Using Email

Using Email

How to Use Email

Updated September 06, 2006

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Outlook and Exchange Basics

Connecticut College maintains a Microsoft Exchange Server system with Exchange Mailboxes and accounts for all Faculty, Staff and Students.

E-Mail Guidelines

  • Exchange Mailboxes are limited to 100 MB for Faculty and staff. Students are limited to 50 MB. Old messages can be saved on your hard drive and easily accessed (see the Archiving and Message Management topic on this page).
  • Email attachments are limited to 10MB.
  • You are not able to send or receive files with the following extensions through the system for security purposes: ani bas, com, cp,l exe, msc, msi, msp, pcd, pif, reg, scr, sct, vb, vbs, wsa, wsc, wsf, zip
  • Please contact the Helpdesk if you need to make special arrangements.
  • Be sure to Empty your Deleted Items folder.
  • Archive your Older Messages regularly.

Remember to archive your Sent Items as well!

Using Outlook´s Meeting Scheduler Tool

Pick the best time to plan a meeting with co-workers using Outlook´s Meeting tool.

You can conveniently schedule meetings using Outlook´s Meeting feature which is part of Outlook´s Calendar. You can check free and busy times for staff and faculty who keep their calendar in Outlook. You can automatically send an e-mail meeting invitation to everyone, even outside participants, to which participants can easily respond and you can track responses.

  1. Begin by picking any start time on your calendar.
  2. Double click to open the appointment,
  3. Click on the "Attendee Availability" tab.
  4. Enter the names of those you wish to invite, just as you would address an email. Individual calendars which show Free/Busy/Out of Office times will appear for Business School exchange users invited. If it is an external user, a barred line will show in place of their calendar.
  5. Browse for the best time based on when everyone is free, then click on the time slot to select it.
  6. On the Appointment Details tab, you can enter e-mail text, enter a location and subject line, then click the Send button.

Using Outlook´s Out of Office Wizard

Outlook offers a very simple Out Of Office feature to automatically reply to each sender when you are on vacation or out of the office.

  1. While in your Inbox, click on the Tools menu - Out of Office Assistant.
  2. Type in your reply text, for example, "I am out of the office until this date. Please contact this person at this number for assistance."
  3. Click on the button that says, "I am currently out of the office" to turn on this feature.
  4. Click OK

Any incoming message that arrives in your Inbox will receive this reply. And it´s smart! A sender will only receive one notice that you are out of the office, instead of multiple copies if they send you more than one e-mail.

The next time you open Outlook, you will be automatically notified that the Out of Office Assistant is on, and asked if you wish to turn it off. Checking your e-mail from Webmail or other means will not affect its function. To turn it off, simply return to this screen and select, "I am currently in the Office." (In Webmail this feature is controlled under the Tools icon.)

Archiving and Message Management

Faculty and Staff have 100MB mailboxes. No matter how large the mailbox, it will quickly fill up. Outlook provides storage capacity on your hard drive.

Delete as You Go

There are many replies, such as "thank you" or "ok" that you won´t need to keep forever. You will especially appreciate this if you need to access this folder using Webmail!

Remember when you delete any item, such as an email message, calendar appointment, contact, or task, it is moved into your Deleted Items folder. Deleted items stay on the server until you empty your deleted items. If your goal is to clean up your account, this does not save any space until you empty this folder. For example, even if you delete a virus-infected e-mail, it still remains on the server in your account until you empty it from this folder.

To empty these items and permanently delete all of the items, right click on the Deleted Items icon on Outlook´s Toolbar and choose "Empty Deleted Items Folder." To delete some of them, open the deleted items folder, select the message(s) then press the delete key. To recover an item, drag it from this folder to another folder.

You can recover a permanently deleted file within 30 days of the date of deletion. Open the deleted items folder, go to the Tools Menu, and choose Recover Deleted Item.

Tip: To keep down the size of your Deleted Items folder, you can permanently delete items immediately such as an Out of the Office reply or a virus-infected message. Select the message(s) and hold the Shift key down as you press the Delete key.

Archiving, or PST Files

Outlook creates archives in a "personal folder" format known as a .pst file. Messages are compressed and saved on your hard drive or personal network space in a .pst file rather than on the e-mail server, but these files are displayed in Outlook´s folder list and these messages are easily accessed in Outlook - they appear and act like on-line messages. Messages that you want to keep but infrequently access should be archived regularly. The only messages that you need on the server are those you may need to access through another computer using Webmail.

Manual Archiving

Manual archiving gives you complete control of which messages are moved and when. To manually archive your messages, choose File - New - Personal Folder. Name it and choose where to save it. If saved on your hard drive, you will be able to access this archive from that computer, but no other computer. If saved on the network, you will be able to access it from school but not outside of school. This folder shows up in your File list under "Personal Folders." Select messages from your Inbox, Sent Items, and other folders then drag them into this new .pst folder. It can be opened and closed under Outlook´s File menu.

Tip: To quickly move your messages off the server, create a simple archive structure such as "Inbox 2001, Inbox 2002" and drag your old messages together into these folders.)

Automatic Archiving

Outlook creates a folder structure offline identical to the online folder structure, and moves into the archived folders all items older than a certain time period/date that you have specified. Each folder has a Archive Properties that are set to work with Auto Archiving. Some folders may not be set to Auto Archive. Be sure you have your biggest folders (such as your Inbox and Sent Items) set to Auto Archive.

To automatically archive your messages, go to Tools - Options - Other tab and click on the Auto Archive button. Choose your settings. You will be prompted to archive based on these settings.

Sent Items

Remember to clean out, organize and archive your Sent Items folder, too.

 Using Webmail

Webmail is a web-based version of your Exchange account.

You can access over the web without any special setup your Exchange mailbox data instead of using Outlook to access your account. This includes not only your e-mail but your calendar and contacts. You can also choose to turn off or on the Out of Office Assistant.

From any computer in the world connected to the Internet with a relatively recent web browser, go to http://mail.conncoll.edu/ and login. Enter your user name and password , then click on the Log On button or hit enter.

Related Topic: See Beyond Webmail below.

Beyond Webmail: Using Outlook 2000 or XP Remotely

An alternative to Webmail is to configure Outlook to work remotely on your laptop.

This alternative method of remote access offers two advantages: a similar interface to using Outlook on your office computer, and the ability to work offline, unlike Webmail which requires an Internet connection. If you spend a significant amount of time working in email remotely outside of Connecticut College, than you may prefer to use this method.

Since Outlook requires advance set up and synchronization, so if you are traveling, be sure to work with our staff on this setup at least one week in advance of your trip, two weeks or more is preferred to be safe.

Note: If you need off-line access to your files, the initial synchronization is a lengthy process depending on the size of your mailbox, and is best done over a high speed connection at Connecticut College before you leave. It can be painfully slow over a modem. If you only want the Outlook interface and don´t need the offline capability, this step can be skipped.

 Setting Your Preferences in Outlook

Your individual preferences for Outlook are set under the Tools menu - Options dialog box. These settings are typically "client specific" - meaning the settings are stored in the individual copy of Outlook installed on the particular computer - these settings will not apply if you use Outlook on a different computer.

Common questions include:

How do I turn off the Blue Reply/Forward text? Go to Outlook´s Tools menu - Options - Mail Format Tab. In the Stationary and Fonts section, select the Fonts button. (This button will be disabled if you are using Word as your Editor.). Click on the Choose Font button next to Replying and Forwarding field, and choose your preferred formatting. Tip: choose a color such as Black rather than Automatic, which can change color depending on circumstance.

How do I turn off my name inserted in editing messages? Go to Outlook´s Tools menu - Options - Preferences Tab, click on the Email Options button. Uncheck the box at the bottom that says "Mark my comments with".

How do I manage read and unread messages using the preview pane? Set your options for the preview pane. Go to Outlook´s Tools - Options - Other Tab and click on the Preview Pane button. There is a setting to “mark messages as read” after a certain number of seconds, so if a new message comes in, it would be the active message, even if you didn´t “click” on it. Then if two more new messages come in right after each other, the first would not have a long enough delay to be marked as read, but the second would. Based on this, you could get a list of new messages with some marked read, and others marked unread.

How do I create a Signature? If you are using Word as your e-mail editor, a signature is done through Word´s Tools - Automatic text entry. Create a new Autotext entry, then insert it when you wish to use it. If you are not using Word, first create a signature by creating a new message, choose Insert Signature and follow the prompts. To use this for every message, go to Outlook´s Tools menu - Options - Mail Format Tab, click on Signature Picker and select the signature you created. Note you must have already created at least one signature before the Signature Picker is able to be selected for use.

 

 

Last Modified: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 9:53