I'd like a better rules system in Outlook

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Guest

Day after day, countless business professionals and Outlook users sift
through anywhere from 200-500 e-mails, about 10% of which are important and
which they definitely have time to read. The other 90% are Newsletters,
solicited Ads (not spam), Forum digests, and other generic e-mails that users
may or may not have time to see, depending on their schedule.

The frustration is in the Rules and Alerts menu, which in spite of it's
virtues prevents people from using a comprehensive folder structure needed to
properly manage e-mails. For example, if you enter too many e-mail addresses
in the "Apply this rule after the message arrives from" field, the rule is
automatically unchecked and you are informed that the rule will not be
processed automatically. What gives? You weren't talking about putting 1,000
addresses into that field, just 50 or so. I'd like a system that allows users
to do that.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...5838106ea&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.general
 
50? I still wouldn't want to manage that rule. And why rely on rules only?
With a combination of Views and Search folders I usually only have to make 3
simple rules to manage those kind of mailboxes. The benefit of using Views
and Search folders over "move to folder" rules is that you can more easily
change how you organize your e-mail and sort/group it accordingly. Also in
general it is a lot less time consuming than going through a whole forrest
of folders.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

-----
Day after day, countless business professionals and Outlook users sift
through anywhere from 200-500 e-mails, about 10% of which are important and
which they definitely have time to read. The other 90% are Newsletters,
solicited Ads (not spam), Forum digests, and other generic e-mails that
users
may or may not have time to see, depending on their schedule.

The frustration is in the Rules and Alerts menu, which in spite of it's
virtues prevents people from using a comprehensive folder structure needed
to
properly manage e-mails. For example, if you enter too many e-mail addresses
in the "Apply this rule after the message arrives from" field, the rule is
automatically unchecked and you are informed that the rule will not be
processed automatically. What gives? You weren't talking about putting 1,000
addresses into that field, just 50 or so. I'd like a system that allows
users
to do that.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...5838106ea&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.general
 
I also think that there are so many BUGS in "rules" that MSFT needs to
re-think the entire process. E-mail has become a mess for us. All our email
is now going to our Junk Box with no fix from MSFT. I'm glad ytou posted
this note. I hope people from MSFT read this stuff.
 
The Junk E-mail filter is separate from running rules. Are you running the
latest Junk E-mail definitions?

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

-----
Filcro said:
I also think that there are so many BUGS in "rules" that MSFT needs to
re-think the entire process. E-mail has become a mess for us. All our
email
is now going to our Junk Box with no fix from MSFT. I'm glad ytou posted
this note. I hope people from MSFT read this stuff.

Roady said:
50? I still wouldn't want to manage that rule. And why rely on rules
only?
With a combination of Views and Search folders I usually only have to
make 3
simple rules to manage those kind of mailboxes. The benefit of using
Views
and Search folders over "move to folder" rules is that you can more
easily
change how you organize your e-mail and sort/group it accordingly. Also
in
general it is a lot less time consuming than going through a whole
forrest
of folders.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within
Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

-----
Day after day, countless business professionals and Outlook users sift
through anywhere from 200-500 e-mails, about 10% of which are important
and
which they definitely have time to read. The other 90% are Newsletters,
solicited Ads (not spam), Forum digests, and other generic e-mails that
users
may or may not have time to see, depending on their schedule.

The frustration is in the Rules and Alerts menu, which in spite of it's
virtues prevents people from using a comprehensive folder structure
needed
to
properly manage e-mails. For example, if you enter too many e-mail
addresses
in the "Apply this rule after the message arrives from" field, the rule
is
automatically unchecked and you are informed that the rule will not be
processed automatically. What gives? You weren't talking about putting
1,000
addresses into that field, just 50 or so. I'd like a system that allows
users
to do that.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the
"I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow
this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and
then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...5838106ea&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.general
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Wait a sec, just a minute ago I learned how to use rules. Now rules are not
the way to go? Again, what gives?

One more note.. If my e-mails are not going into their appropriate folders,
I am in trouble. Here's why:

On certain sad days I receive in excess of 500 e-mails. Mercifully, a good
50-80 of them land directly in Junk. Still, with that volume, and with, for
example, just the Inbox to catch them all, these e-mails will quickly build
my one folder to 1,000s and 1,000s of messages in size. This is all well
before my autoarchive kicks in to move stuff out, and I have found that with
10,000+ e-mails in a single folder, the performance of my Outlook 2003 SP2
degrades to the speed of a blind, drunken slug. On salt.


Uggghhhhh.

Roady said:
50? I still wouldn't want to manage that rule. And why rely on rules only?
With a combination of Views and Search folders I usually only have to make 3
simple rules to manage those kind of mailboxes. The benefit of using Views
and Search folders over "move to folder" rules is that you can more easily
change how you organize your e-mail and sort/group it accordingly. Also in
general it is a lot less time consuming than going through a whole forrest
of folders.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-FREE tool; QuickMail. Create new Outlook items anywhere from within Windows
-Properly back-up and restore your Outlook data

-----
Day after day, countless business professionals and Outlook users sift
through anywhere from 200-500 e-mails, about 10% of which are important and
which they definitely have time to read. The other 90% are Newsletters,
solicited Ads (not spam), Forum digests, and other generic e-mails that
users
may or may not have time to see, depending on their schedule.

The frustration is in the Rules and Alerts menu, which in spite of it's
virtues prevents people from using a comprehensive folder structure needed
to
properly manage e-mails. For example, if you enter too many e-mail addresses
in the "Apply this rule after the message arrives from" field, the rule is
automatically unchecked and you are informed that the rule will not be
processed automatically. What gives? You weren't talking about putting 1,000
addresses into that field, just 50 or so. I'd like a system that allows
users
to do that.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...5838106ea&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.general
Click to expand...
 
Roady,

I didn't mean to come down on your suggestion. I'll look into the filtering
feature when I get a chance.

Cheers,
Justin
 
netjustin said:
Roady,

I didn't mean to come down on your suggestion. I'll look into the filtering
feature when I get a chance.

Cheers,
Click to expand...



It would be a great help if the Rules repository could be sorted
alpabetically and also exported to an Excel .TXT or .XLS file for review.

I use the Category as a Separator to manage my Rules i.e. Software -
Microsoft or Newsletter - CRM. It is a painfull and time consuming task to
then move each Rule to the appropriate Category / Alpha list to manage.

Once in place it becomes an easy method to select and modify any Rule and
identify Duplicates.

MS could make it so much easier by providing this capability
 
It would be a great help if the Rules repository could be sorted
alpabetically
Click to expand...

Since rules operate in the order they're stored, depending on the rules,
reordering them can affect what happens when they run. You'd have to make
sure you understand the side effects a reordering could produce.
and also exported to an Excel .TXT or .XLS file for review.
Click to expand...

This would be a good thing.
 

Brian,

I was aware of the implications of ordering the ruloes but in most cases I
am looking to automate the task of sorting the emails to specific categories
- each of which may or may not have a priority for attention and or
attachment to ACT! for management of the incoming mail.

I currently have a number of Delete options in place for emails where the
senders are already on the Blocked Sender list but nevertheless get through
because of changes in text used to identify them and the source mail address.
These are held in the last few rules and action last after all other actions
are taken.

I think the ability to sort and colate the rles is a good option when there
are a significant number of Rules generated. I agree however that while the
sort is my priority in dealing with possible duplication of Rules and keeping
like rules together and consisten, the functionality of ordering manually
should remain and be used in the manner intended.
 
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