Automatically forwarding incoming e-mail to multiple recipients...

[Guest]

Issue 1:
I handle the webleads for all three campuses of the school where I work.
Currently I'm using rules to have leads forwarded to admissions reps based on
our key ten area codes, but this isn't as effective as we'd like. It looks
like we have to start using ZIP codes, but there are about 140 of those and I
wonder if my current method (using Rules to distribute based on area codes
given by prospects) can work with such a large data pool).

Issue 2:
I'm tempted to just try it, but as it is, of the 9 rules required to keep
things running smoothly, only 8 are working. The 9th gives me a message that
there are either a) too many rules, or b) something is out of the parameters.
Neither of these makes sense since a) this batch of rules was created after
removing far more that were in Outlook, and b) the rule which doesn't work is
a direct copy of another rule, but with a different recipient and different
area codes. I'm nervous that by deactivating any of the current rules to
test the new one I may not be able to reactivate it if needed.

Final Question: Is the Rules feature the best way to accomplish this task?
We're really not equipped to do it server-side, so Outlook is our only
current means.

 

[Joe Grover]

The issue with too many rules could be due to the 32k limitation, however I
wouldn't expect only 9 rules to be over 32k (I've had over 30 with no
problems).

Outlook sends all rules to the server as a single RPC call, the maximum size
of which is 32k.

 

[Guest]

Joe, thanks for the response.

I just went in and double-checked. There are 12 rules for this sorting and
three more unrelated. The three unrelated are very simple. At one point
there were about thirty rules and everything ran smoothly. I've deleted most
of them to get this to work.

Best I can guess is that there's another problem or that the 12 rules are
sufficiently complex that they're eating up the space. Each rule has about
five conditions, four exceptions, three recipients, and a reminder.

But this leads to that bigger question: If Outlook really can't handle the
rules as they are, how will it handle if 6 of those twelve rules (6 are
unaffected) go from having 4 area codes each to have about 40 zip codes each?
I have my doubts it can be done, but I'm hoping someone with more experience
will know or perhaps know of a program that can be used with or in lieu of
Outlook.