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5 Tips for Working Smarter in Microsoft Outlook

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Your Microsoft Outlook application provides a host of features that enable you to optimize your schedule planning and boost productivity. Updates are regularly released for the Office 365 suite that improve the communication capabilities, cybersecurity, time management and integration between your various apps. SWK Technologies can help you navigate through the assortment of tools if you ever feel overwhelmed and have a hard time keeping track of everything your email app has to offer.

SWK provides proactive news, updates, and support for all of your Windows implementations, and will help you capture the most value from Office 365.

1. Organize Your Outlook Inbox

Is your Outlook inbox getting a little too cluttered for your liking? Use the Clean Up feature to tidy up your inbox. From your inbox, click the Home tab and choose from one of three Clean Up options:

  • Clean Up Conversation – reviews an email thread or a conversation and deletes redundant messages
  • Clean Up Folder – reviews conversations in a selected folder and deletes redundant messages
  • Clean Up Folder & Subfolders – reviews all messages in a selected folder and any subfolders, and deletes redundant messages in all of them

2. Click Ignore Conversations

Besides redundant messages, group conversations that aren’t relevant to you can clutter up your inbox. The Ignore button helps you organize your inbox and focus on relevant emails.

To activate this feature, select a message, then click Home > Ignore > Ignore Conversation. You can also do this by opening a message in a new window and clicking Ignore under the Delete function. You can easily revert this action by going to the Deleted Items folder and clicking Ignore > Stop Ignoring Conversation.

Windows 10 Keyboard Shortcuts

Discover more shortcuts you can use to save time in Windows 10 with quick keyboard commands:

3. Send Links to OneDrive Files

This function is especially useful when you need to send large files to your coworkers or clients. You can send a link to the file instead of the file itself as well as set permissions to allow recipients to edit and collaborate on linked files in real time.

To do this, upload the file you wish to send to OneDrive. Then from the message box, click Attach File > Browse web locations > OneDrive.

OneDrive VS SharePoint

Discover some extra tips on leveraging the cloud storage options in Office 365:

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4. Schedule a Microsoft Teams Meeting

Microsoft Teams is unified communication and collaboration platform that also includes an Outlook add-in. This feature allows you to set up Teams meetings directly from Outlook. It also lets you view, accept, or join meetings in either app.

To schedule a Teams meeting on Outlook, follow these steps:

  • Switch to the calendar view on Outlook. Click the New Teams Meeting tab.
  • Add individual participants or entire contact groups to the Required or Optional fields.
  • Type in the topic, start time, and end time of the meeting. There’s no need to add the dial-in phone numbers and conferencing IDs to the invite, as Outlook does this automatically for you.
  • Create a message inviting the recipients to the meeting, then click Send.

5. Tag Your Outlook Contacts

To get the attention of a specific person in a group email or meeting invite, use the @Mention function. This works particularly well for emails sent to multiple recipients or if you want to convey the urgency of your message.

In the body of your email or invite message, type the @ symbol followed by the name of the person you want to tag (e.g., @johndoe). Doing so will highlight the name in the message and automatically add it to the To line of your message. You can also search for messages you’re tagged in by selecting Filter Email from the Home tab, and then clicking Mentioned.

Microsoft Word Tips

Get some more tips for streamlining your work in Word and connected Office apps:

Get More Outlook Tips and More Office 365 Training from SWK

These are just some of the things you can do to improve your experience in Outlook and the rest of your Office 365 suite. SWK can help you educate your staff and provide the best value on your Microsoft systems, including learning how to spot ransomware threats targeting Windows and other tips for Office apps.

Contact SWK Technologies today to learn more about what Outlook and Office 365 can do for you.

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