choose. As illustrated to the left, for example, I added Vivian to the “Vendor Contacts” category in my Quick Contacts in just a few clicks.

The Quick Contacts list is located at the bottom of the Outlook 2010 Reading Pane and can be expanded to show all of your Quick Contacts groups and the contacts within each group, as illustrated

This information is about prerelease software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. ©2010 Microsoft Corporation.

to the right.The Quick Contacts list displays contacts you select from within your company or from any social network that offers a downloadable Outlook Social Connector for its service. Look for notices on popular social networking sites for support for the Outlook Social Connector.Once installed, you can instant message and e-mail contacts from your favorite social networks from within Outlook 2010 and Office Communicator. For example, when I added Vivian to the “Vendor Contacts” group in Outlook 2010, Communicator automatically reflected the update, as illustrated below. I no longer have to maintain separate instant messaging clients for each social networking site I participate in.

Note: These features require either SharePoint Server 2010 or a Windows Live account. You can also learn more about the Outlook Social Connector.

Move projects forward faster

This information is about prerelease software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. ©2010 Microsoft Corporation.

In the past, collaborating on a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentation, or OneNote digital notebook meant asking everyone to get out of the file, making your edits, and then telling everyone it was clear to open the file again. With Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010, the new Excel Web App, and OneNote shared notebooks, more than one person can edit a single file at the same time. Co-authoring makes it easier to divide up work and get key players contributing at the same time, even if they are in totally different locations.New with Word 2010, the new Navigation Pane organizes your document by headings (such as heading 1, heading 2, and heading 3) and presents the list in a graphical view. The Navigation Pane makes it easy to rearrange entire sections simply by clicking and dragging them from one place in the outline to the next.When more than one person is editing a document at the same time, the Navigation Pane indicates who is in what section.When more than one person is editing a file in Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010, the Excel Web App, or OneNote shared notebooks, their changes are marked so you can identify the source for each change or addition. Because you no longer have to wait for someone to exit from these files before you can work on them, you can move projects forward faster.

Prepare documents to sendOnce your documents are ready to print or send, you can streamline the process in the new BackStage view. The Backstage view is more than what used to be the File menu. For example, instead of choosing Print and then Print Preview, the two are combined in the Backstage view, with both print options and print preview combined.The BackStage view also brings together options for sending documents to others in e-mail messages and saving files to network drives, to the Windows Live SkyDrive online storage service, or to SharePoint sites. You can also use the BackStage view to set document permissions, manage versions, roll back to a previous version, or check to make sure that there are no issues in the document that would make it hard for a person with disabilities to read it.

Start streamlining communications todayYou can first start by installing the beta version of Office 2010. After you have it installed, I encourage you to arrange your inbox by conversation and experiment with some of the ways to get your inbox

This information is about prerelease software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. ©2010 Microsoft Corporation.

under control.Then schedule your next conference call over Office Communicator, so you can share your desktop or screen. Then try editing a Word 2010 document or PowerPoint 2010 presentation while someone else has it open. After all, we could all use better tools to streamline our communication and get out of the office sooner.

About the authorNancy Buchanan is a freelance marketing consultant who specializes in customizing SharePoint intranet sites and developing content for product launches at Microsoft. Before moving to a rural island community in Washington state with her family in 2002, she was a product manager at Microsoft for eight years. She has been in high-tech sales and marketing in the Pacific Northwest for more than 25 years.

This information is about prerelease software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. ©2010 Microsoft Corporation.