Avidian Wins Seattle Mayor’s Small Business Award

Prophet receives prestigious 4 Star Rating from PC World

Prophet wins Best Outlook-Based CRM Solution

An extremely handy function of Outlook is the ability to create new tasks and appointments from emails. Here is how:

1. Left click on the email that contains an invite or a to do item.
2. Drag the email to the Task of Calendar folder.
3. This automatically creates a new task or appointment with the body of the email in the notes field.
4. Fill-out the dates, priorities, etc. for the task or appointment.
5. Save, close and your done!

Using the right click function and open new window helps you access multiple windows at once. Here’s how:

1. Open your inbox in Outlook.
2. Right click on calendar in the Outlook folders.
3. Select “Open in New Window” from the menu.
4. Try the power of right click for tasks, sent items or Prophet!

Outlook 2000, 2002 and XP treats FAX numbers as valid electronic communication so if you have both email and fax in a contact, both show up when you hit send. There is no way to default to only email. Three options exist to save you headaches.

1. Put FAX number in a different slot so that the fax field on contacts is empty.
2. Manually insert an alpha character or characters in front of FAX number like FAX - this tricks outlook into ignoring the FAX number as an email address.
3. Buy a utility that does this for you for $19.95 at
   http://www.slipstick.com/contacts/nofax.htm

If you travel a lot and send/receive appointments through Outlook, you know how confusing the time changes can be. Outlook gives you the ability to show two time zones. Here is how:

1. In Outlook, click on Tools > Options > Calendar Options
2. Click on Time Zone in advanced options
3. Click on Show an Additional Time Zone
4. Select the additional Time Zone you would like to see and whether to adjust for daylight savings time.
5. Click OK to save

There are many advantages to having the Outlook Advance Tool bar as part of your permanent tool bar menu. To turn it on, in Outlook, click View > Toolbars > Advanced.

Here are some recommended tasks that will save you time:

• This tool bar changes depending on where you are in Outlook. Learn the icons that are available each Outlook folder you are in.
• The view box in the Advanced Tool is quite useful. Learn to leverage Outlook in different views.
• In Calendar and Contact, learning to see contacts from different views is even more critical.
• Learn to leverage the Field Chooser feature for your different Contact views.

Do you find yourself either re-typing or cutting and pasting the same copy block over and over? Use the Auto Text function of Word in Outlook to create a series of copy blocks that can be quickly inserted into emails or word documents. Here’s how:

1. Make sure word is your default editor in Outlook (go Tools > Options > Mail Format)
2. Create in either Word or in a new Outlook email the copy block that you want to save and re-use.
3. Use Control A to select all of the copy you want to re-use
4. In Word or Outlook – go to Insert > Auto Text > New and give the copy block a short, descriptive name that you will remember
5. In a new email or Word document, type out the short, descriptive name and an option will come up to insert the auto text. Hit enter and voila! The copy magically appears!

The Views feature in Outlook allows you to create custom ways the information in each folder is displayed. Each folder comes with a standard view, but you can customize based on your preferences. It is pretty feature rich so here is a quick way to get started exploring and using Views in Outlook by focusing on one of my favorites - Tasks:

• Click on the Task folder in Outlook
• In the Task Toolbar, Click on View >Arrange By>Current View>Customize Current View
• You can change the font, groub by fields or any of a number of views in the standard view.
• You can also change the default view in tasks to one of the other view types: Table, Timeline, Card, Day/Week/Month or Icon. Try this with Tasks:
• Click on View>Arrange By>Current View>Define View
• In the Customize View Organizer pop-up box, select New
• Create a new view by naming it and selecting Day/Week/Month
• Select the default settings and click accept
• You now have your tasks organized by day in a calendar instead of in a table
• Return to the standard view by clicking on views>current views>simple list

Have you ever wanted to print out a blank calendar for a non-work related activity like a club, school or general activity? Here’s one way to use Outlook to print out a blank calendar in the format of your choice:

1. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Folder.
2. Type a name for the folder.
3. In the Folder contains list, click Calendar Items.
4. In the Select where to place the folder list, click Calendar, and then click OK.
5. On the Go menu, click Folder List.
6. In the Folder List, click the new folder you just created.
7. On the File menu, point to Page setup, and then click the print style you want.
8. Select the print style options you want, and then click Print.

There are several ways to flag emails as follow-up items. You can use rules to move the email to a special folder, you can set a flag on the email OR you can create a task out of the email. I find it easier to create a task out of the email as it goes right onto my to do list is right in my face. Plus, it’s easier!

Drag the email that you want to create a task from to the task folder.

Fill-in any time or importance details you’d like and you’re done!

If you manage multiple email accounts (like most of us) it can be a time sink to log in and out of different accounts. Here is how to set-up Gmail (if you don’t have a free Gmail account, then get one right now!) account to be read inside of Outlook.

• Make sure POP access is turned on for your Gmail account. (See Gmail for this)
• Select Tools | E-mail Accounts... from the menu in Outlook.
• Make sure Add a new e-mail account is selected.
• Click Next >.
• Choose POP3 as the Server Type.
• Click Next >.
• Enter your Gmail account details in the Internet E-mail Settings (POP3) dialog:
  • Type your full name under Your Name:.
  • Type your Gmail email address under E-mail Address:.
  • Type your full Gmail address under User Name: as well.
  • Type your Gmail password under Password:.
  • Type pop.gmail.com under Incoming mail server (POP3):.
  • Type smtp.gmail.com under Outgoing mail server (SMTP):.
• Click More Settings....
• Go to the Outgoing Server tab.
• Make sure My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication is checked.
• Leave Use same settings as my incoming mail server selected.
• Go to the Advanced tab.
• Make sure This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL) is checked under both Incoming server (POP3): and Outgoing server (SMTP):
• Type 465 under Outgoing server (SMTP):
  • If the number under Incoming server (POP3): has not been changed to 995 automatically, enter 995 there.
• Click OK.
• Click Next >.
• Click Finish.

Several people requested some information on adding HotMail accounts to Outlook. This process will work with MSN Hotmail Plus only. If you have normal Hotmail, you’ll need to get one of the tools that allows you to access web-based email accounts via any POP account or, sometimes, IMAP accounts like Outlook. This is easier…

• Make sure you have an MSN Hotmail Plus subscription for the Hotmail account you want to access offline.
• Select Tools | E-mail Accounts... from the menu in Outlook.
• Make sure Add a new e-mail account is selected.
• Click Next.
• Choose HTTP as the Server Type.
• Click Next again.
• Enter your account details in the E-mail Accounts dialog box:
  • Type your full name under Your Name:.
  • Type your Hotmail address under E-mail Address:.
  • If Outlook has not entered it for you automatically, type your Hotmail email address User Name:.
  • Type your Hotmail password under Password:.
  • Select Hotmail in the HTTP Mail Service Provider box.
• Click Next.
• Click Finish

By default, Outlook high lights unread messages in your Inbox with a bold font. You can change this to use a color, a bigger font, or even a completely different font.

To change the way unread mail is highlighted in Outlook:

• Select View > Arrange By >Current View > Customize Current View from the menu while you are in your Outlook Inbox.
• Click on Automatic Formatting.
• Select Unread Messages.
• Click on Font....
• Specify your desired settings.
• Click OK.

The last in our series of how to access various mailboxes via Outlook.

• Select Tools | E-mail Accounts... from the Outlook menu.
• Make sure Add a new e-mail account is selected.
• Click Next >.
• Choose IMAP.
• Click Next >.
• Type your name under Your Name:.
• Enter your AOL email address (your AOL screen name plus "@aol.com", "tinatemplate@aol.com", for example) in the E-mail Address: field.
• Make sure your AOL screen name is listed in the User Name: field.
• Enter your AOL password under Password:.
• Type "imap.aol.com" under Incoming mail server (IMAP):.
• Type "smtp.aol.com" in the Outgoing mail server (SMTP): field.
• Click More Settings ....
• Go to the Outgoing Server tab.
• Make sure My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication is checked.
  • Leave the default of Use the same settings as my incoming mail server intact.
• Now go to the Advanced tab.
• Enter "587" under Server Port Numbers for Outgoing server (SMTP):.
• Click OK.

Now click Next > and then Finish.

Usually, when you want to create an email with an attachment, you'd start with the email in Outlook and then add the attachment. But the other way works, too.

To create an attachment via drag-and-drop in Outlook:

• Open the folder containing the file you want to attach in Windows Explorer.
• Make sure your Inbox is open in Outlook.
• Grab the file from Windows Explorer with your mouse and drop it on your open Inbox.

Microsoft Outlook automatically starts a new email message with the file attached

All of your contacts that you create in Prophet will also be in your Outlook Contact Folder. If you would like to sort your contacts by specific fields in the contact form, you can utilize the Field Chooser in Outlook.

• Click on your Outlook Contact Folder.
• From the View Menu, select Arrange By, Current View, Phone List.
• Right click on the column header in your Contact List.
• Select Field Chooser from the menu.
• Select from the Field Chooser Window the specific field you would like to sort your contacts by.
• Just click on the field and drag the field to the column header and drop.
• Click on any of the column headers to sort your contacts.
• You can sort by state, zip code, country, department and many more.

1. Open up an Outlook Task.
2. Fill in the subject, add notes and attach any files for your reference.
3. In the Due Date Field, instead of selecting from the drop down calendar, highlight None and type in “2 weeks” or “3 months” and push enter.
4. The date that is two weeks from today or 3 months from today will be assigned as the due date for that task.

In Outlook you can set up a rule so that specific emails are flagged when they come into your inbox.

1. In Outlook Select Tools, Rules and Alerts.
2. Click New Rule
3. Select Start from a blank rule and highlight "Check messages when they arrive"
4. Click Next
5. Under Step 1, select conditions, Check "From people or distribution list"
6. Under Step 2, click on "people or distribution list" and select the name to apply the rule to.
7. Click Next
8. Under Step 3, what do you want to do, select from the list "flag email with a colored flag.
9. Under Step 4, click on "a colored flag".
10. Select flag color and click OK
11. Click Next
12. Apply any exceptions
13. Click Finish
14. Going forward, when you receive emails from the contact specified, the email will automatically be flagged.

If you have emails that are filling up your inbox that you don’t need to view right away, you can easily set up rules to move them to another folder.

1. In your Inbox, right click on an email that you would like to create a rule for.
2. From the menu select Create Rule. The Create Rule window will open.
3. In the "When I get email with all of the selected conditions" box select whether you want the rule applied to all emails from the sender, if the email contains certain wording, or if it was sent to a particular person.
4. In the "Do the following" box, check "Move e-mail to folder".
5. In the Rules and Alerts window, select the mail folder you wish the email moved to and click OK.
6. Click OK in the Create Rule window, and your email rule is in place.

Color-code your calendar so at a glance you can tell what type of meetings you have scheduled.

First, define the color codes

1. Open your Outlook Calendar.
2. From your Outlook Menu, select Edit, Label, Edit Labels.
3. Assign labels to the colors available.
4. Click OK

Second, apply the color codes to your calendar items

1. Open a new calendar item by clicking on the “New” button.
2. Fill out the calendar item including the drop down value for label. Select the color you want to apply.
3. Save and close.

You can easily create a contact item from an email you receive by following these steps:

1. Click on any email.
2. Drag the email to your Outlook contact folder and drop it.
3. A new contact item will display, with the Full Name field populated with the name of the person the email is from and their email address in the Email field.
4. The body of the email will be in the notes portion of the contact item.
5. Scroll down in the notes to find the signature to copy and paste the phone number and the address into the contact item.
6. Click Save and Close.
7. That contact item is now saved in the Outlook contact folder you dropped the email into. The email will still be in the inbox.

You have many options for viewing your contacts in your Outlook contact folder. To choose your view, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you have your advanced toolbar added to Outlook.
• Select View from your Outlook menu and select Toolbars.
• Make sure you have Advanced checked.
2. Highlight your Outlook contact folder.
3. From the dropdown in the Advanced toolbar in Outlook, select the view you want. For example, Address Card, Phone List or By Category.
4. If you select the Phone List view, use the Field Chooser to select which columns you are sorting by. See Outlook Tip #15 for details on the Field Chooser.

To set reminders for all of your follow-up phone calls and to-do’s, you can create tasks. You can also assign tasks for others to complete by sending them a task request. To create a task request:

1. Open a new Outlook task item.
2. Click on the “Assign” button in the task toolbar.
3. In the “to” field, type the email address of the person you want to assign the task to.
4. Fill in the subject line of the task and fill in the due date.
5. Uncheck the “Keep an updated copy of this task on my task list” or “Send me a status report when this task is complete” if you do not want to be notified and don’t want the task on your task list.
6. Click send in the toolbar.
7. The recipient will receive an email from you and they will need to click “Accept”. The task will be saved in their task list and they will be the owner of the task.

Create a Mail Merge using MS Word from any group of contacts in your Outlook Contacts folder

1. Click on your Outlook Contact folder.
2. Highlight the contacts you wish to include in the merge.
3. When contacts are highlighted, from the Tools menu select Mail Merge.
4. At the bottom of the Mail Merge Contacts window that displays, select Form Letter from the Document Type drop down and click OK
5. Word will open. From the Tools menu in Word select Letters and Mailings, Mail Merge.
6. The Mail Merge Wizard will display on the right side of your window and take you through the steps for writing, previewing, and printing your letters.