Dealing with multiple accounts

[Rick Fears]

Hi - I'm using Outlook 2003 SP2 with, AFAIK, all relevant updates to
date.

I'm trying to find a way to easily switch between (3) accounts. Two of
the accounts (say Business and Private) run from the same .pst, the
third account (say Pleasure) has its own .pst. This organisation is
historical and I am not averse to changing it (for instance, so that
Private has its own .pst)

Business is set as the default account, the other two account are
normally accessed (i.e. mail sent/received) in the order Private then
Pleasure.

So, when I first start Outlook with Business as default the e-mail for
all three accounts goes into the Business Inbox, Private and Pleasure
messages being moved to their respective Folders using rules. So far, so
good. The problem arises when I want to reply to a message in Private or
Pleasure - this ends up using the Business (default) account so I reply
to a message to (e-mail address removed) using (e-mail address removed), not
ideal. Also, the reply is saved in the Business Sent Items folder, and
while I can create rules to copy the replies to other folders I cannot
seem to create a rule which moves the replies (i.e. deletes them from
the Business Sent Items folder)

In essence what I am after is a means to easily switching the default
account so that mail for Business sends and receives via the Business
ISP, the Private account via the Private ISP and the Pleasure account
via the Pleasure ISP, without having to go to the Tools/Accounts/select
account/set as default route. And, ideally, when Outlook polls the
accounts, or Send/Receive is pressed each account is polled as the
default account.

Is this at all possible, or am I being really dense and there is a
simple one-click answer?

I look forward to your thoughts.

Cheers

Rick.

 

[Rick Fears]

Rick Fears <rick> wrote in
a whole pile of stuff including the following which is in fact wrong, my
apologies.

So, when I first start Outlook with Business as default the e-mail for
all three accounts goes into the Business Inbox, Private and Pleasure
messages being moved to their respective Folders using rules. So far, so
good. The problem arises when I want to reply to a message in Private or
Pleasure - this ends up using the Business (default) account so I reply
to a message to (e-mail address removed) using (e-mail address removed), not
ideal. Also, the reply is saved in the Business Sent Items folder, and
while I can create rules to copy the replies to other folders I cannot
seem to create a rule which moves the replies (i.e. deletes them from
the Business Sent Items folder)

In fact Outlook seems to cunningly realise which account the email I am
replying to came from and replies using that account, however the reply
is put into the default account Sent Items folder as described, so that
problem still exists.

Also of course if I want to send a new message I have to switch default
accounts.

And, in addition and I've only just realised this, things like the
signature, etc, come from the preferences under Options rather than
being account specific, which causes a problem as I don't want my
Business .sig to go out when I'm sending, or replying to, a Private or
Pleasure message, but I guess that's another story...

Sorry to be so long winded about describing the problem, I just hope you
have borne with me thus far.

Cheers

Rick.

 

[Mark J. McGinty]

Rick Fears <rick> wrote in
a whole pile of stuff including the following which is in fact wrong, my
apologies.


In fact Outlook seems to cunningly realise which account the email I am
replying to came from and replies using that account, however the reply
is put into the default account Sent Items folder as described, so that
problem still exists.

Also of course if I want to send a new message I have to switch default
accounts.

And, in addition and I've only just realised this, things like the
signature, etc, come from the preferences under Options rather than
being account specific, which causes a problem as I don't want my
Business .sig to go out when I'm sending, or replying to, a Private or
Pleasure message, but I guess that's another story...

Sorry to be so long winded about describing the problem, I just hope you
have borne with me thus far.

First, there's a silver bullet for one of your wish list items: you can
designate the sig to use for each account (Outlook App Window -> Tools
[menu] -> Options [menu] -> Mail Format [tab] -> Signatures [section, bottom
of property sheet].)

The folder in which a copy is saved after sending, and the reply-to address
can be set in message options (Message Window -> View [menu] -> Options
[menu].)

That, of course, would be awfully clumsy to do every time you emailed
someone, but you could automate it to some degree by creating custom forms,
one for each account:

1. Outlook App -> Tools [menu] -> Forms [menu] -> Design a form [menu]
2. Select the Message form, click the Open button
3. Set the options as noted above
4. In the form you are designing, click the Tools [menu] -> Forms [menu] ->
Publish Form As [menu]
5. Give the form a descriptive name and save it in the Personal Forms store
6. If you want to create another form with different options, do so now by
repeating the steps above
7. From the Outlook App Window, click the Tools [menu] -> Options [menu] ->
Other [tab] -> Advanced Options [button] -> Custom Forms [button] (your
custom forms should be shown in the right side list)
8. Click the Set button above the *left* side list, choose the Inbox from
the list in the dialog that pops up, and click Ok in that same dialog
9. Select your custom forms and click the Copy button

This will add menu items to the bottom of the Actions menu, using the names
you assigned to your forms. So if you named one of the forms "Pleasure",
clicking the Actions->Pleasure menu item would create a new message, that
will automatically have the options you set when you created the form.

Sorry if that's a little convoluted, hope you can follow the ramble. It
doesn't cover everything you wanted, but it's a start anyway.


-Mark