This happens to just about everyone out there - You are collaborating on something with a group of people. There is a lot of information flying about and emails are shooting through the air like juggling pins. This little-known feature in Outlook 2007 provides a way to quickly find the beginning of each of those emails being sent and recieved. It's hard to explain, that's why I like video demos!

Check out the video included with this post.

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This tip is targeted to users of corporate Outlook in a network.

Oftentimes you'll want to send a co-worker an email and include a link to a file that is located in a network location. It's very easy to do in Outlook, but it's not very clear on how to do it.

I'm here to clear that up for you with the video demo I'm including in this post.

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Some users like to keep the email they send and receive for a fairly long time, and most of the time they just keep them in Outlook. Not the best practice, but hey, it's not the worst either. For those of you that do keep your emails in Outlook for a very long time, you may be faced with a storage issue at some point.

In Outlook 2007, you have the ability to quickly and easily save the attachment to your computer, remove the attachment from the email, then create a little note for yourself telling you what you did with the attachment.

Check out the video included with this post.

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While I LOVE Outlook and all it can do for managing your daily business information, one area that has always been lacking for me is in calendar printing options.

Never Fear - the Calendar Printing Assistant is here!

A free download from Microsoft, the Calendar Printing Assistant for Office Outlook 2007 is an application for people who need an easy way to print and customize their Outlook 2007 calendar information. It puts you in control of the tools you need and helps you plan and create designer-quality output.

A very cool feature is the ability to print multiple calendars in either side-by-side view or overlay mode. Awesome!

There are plenty of calendar templates to choose from, including a way to print your own yearly calendar with your custom picture. S-W-E-E-T!

They are authored in a documented, open XML file format, which makes them easily extensible to third parties.

Check out the video included with this post.

Click To Play

Here's a scenario...
You are offering a time-sensitive coupon or other offer to your clients and you want to send them an email all about it. For as many versions as I can remember, Outlook has provided a way to set an expiration date on your emails, both outgoing and incoming (but we're only talking about setting it for outgoing in this demo). You don't have to be on an Exchange Server to use this feature either, which is nice. Something I didn't mention in the video demo is that you can also set a reminder flag on that same outgoing email. You're doing everything possible to let your recipients know that they've got an email from you that will be expiring and they should check it out soon.

Watch the video demo.

Check out our newest video course on our E-Learning Center, "Outlook 2007 Essentials", for only $24.95.

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Email. Boring.
Boring ol' email. We are all guilty of delivering the same ol, same ol' text emails. Outlook 2007 has a great new feature called SmartArt. Actually, it's in the other Office 2007 products as well, not just in Outlook. It provides a way to display information in a graphical format. Very easy to use, lots of options to customize. A way cool tool for those that deliver information via email. Sound like you?

Check out the video below.

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In honor of Flag Day, this Outlook video tip is about the new and improved flagging features of Outlook 2007. It takes your productivity to a whole new level, what with tight integration with the new To-Do Bar of Outlook, keeping up on what you need to keep up on has never been easier. List Makers Unite!

Thanks to my friend and colleague, Andrea Cannavina of www.legaltypist.com, for suggesting the idea for this video tip.

Check out the video.

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I know, I know...it's only been a few days since my last podcast. But I just had to try out my new Aweber Blog Broadcast feature that I've connected to this blog site. If all goes well, it will replace the emails you normally get if you've subscribed to this via the email option. I have noticed it seems to get confused by the video player I put in my posts, so we'll see if I like it enough to keep it, or if I'm sticking with what I have. I'm still testing, but will keep you posted, especially because you'll get another opt-in email.

Anyhoo...on to the new video tip.

Let's talk about how to share your Outlook Distribution Lists with others. This is so simple it's not even funny. If you have distribution lists and you want to send them to others, simply include them as attachments in your email to them. Once the recipient gets your email they'll drag and drop the attachment to their contact folder in Outlook. Didn't I tell you it was easy?!??!

Oh and absolutely, sharing a distribution list is not to be confused with sending your contact items.

The send method for contacts will depend on just how many contacts we’re talking about. Less than 30, I’d use the Send As vCard feature (select the multiple contacts>Actions menu>Send as vCard. The terminology is a little different in Ol2007, but it’s in the Actions menu area. If it’s a lot of contacts then they should export out as csv file, send to you, and you import them from the csv file.

Watch the video below to see this process in action.

I based this video tip on a question that was emailed to me by someone who read a presentation I did a while back on utilizing Outlook for Contact Management

Here's her question:

I enjoyed your tutorial on Outlook Contact Productivity. I have a question. How does one arrange to see company infomation when in an e-mail and pulling up one's personal contact list to find a specific company name first and secondly, the user name options associated with that company? I have been searching for this information and it has been eluding me for months. Thanks so much for your insight!

This is one of those questions I've been asked many times over the years, which automatically makes it a perfect topic for a video tip.

I hope you find it helpful.

Watch the video below:

RECENTLY RELEASED!

Google has released a sync tool which provides an AUTOMATIC 2 way sync between your Google and your Outlook 2003 or 2007 calendar. It was easy to install and set up, plus it works! Just log into your Google calendar and you'll see it at the top.

If you don't want 2-way sync, that's cool too. You'll be presented with sync options.

Check out Google's article on it.

First, download the application and go through the installation process.  Once installed, there are 3 options you can choose from:

2-way sync, applies changes to both your Google Calendar and Outlook calendars with each other
1 way sync where Google Calendar events will be presented on your Outlook calendar
1-way sync where your Outlook calendar events are presented on your Google Calendar.

Check out the video below.