Microsoft Outlook

Center for Teaching & Learning

Topics Covered in this Tutorial

Getting Started with Outlook Options
Options for Writing Emails

Signatures in Emails..
Automatic Replies.
Flags and Reminders.
Recalling an Email
Use your Email to Take Action
Create a Task
Create a Contact.
Extracting info. From an Email.
The To-Do Bar..
Use Colors to Get Organized
Outlook Rules
Creating a Rule
Creating a Folder Structure...
Creating a Folder
Naming Folders..
Popular Folder Structures...
The Outlook Calendar...
Appointments.
Meetings/Requests.....
Meeting Requests
Tracking Multiple Calendars
Sharing Calendars...
Calendar Colors
Copying an Appointment.
Groups to Organize Calendars.
Outlook Journal..
Automatically record items/files
Tasks
Create a Task.
Schedule Task in Calendar.
Using Notes in Outlook
Creating a Note..
Change How Your Note Looks

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Getting Started with Outlook Options

Outlook provides many options to help you change how things look and
work. Where you set options for all of Outlook, like the standard reminder
time for appointments or the default location for saving sent messages,
hasn't changed. You'll click File on the tabs within the main Outlook window
and then click Options on the tool bar.

Options for writing e-mail

If you want to change your settings for writing e-mail for example, to make the spelling
checker stop ignoring words in uppercase you do that from the Editor Options:
You can access editor options by clicking:
1. File
2. Options
3. Mail
4. Editor Options

Note: Settings, include the Proofing and Advanced tabs.

Advanced Tab: for advanced customization in Outlook
Proofing Tab: also includes
the auto correct options

Signatures in Emails:

Under Outlook Options (File, Options), Click Mail on the toolbar, then select Signatures
Here you will be able to have a customized signature for signing your emails; you can also use
this tool for a letter or message you regularly send out.

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Automatic Replies
Automatic replies can be useful if you are not going to be
able to respond to your email for an extended period of
time and do not want your recipients to think that you are
ignoring them.
Click:
1. File
2. Automatic Replies
3. Check Send Automatic Replies
4. Set Time Frame

Flags and Reminders

Flags and reminders can help you and
others remember to do things.
- When you flag and email in your
inbox, the email also goes to your
tasks

To add a flag or a reminder (or both) when you're creating a message, start by clicking Follow
Up in the Options group of a new e-mail message. If you want to flag yourself click on one of
the flag icons, if you want to flag a recipient, click Add Reminder.

Messages that you flag for follow-up not only show up in the To-Do Bar, they also show up in
your task list and on your calendar. That's to help you remember to do the things on your list.
And, if that's not enough, you can set reminders for them so that you actually remember to
follow up.
- You can select reminders for both you and your recipient(s)
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Follow up for yourself

Suppose you send a message to a colleague that

says "I'll follow up with you tomorrow." To be
sure that you remember to do that, flag the
message for yourself by clicking Follow Up and
then clicking Tomorrow. The message (which is
moved to the Sent Items folder once you send it)
is flagged and added to your To-Do List in Tasks
list. It also shows up as an item on your own ToDo Bar.
Follow up for the recipient

You can also attach a follow-up flag for your recipients by using the Flag for Recipients
command. We've highlighted the command to do this in the picture. Before you send the
message, you specify when you want the recipient to be reminded to follow up with you.
As you can see in the picture, the received message will include a flag and the bell icon
(indicating that the message includes a reminder). As long as the recipient keeps the message
in his or her Outlook mailbox, a reminder will be displayed at the time you specify. (Note that
the item will NOT be added to the recipients To-Do Bar creating a to-do list is a matter of
personal choice.)

Recalling an Email
Suppose you've just clicked Send and you realize that a key detail in your message is wrong
(for example, maybe you wrote "bored" instead of "board" when discussing the results of the
last board meeting). If you're using Microsoft Exchange Server for your
e-mail, you may be able to recall the message that you just sent. If
you act before a recipient reads the message, recalling it will allow you
to send a corrected version to that person and avoid possible
embarrassment. Here's what you would do:
1. In the Navigation Pane, click Sent Items to switch to that
folder.
2. In the Sent Items folder, double-click the message that you
want to recall to open it.
3. In the open message, click Other Actions in the Actions
group, and click Recall This Message.
Note: (A.) You should receive a confirmation message informing you if the email was
successfully recalled or not. If the message you sent has already been opened by the recipient,
it will not be able to be recalled.
(B.) If you don't see the Recall This Message command, it's probably because you're not
using Microsoft Exchange Server for your e-mail. We've included more information about how
you can verify this in the Quick Reference Card at the end of this course.

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Use your Email to Take Action

Even if an e-mail message doesn't require a direct response, the information in the message
may still cause you to:
Store contact information
Create a task
Set up a meeting
You can get started with each action by simply dragging the message to the appropriate button
on the Navigation Pane. While this functionality isn't new to Outlook 2007, it's a handy way to
see how messages in Outlook can have uses beyond e-mail.
Note that dragging creates a new item, and doesn't get the message out of your Inbox. It's up
to you to delete it if you don't need it anymore.
If a message makes you realize that you need to meet with someone, here's a quick way to get
started:
1. Drag the message to Calendar on the Navigation Pane.
2. A new appointment opens, where you'll fill in the rest of the details (such as the date,
time, and location).
3. Then, you'll invite the person to the meeting, and
4. Click Send.

Create a Task
Sometimes a message contains information about some action that you
need to take.
You can drag the message from your Inbox to the Tasks button in the
Navigation Pane to quickly start a new task. The subject of the email is the
name that will appear in your tasks, you can change that name if you like by
right clicking on the task and selecting rename task.

Create a Contact
If you're keeping a message around so
that you'll have a contact's e-mail address
handy, we have a better idea. Why not
create a contact entry in Contacts?
You can drag a message to Contacts to
get the contact entry started. When you
drag a message to the Contacts button,
a new Contact form opens and the email address in the message is
automatically added to it.
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From there you can fill in the rest of the details, such as a street address, telephone number,
and so on. The next time you need to look up a bit of information about that contact, you'll
know right where to look: in Contacts.
By storing contact information in Contacts you'll be able to easily search for the contact, add
him or her to a distribution list, or use the person's contact information in a mail merge. You
can even store a contact's picture with the contact so you can always see a face with the name.
Extracting Information From an Email
Suppose you receive a message with an attachment, and all you really want is the attachment.
You'll be glad to know that you can save the attachment to your hard disk independent of the
message. That is, you can "extract" it from the message.
Once you've saved the attachment, you may no longer need the message. If this is the case,
you can delete it or file it away. Another message out of your Inbox.
Caution Because attachments have the potential to carry computer viruses, handle them with
care and be sure that you're using an up-to-date virus checker.
The To-Do Bar
The To-Do Bar displays flagged messages, tasks from your Tasks folder, and upcoming
meetings, appointments, and events from your calendar. In the To-Do Bar, you can see these
things at a glance, without having to switch to other windows in Outlook:
Because the subject of a message doesn't always describe the task that you need to do, you'll
be glad to know that you can change the subject of a flagged message in the To-Do Bar. When
you do this, the subject of the message in the Inbox is unchanged.

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So, you may wonder: What's the

difference between a flagged message
and a task created by dragging to the
Tasks button? The answer is that it's
mostly a matter of style.
If you like to delete messages after you've
finished with them, you'll probably prefer
to use Tasks to keep track of things you
need to do. (When you drag a message to
the Tasks button, you create a new item,
so deleting the message doesnt affect the
task).
If you like to keep your messages (either in your Inbox or in folders which we'll talk about in
a later lesson), you'll probably prefer to use follow-up flags because flagging is quick and easy.
However, dont delete items from the To-Do bar.
You may be tempted to delete items from the To-Do Bar when you've completed them. DONT
DELETE, MARK TASK COMPLETE! When you complete a task, mark it as complete using the
Mark Complete command. (A quick way to do this is to simply click the flag next to the item,
or right click and mark as
complete.) Completed items will
drop off of your list onto a
completed tasks list, however if
you delete them they are gone
for good.
But what's really helpful about
marking an item as complete is
that you'll see it listed on your
completed tasks list on the day of
which you completed it. To see
this list click TASKS, in the
lower left corner. And it'll be crossed out under tasks not to do list (to do list is a list of
things you have not finished yet) so that you'll know you've completed it. It's a great way to
remind yourself of all of the work that you've done. In the To-Do Bar and in the Calendar, any
task not marked as complete on its due date will automatically be carried over to the following
day until you complete it.
Note: If you choose to delete an item from the To-Do Bar, the flagged message will also be
deleted from your Inbox. Similarly, if you delete the flagged message from the Inbox, you'll also
delete it from the To-Do Bar. Mark Complete is safer.

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You can use the Date Navigator to quickly create a new calendar entry from a message. We've
shown this process in the picture.
Notice that this is similar to what you did when you dragged a message to the Calendar button
in the Navigation Pane. Why is this method better? Because there's one less step: The date
information is filled in automatically to match the date you drag to in the Date Navigator.

Use Colors to Get Organized!

If you used colored flags in Outlook
2003, you'll find that Outlook 2010
improves on this concept by allowing
you to use names along with the
colors.
If a message belongs in more than
one category, that's okay. There's
no limit to the number of categories
that you assign to a message.
Wondering who creates the category
names? You do! You create each
category name and choose the color
that's associated with it. Then, you can assign that category to incoming and existing messages.
One way to assign a color category to a message is to right-click in the Categories column and
use the shortcut menu, as we've shown in the picture.
Once you've assigned a category to a message, you can quickly scan your Inbox and find the
message just by looking for its colored tag.
Tip: Unless you're adapting an existing system that's already working for you, it's probably best
to stick to just a few categories. Keeping the system simple will make it easier to use.

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The first time you use one of the

default categories, such as Purple
Category, you'll be prompted to give
it a more specific name in the
Rename Category dialog box.
To see a list of categories and their
associated colors, click the
Categorize button on the
Standard toolbar.
With colored categories, you can assign meaningful text at the same time that you assign a
color. That's good because, as we mentioned earlier, if you forget what purple means, you can
look at the category name as a reminder. Another advantage is that colored categories can be
applied to all Outlook items, so you can organize your contacts, calendar items, and tasks all in
the same way.
Note: If you used colored flags in a previous outlook, only flags in your default mailbox will be
updated to the new color categories. If you have messages in a Personal Folders file (PST) or
Archive folder that you would like to update to use colored categories, you'll need to update
them manually.
Now, let's suppose you've color coded all of your messages according to the projects you're
working on or the clients you work with. How can you view them in these groups? That's easy:
Click the Arranged By shortcut menu (under the Search box) and then click Categories.

Outlook Rules
Rules help you manage e-mail by performing certain actions whenever you get or send an email that matches certain criteria. Generally, they either help organize your messages or notify
you when a set of condition has been met. For example, rules can:
Move messages from a particular recipient into a new folder
Use keywords to categorize messages based on their contents
Apply visual flags to messages to make it easier to find them
Notify you by playing a sound or popping-up a message when you receive an important
message
Automatically color code (using a category) certain recipients emails
You can set rules to run automatically or run them manually whenever needed.
You can also add exceptions to rules so that it
only applies to the right messages.

Creating a Rule
To create a rule, use the Rules icon, under the home
tab. Either select Create Rule, for a new rule or

Manage Rules & Alerts for editing an old rule.

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When selecting Create Rule, this should display

the Rules and Alerts manager..
In order to create a new rule, click Advanced
Options in the lower-right corner of the Rules and
Alerts manager. This will launch the Rules Wizard.
In the wizard, you can create a new rule.
The top section of this dialog box allows you to choose the
conditions to check. Scroll through the list in order to see the
various options. In the example to the right, the rule will
check the importance flag of incoming messages.
The lower section of the dialog allows you to specify desired
value or option for the criteria you selected above. To do
this, click on the blue underlined words. This will display a
pop-up window with the available options.
Remember that all criteria you select must be met for the
rule to be processed.
On the first page you need to select which conditions you
would like to be affected by your new rule.

On the second page you need to Select

the actions you would like to include
within the rule and then click NEXT.
Just like in the previous step, select
actions in the top box and, if necessary,
specify options in the lower box. If you
need to specify an option that you have
selected, you must click on it in the
lower box. (Like the example shown to
the right, this person is selecting a
specific folder which they want all
emails from a specified recipient to go
to.)

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On the third page you can select

exemptions to the rule.
The example rule will not apply to any
messages that have attachments or include
the word birthday in the subject or body
of the message.
Note that multiple exceptions use an OR
operator as opposed to criteria which use
AND. So if a message meets any of the
exceptions, the rule will not apply.
Select an exception or two and click Next.

This brings us to the fourth and final page.

Give the newly-created rule a descriptive name.
You can also choose whether to turn the rule on
so it automatically scans all new mail. It is also
possible to have the rule apply retroactively to
all existing mail in your Inbox by selecting the
check box labeled Run this rule now on
messages already in Inbox. Be sure to Select
the desired boxes on the last page of the rules
wizard Before you click finish
When you are done, click the Finish button. If
you chose to have the rule apply to existing emails, it will scan your inbox for any matching
messages. The rule will now be listed in your
Rules and Alerts manager.

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Create a Logical Folder Structure in Outlook

Organizing your e-mail is really about achieving two goals. The first goal is to save old
messages where you can find them quickly. The second goal is to distinguish easily between
messages you've already dealt with and messages you still need to act on.
I've met countless people who save all of their old messages right in their Inbox sometimes
thousands of old messages. They skim through them once or twice a year, deleting messages
they don't need any more. Or maybe they just move all the messages to a new folder named
"Old Messages" (or something equally descriptive). For some reason, they never think about
how much time they're wasting each time they have to retrieve an old message.
Moving messages out of your Inbox and into well-named, organized folders helps you out in
several ways:
Saving only the messages you need to act on in your Inbox makes it easier to see what tasks
are before you.
Storing fewer messages in a folder makes Outlook respond faster when working with that
folder. Thousands of messages sitting in your Inbox can slow you down.
Filing away messages in folders makes the messages easier to find when you need them.

All of this depends on creating a well-thought-out folder structure and teaching

yourself to use it. Obviously, the structure that you develop should reflect how
you organize your work, but there are a few popular methods for organizing
folders.
Creating a Folder
Before you start developing your folder structure, you need to know how to create a folder in
Outlook. Creating a folder is simple, but you need to know a couple of things.
To create a folder, follow these steps:
In Outlook, on the File menu, click the Folder tab, and click New Folder.
Type a name for the folder in the Name box. (For advice
on choosing a folder name, see "Naming Folders" later in
this article.)
In the Folder contains list, click the type of item that the
folder will hold. For example, to hold regular e-mail
messages, click Mail and Post Items.
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In the Select where to place the folder list, click the folder that will contain the one you are
creating.
Tip: You can create any type of folder inside whatever folder you choose. You are not limited
by the parent folder's type. For example, you could create a folder for Mail and Post Items
inside the folder for a particular contact. Typically, though, you will create a hierarchy of folders
of the same type. On my computer, I created a folder named Saved Items right under Personal
Folders. I create all my folders for saved messages inside that Saved Items folder.
Click OK.

Naming Folders
Most of the time, the name for a folder will be a simple choice. If you are creating a folder to
store messages about a specific project, you will probably name the folder after the project.
However, consistency in choosing folder names makes saved messages easier to find.
Here's an example. As a writer, I work on multiple projects that all follow the same basic
schedule. I submit an article that I've written and wait for an editor to review it. When I get the
article back, I review the editor's comments, make changes, and then submit it again. I have a
folder for each publisher I work with. Inside that, I have a folder for each project that is named
after the article. Inside the article folder, I have a folder for each phase of the project, ordered
by using a number and an underscore (_) at the beginning of the folder. By creating consistent
folder names, I know exactly what to expect when I open a folder or move an item to it. I don't
have to pause to figure out where the message should be.
The following tips for naming folders can make folders easier to locate:
Using all capital letters when naming important folders makes them stand out.
Placing a number followed by an underscore (_) at the beginning of a folder name
makes the folder appear first in an alphabetized list of folders. Numbering folders this
way also forces the order of the folders when alphabetizing isn't appropriate. Using
numbers also provides one more advantage. When you select a folder in the list of
folders and start typing, Outlook automatically moves you to the folder matching the
first few keys you press (type "proj", for example, and you'll move to a folder named
Projects). Press a number key to move directly to a folder that starts with that number.
Placing the letter z followed by an underscore (_) forces a folder to appear after all
other folders in a list. This is handy for moving lower-priority folders out of the way.
Keep in mind, though, that while each of these tips can make folders easier to locate,
combining too many different naming techniques can actually confuse you more than
help you. Choose the naming techniques that make the most sense for you, and use
them consistently.

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Popular Folder Structures

Although the folder structure that you create will be specific to your needs, some basic folder
structures can help you create your own
system.
Shallow folder structure: This is my
personal favorite. It uses just a few toplevel folders to organize messages by
broad categories. I use just four top-level
folders Companies, Projects, Mailing
Lists, and Personal. In each folder, I keep
a long list of folders, but I try to avoid
creating a deeply nested structure. For
example, my Companies folder holds a
folder for every company I deal with
whether it's a bank with which I have an
account or a vendor from which I bought
something. This structure is powerful
because of the way that Outlook handles
the folder hierarchy. It is much easier to
scroll through long alphabetized lists of
folders than to dig through the many
layers of a deeply nested structure. It is also easier to drag items from the Inbox to storage
folders when you don't have to wait for so many levels of folders to open for you.
Deeply nested structures: Some people feel more comfortable with a deeply nested and
thoroughly organized structure. You may create additional layers of folders that organize
messages by date, sender, phase of a project, type of correspondence, or whatever else you
can think of. If you keep your folder names consistent, you may find that this type of structure
works better for you.
Date-based structures: If you tend to keep all messages in your Inbox and don't want to
bother with creating an organized folder structure, a date-based structure at least provides a
way to keep your Inbox from growing too large. You might create a folder for each year, each
quarter, or each month, and then move messages into their respective folders based on the age
of the message.
Contact-based structures: Sometimes used by people who organize messages by client
rather than by project, a contact-based structure places all messages associated with a
particular client in subfolders in the Contacts folder.

Make It a Habit!
Whatever folder structure you choose, the real trick to getting organized in Outlook is making a
habit of storing messages in their assigned places as they come in or as soon as you have acted
on them. Better yet, you can create automatic rules so that Outlook moves the messages to the
right folders for you.

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Tip: If your Inbox is already full of messages that

you dread organizing, don't let it stop you from
creating and using a good folder structure. Create
a folder and name it something like "Old
Messages." Drag all the messages from your Inbox
to this folder to give yourself a fresh start. Just
make it a habit of properly filing away all the new
messages you get.
By Walter Glenn, MCSE, MCT

REMEMBER: YOU CAN ALWAYS MAKE A RULE FOR

OLD MESSAGES TO GO INTO A FOLDER IN ORDER TO
UNCLUTTER A CROWDED INBOX!

The Outlook Calendar

You can schedule activities in your
Outlook calendar as appointments,
meetings, events, or tasks. Your
choice of entry type will depend on
who else is involved and how you
want the entry to appear. By
selecting entries in your calendar
correctly, you'll know at a glance
what's going on, when, and with
whom.
First things first. Before you can see what's in your calendar,
you need to know how to find it.
Click Calendar in the Navigation Pane.
Click a date on the Date Navigator (which you'll find at the top
of the To-Do Bar).
Once you're looking at your calendar, you can use the buttons
at the top of the window to navigate and to show or hide
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Detail:
1. Click Day, Week, or Month to quickly switch views.
2. Forward and Back buttons allow you to easily move through your calendar.
3. More buttons let you show or hide days or detail, depending on your view.

Now that you see your calendar, you can start scheduling. You'll choose from four types of entry.
By knowing the different types, you can be more effective when you schedule your activities.

1. Appointment: An appointment is an activity that involves only you, at a scheduled

time.
2. Meeting: A meeting occurs at a scheduled time, like an appointment. The difference is
that you invite other people by using a meeting request that's sent via e-mail.
3. Event: An event is an activity that lasts all day long. Unlike an appointment or meeting,
an event doesn't block out time in your calendar. With an event, you can still have other
entries appear in your schedule for that day.
4. Task: A task is an activity that involves only you, and that doesn't need a scheduled
time. New to Outlook 2007 is an area in your calendar's Day and Week views that shows
tasks.

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Create an Appointment
Use an appointment when you know you'll be busy but no one else is involved. You might enter
an appointment to block out time in your calendar for research on a project, for writing a
report, or for running an errand on the way home from work. One quick way to start an
appointment (or any calendar entry, for that matter) is to rest the pointer over the desired time
in Day view, click, and type the details. We've shown the steps to do this in the picture:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Double click on the day of the appointment.

Unselect all day to block out a specific time.
Type the details.
Click reoccurrence if this event is reoccurring.
SAVE and close.

Have a Meeting
When you create a meeting in Outlook, you actually create a meeting request. The request is
sent out by e-mail to the prospective meeting participants, who respond by accepting or
declining the meeting request or by proposing a new time.
A meeting requires three basic elements: someone to organize it, people to come, and a place
to meet. Outlook can help pull these pieces together quickly and efficiently.
Outlook meetings are activities you schedule in your calendar that involve inviting other people
or reserving resources. The people involved have the following distinct titles and roles:
Meeting organizer Whoever sets up a meeting becomes the meeting organizer. The organizer
is the only person who can change the meeting details once it has been set up. Also, keep in
mind that you can never assign a new organizer to an existing meeting. Once you're the
organizer, you're always the organizer.
Attendee Anyone who is invited to the meeting is considered an attendee. There are two
categories of attendee: required and optional. Once an attendee is added to the attendee list,
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that person will always be considered an attendee for the meeting. Even if an attendee declines
a meeting, he or she is still considered an attendee.
Location/Resource The place the meeting will occur is the location, sometimes referred to as
resource. How you specify a location (or resource) for the meeting will depend on how things
are set up at your organization. We'll talk more about this in the "Location, location, location"
section later on in this course.
In Outlook, each person in the meeting is represented by an icon that you can see in the
Scheduling tab of a meeting request.
When meetings are scheduled and maintained in Outlook, you can greatly improve the
efficiency of the process because Outlook keeps track of the details using the Inbox and the
Calendar. When these details change, they can be updated for everyone, all at once, with the
click of a button.
Here's a quick overview of the process:
The meeting organizer schedules the meeting and sends all of the participants a special type of
message called a meeting request. This request is delivered to the Inboxes of all of the meeting
participants.
Once the request is in the attendee's Inbox, Outlook recognizes it as something that belongs in
the Calendar and puts it there as a "tentative" entry until the attendee has a chance to respond.
Attendees read the request and respond. A meeting response, which is similar to a meeting
request, is sent back to the Inbox of the meeting organizer and just as it did with the
requests; Outlook recognizes each response as something special. The meeting entry is
updated in the organizer's calendar with information about who is coming.

Create a meeting request

An appointment is just for you. When others are involved, create a meeting:
1. Open a new or current item in your Calendar.
2. On the Home tab, click New Meeting.
3. A To button and box appear. Type names directly in the box or click the To button to
add invitees by selecting from a list.
4. Once you've entered all of the meeting details, click Send to send the invitation to the
other meeting participants.

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Want to schedule a good time for everyone?

When creating your meeting click Scheduling assistant and the scheduling page will appear.
If you've set up the free/busy status settings, you can view your meeting participants' free/busy
information on the Scheduling tab. Select a free block of time for the meeting.
Click Send, and then click Yes. Outlook sends the meeting request to the specified recipients.

Process meeting requests

If someone has scheduled a meeting for you to attend, the meeting request message shows up
in your Inbox.
Likewise, your meeting request
invitations appear in the Inbox
of each of the people you've
invited.
A meeting request message
includes response buttons at
the top of the Reading Pane.
Click Accept to accept
the meeting.
Click Tentative to
accept the meeting
subject to change.
Click Decline to
decline the meeting.
Click Propose New
Time to suggest a new
time for the meeting.

Track meeting status

It may be a part of your job to ensure that your team members or employees attend meetings,
but you'll want to remain flexible with your meeting requirements so that they accommodate
people's schedules and don't cause much disruption. Therefore, it's likely that you'll need to
monitor the status of your meeting requests and perform scheduling changes and answer
attendees' responses or questions.

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To view the status

of an upcoming
meeting
Open your Calendar
folder, and doubleclick the meeting on
your schedule.
Click the Tracking
tab. You'll see all of
the attendees and
their responses. You
can make changes to
the meeting on the
Tracking tab.
Note: If you just want to see who is attending, click scheduling assistant.

Tracking Multiple Calendars

When you click Calendar in the Navigation Pane, the calendar that
you see listed under My Calendars is your main, or default, calendar.
This calendar is always named "Calendar."
You'll always have this main calendar, but you can have other
calendars as well. That's what we'll talk about next.
Outlook stores everything in folders. This includes calendar entries. So, to create an additional
calendar, you need create a new folder in which to store items for the new calendar.
As shown in the picture, this can be done easily by right clicking your calendar on the tool
bar, Select new calendar. You will then be prompted to name the
folder; do not be alarmed this folder is your calendar. Once you
name it click ok. You have now created that calendar, and you will
see it listed under My Calendars.

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Sharing Calendars.
You can share calendars with other people to both let them see your calendar and let you see
theirs. This will allow you to know when that person is busy or in the office and visa versa.

To share a calendar
1.) Right click on my calendar, select Add Calendar, click From Address Book.
2.) Find the desired contact you would like to share calendars with in the address book
Once you have selected your contact you will be able to see their calendar, but all
appointments, meetings, and events will still be private and labeled busy. In order to
actually see the events on that persons calendar, you must request to share click Share
Calendar.
Note: make sure you check the desired boxes, check both boxes to allow mutual viewing.

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Calendar Colors
You'll use the Navigation Pane to manage which calendars are displayed. To show or hide a
calendar, you'll select or clear its check box.
Once you have more than one calendar displayed, color-coding and distinct names help you
distinguish them. In the picture, the default calendar is blue and the family calendar is green.
Outlook assigns colors to calendars according to the order in which you select their check boxes
in the Navigation Pane. Notice also that each calendar is labeled, as follows:
Note: Your default calendar is always called Calendar. It's possible to change the color of the
default calendar to something else. And, if you wanted to, you could use this same color for all
of your calendars. To change colors, simply right click on the calendar and select color.

After you select the calendars that you want to see, you then get to choose how you look at
them. You can also choose to view calendars in overlay mode: a mode that allows you to see
how multiple schedules look as one.
1. Check the boxes of the calendars you want to view in Overlay mode.
2. Select The Arrow in the upper left corner of the calendar.
When would this come in handy? Suppose you want to make sure you don't have conflicts
between the two calendars. With overlay mode you can do just that.

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Copying an Appointment
Suppose you are sharing a calendar with a friend. When you see a game that you want to
attend, you can drag the appointment from the shared calendar to your own. As with the soccer
practice appointment, by having the item in your own calendar, you'll remember to attend and
you'll avoid schedule conflicts.

Copying an appointment from one calendar to another is simple:

1. In side-by-side mode, simply click the appointment to select it
2. Then, drag it to the destination calendar as we've shown in the picture.
Note: When you use this drag-and-drop method, you'll need to take care that you position the
copy in the exact same time slot.

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Creating Groups to Organize Calendars

1. In the tool bar by the calendars, right click on and click new calendar group
2. Type a name for your group
3. Drag each calendar (one at a time) to the group.
What are groups good for? They allow you to show or hide collections of calendars in the
Navigation Pane. If you are not currently working with a certain group, you can collapse the
group, which will temporarily hide calendars.

Outlook Journal
The Journal automatically records actions that you choose and places the actions in a timeline
view (Timeline: A view type that displays items from left to right on a time scale. Use this view
to display items in relation to time. Timeline is the default view type for Journal).
In addition to tracking Microsoft Outlook items, such as e-mail, or other Microsoft Office
documents, such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel files, you can keep a record of any
interaction you want to remember even something that is not located on your computer, such
as a phone conversation or a handwritten letter you mailed or received.
Use Journal to record the dates and times of your interactions with contacts, such as tracking
hours spent on a particular account. If you want to create a list of all the items related to a
contact, use activity tracking, instead, to link the items to that contact. Do you remember the
day you worked on a file, but can't remember the path to it? Use Journal to locate information
based on when you perform actions. For example, you can quickly look up an Excel document
you worked on last Tuesday if you set Excel documents to be automatically recorded in Journal.
Journal entries are recorded based on when the action occurs. For example, a Word document
is recorded on the timeline when it is created or was last modified. You can organize Journal
entries on the timeline into logical groups such as e-mail messages, meetings, and phone
calls to quickly locate information, such as all the meetings you attended in the past week or
month.
You can open a Journal entry and review details about the activity, or you can use the Journal
entry as a shortcut to go directly to the Outlook item or the file that the Journal entry refers to.

Automatically record items and files

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

On the Tools menu, click File.

Click options
Click Notes and Journal.
Click Journal Options
In the Automatically Record These Items box, select the check boxes for the items
you want automatically recorded in Journal.
6. In the For These Contacts box, select the check boxes for the items you want
automatically recorded.

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7. In the Also Record Files From box, select the check boxes next to the programs whose
files you want to automatically record in Journal.

Manually record a Microsoft Outlook item

1. On the File menu, Click Notes and Journal.
2. In the Also record files from box, click the type of you are recording.
3. Select other options you want.

Tasks
Create a task from scratch
1. On the Home menu, on the bottom right corner click the Task text box.
2. In the Subject box, type a task (Task: A personal or work-related duty or errand that
you want to track through completion) name, Enter.
3. Double Click task to see all information about it, you can fill in any additional
information necessary.
4. To make the task recur, click Recurrence, click the frequency (Daily, Weekly, Monthly,
Yearly) at which you want the task to recur, and then do one of the following:
a. Make the task recur at regular intervals
b. Select options for that frequency. Do not click Regenerate new task, or the task
will not recur at regular intervals.
c. Make the task recur based on completion date
d. Click Regenerate new task, and then type a time frequency in the box.
e. If you want, set start and end dates for the task.

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f. Click OK, and then click Save and Close.

Schedule time in Calendar to Complete a Task
1. Drag the task you want to schedule time for from Tasks to the
Calendar button in the Navigation Pane.
2. You can double click the Task in your calendar, and then select the
options you want. (Although it should pop up automatically)
Tip: if you want to turn a message into a Task, simply drag the message to
the Tasks button in the Navigation Pane.

Using Notes in Outlook

Notes are the electronic equivalent of paper sticky notes. Use notes to jot
down questions, ideas, reminders, and anything you would write on note
paper. You can leave notes open on the screen while you work. This is especially convenient
when you're using notes for storing bits of information you may need later, such as directions
or text you want to reuse in other items or documents.

Creating a Note
1. On the Home menu, select the note icon in the bottom left
corner.
2. Type the text of the note.
3. To close the note, click the note icon in the upper-left corner
of the Note window, and then click Close.
Tip: You can leave the note open while you work. When you change
the note, the changes are saved automatically.

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Change How your Note Looks

1.
2.
3.
4.

Change the default color, font, and size for new notes you create.
On the Tools menu, click File, Options.
Click Notes and Journal.
Select the options you want.

This is where you choose the color of your notes, the font, and the font size. Show or hide the

time and date on new and existing notes.

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