Editing Rule

[Shrikant]

When I see a message, I would have liked to right click on the message and
edit the rule for that message. If there is no rule created for that message,
I want to create a new rule. I want to make sure that I do not create
duplicate rules. At present i can do this only by having an apparently random
list of the rules and doing one by one search of these rules. This is a
tedious and time consuming task as I have created nearly 30 rules. I can not
even arrange these rules alphabetically. Is there any quick way to view rule
for a message (other than scrolling down the long and random list of rules) ?
Is not the above a normal requirement of a user ? Do you not face such type
of problems ?

 

[tedmi]

Try this:
Create a new category for every rule, giving each an appropriate name. In
your rule, add an action to assign that rule's category to the message. Then
you can right-click the message, and select Message Options. That will show
the category to which the message is assigned.

 

[Shrikant]

How to create a 'Category' for a rule. I could not find any such option.

 

[tedmi]

You don't create a category for a rule. You create the category
independently, then have a rule assign messages to a category as one of its
actions. Specifically:
Say you have 30 rules. Create categories named, for example, R01, R02, ...
R30. (Click the Categorize button on the toolbar, by default next to the
Forward command.)
Edit each one of your rules. For Rule 1, add the action "assign it to the
category" (second action listed in Select actions dialog). Now choose R01 as
the category to which this rule assigns a message. Edit Rule 2 and have it
assign to category R02, Rule 3 assign to category R03, etc.
If every rule assigns a category, messages that aren't in categories R01
thru R30 have not been processed by a rule. To see the category to which a
message belongs, right-click the message and select Message Options, or you
can add a category column to your current view in a folder.

 

[Shrikant]

I could follow (and have successfully implemented) upto the last four lines
of your reply. I need clarifications for the last four lines please.
1 Do you mean to say that we assign a category to a RULE and then assign
the same category to the MESSAGE ?
2 Do you mean to say that if we forget to assign the particular (i.e. the
same category as that which is attached to the rule) category to an incoming
message then it will NOT be processed by the rule applicable to that message?
3 What I see in the view is the category attached to the messages. This
category is also visible in the right hand side panel of the details of the
message. However, how does it help me in my original objective as mentioned
in my question ?

 

[tedmi]

Categories are not assigned to rules. Messages are assigned to categories,
and this can be done by rules. Here's another try at explaining how to set
this up:
Create as many categories as you have rules. Give each category a name which
will suggest to you which rule will assign messages to that category. For
example, if you have a rule named "FromTheBoss", you could create a category
"FromTheBoss". (Note: this does NOT create any assignment or other
relationship between category and rule!)
Now edit each rule. In the Select action dialog, add the action of "assign
it to the category..." In the bottom panel of the dialog, click the
underlined word "category" and from the list select the name which is
supposed to remind you of the name of the rule you are editing. (THIS is what
establishes the relationship between rule and category - but in YOUR mind
only, not intrinsically in Outlook.)

So, Rule 1 runs when its condition is met, performs whatever actions you
specified, and in addition, assigns the message to Category 1. Rule 2 runs
when its condition is met, performs its actions, and in addition, assigns the
message to Category 2, and so on. Whether a rule runs or not depends ONLY on
what you selected in the conditions dialog, not on any categories. If a
message ends up not assigned to any category, it means either a) one or more
of your rules do not have the assign category action checked, or b) if all
rules assign categories, then this message did not meet any of the conditions
of any rule.

You original objective, as I understood it, was to have a way of telling
which rule processed a particular message. How does my process help you
achieve this? You look at the category to which a message was assigned. If
it's Category 1, it was processed by rule 1; if cat. 2, then processed by
rule 2 and so forth. If you display the category column, you don't even have
to click to find out which rule ran. To edit that rule, you open the rules
dialog and scroll down to the rule name that assigned that category. That's
why the name of the categories must be chosen to give you a clue as to the
name of the rule that processed that message.

It is not possible to go from a message directly to editing a rule, because
in general a message could be processed by multiple rules. Which one would
you go to? But the above process can assign such a message to multiple
categories, so you could edit each of the several rules in turn.

BTW, the list of rules is not random, but in order of priority. In certain
situations, it may be essential that one rule runs before another, especially
for rules that have the "stop processing" action. Suppose you have a rule
that moves messages sent to a particular account into a "Later" folder, and
another that moves messages from your boss into the "Now" folder. If your
boss sends you a message to that account, your FromTheBoss rule better run
first.
You can change the displayed order by clicking the up-down arrows at the top
of the Rules dialog. So you could order them alphabetically, but this might
defeat some priority requirements.

 

[Shrikant]

Thanks Tedmi for going to great lengths to elaborate. It certainly helped me
to understand. I think that is the best we can get out of Outlook.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

When I see a message, I would have liked to right click on the message and
edit the rule for that message.

How would you propose that this be done, since you can have as many rules as
you wish apply to the same message? Which rule should be chosen?