Managing Microsoft Outlook 2010 with Mailbox Rules

Outlook mailbox rules are instructions to perform automatic actions on emails as soon as they come in to your mailbox. Automating what happens to incoming mails not only keeps your mailbox free from clutter but saves you a lot of wasted time on routine administrative tasks. Read on to find out more about rules and how they can help you.

Rules only act upon unread emails. What you can do with rules essentially breaks down into two categories – notification and organisation. For example, a rule could be created that sends a notification to your smart phone when you receive an email from a particular client. An organisation rule could then store that email in a specific client folder so it can find it amongst all other relevant emails.

The rule wizard

The rule wizard contains templates of most (if not all) of the actions you would want to perform on an incoming email. The templates fall into two categories: Stay Organised and Stay Up to Date. You can see the automated task types below:

How to create rules using rule templates

To locate the rule wizard, open the ‘File’ menu and click on the ‘Manage Rules & Alert’ button.

You will then be presented with the rule wizard screen you saw earlier. Now select the desired template based on what you want the rule to do. Next edit the rule description based on the mailbox you want the rule to act upon. Click ‘Next’ to go through and edit the conditions you want the rule to act upon. This is essentially telling the rule what to look out for. You then have to tell the rule what to do with those emails once they come in.

So for example, if you wanted to move all emails about a project into a folder you created called ‘Project X’, you would set the condition as ‘move messages with specific words in the subject to a folder’ and edit the description to ‘project x’. You then click through to the action section and set the action as moving the message to the folder called ‘Project X’. The rule would then move any messages with ‘project x’ in the subject to the folder ‘Project X’.

You also have the option of setting up exceptions to this rule. For example, perhaps you get a weekly summary of all action on this project (with the subject line ’Project X Summary’) and you want that to go into a sub-folder of ‘Project X’ called ‘Project X Summary’. To prevent these emails from going into the ‘Project X’ folder you can add tick the ‘subject contains’ check box in the ‘Exceptions’ tab and add ‘summary’ to the text field.

Once you have specified the conditions, actions and exceptions of your rule, create a memorable name for it that you will recognise if you need to edit it at a later date.

You have the option of running the rule immediately on items in your inbox or just leaving it to run on messages as they come in. Click “Finish” and the rule will be ready.

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!