Sorting email into folders automatically can be a huge time saver and can keep you focused on the messages that demand your immediate attention. You can create rules to let Outlook or OWA (Outlook Web App) sort them into the folder of your choice. Rules can sort messages based on the sender, the subject, the recipient or a combination of various characteristics. When you are creating a rule for Outlook, make sure that:
RULES
If you have a UW Spam Gauge rule applied, always move the Spam rule to the top of your list of rules so that it is processed first.
All your rules are server-side unless you are creating rules for client only actions, such as coloring your emails or otherwise personalizing your email. You can make your rules on OWA to ensure it’s server-side.
Here is an article from Microsoft about how to make rules in Outlook:
Microsoft Office 365 allows you to install Office on up to five different computers. If you have reached your install limit, free up a spot by deactivating an install. To do that, follow the instructions on this web page:
Many of us expect email to be delivered instantly. Although it is usually very fast, there are many factors that affect the delivery time and most of us have unreasonable expectations based on the service that we use. This article will hopefully explain some of the things that can affect the delivery of email and spell out the level of service guaranteed by Microsoft.
In summary:
The service design goal of Exchange Online is the delivery of email in less than one minute, but this is an average over a month and not for any one email message.
Broken is considered an average delay of greater than 10 minutes over a month, again this is an average and does not apply to any individual email message.
Any one message is considered delayed after three hours at which point the sender should get an information email.
Any one message that is not delivered in three days is failed and the sender will get a NDR (Non-Delivery Report).
There are also other factors that affect the delivery of email.
Exchange on-premise adds additional delay for Exchange Online users, this is usually under one minute (20-30 seconds seems normal) but can be up to five minutes. Currently, because of a requirement of a small number of users, all Exchange Online email is routed through an on-premise Exchange server. If there is a delay, this is usually where it occurs rather than with any Microsoft infrastructure.
That said, routing email through an on-premise Exchange server has mitigated numerous other risks with corresponding cost reductions that would have been incurred by addressing them. It also lets the UW comply with ISO 27001, ISO 27018, Safe Harbor, SSAE16 SOC1 Type II, SOC2 Type II and FISMA. Very few cloud-only (or even any) email providers can claim this.
Sometimes we delete things accidentally and sometimes we even empty the Deleted Items folder before we figure out what we did. Fortunately, if you realize what you have done within a few days, there is a recourse.
SharePoint has many social features. Ever since the iSchool decided to adopt SharePoint as our collaboration tool we decided to make our Intranet as personable as possible to facilitate said collaboration.
As iSchool Staff, here is what we would like you to do.
2) Click on the picture (or buddy icon if there is no picture) in the top, right corner.
3) Click the “About me” link.
4) Upload a picture of yourself (you can use your iSchool staff picture if you like).
5) Optionally, you can also edit your Profile to add additional information.
Being able to put a face to a name goes a long way toward achieving the goal of making our Intranet more personable. Your picture, and any information you add to your Profile and make viewable by everyone, will be displayed under the “People” links on our Intranet.
iSchool owned Windows computers are set up to periodically check-in with a license server on campus to verify the activation of Windows (the operating system itself).
If your computer has been off campus for quite some time and your computer has not connected to the Husky OnNet VPN for quite some time (at least once every 180 days), you can expect to see a prompt or message telling you that you are required to activate Microsoft Windows or your license will expire soon.
If you see a message about needing to activate Windows, connect to the Husky OnNet VPN, then wait. You may continue working. Your computer will automatically “check in” with the on-campus license server, activate Microsoft Windows, the “activation required” message will disappear, and you can disconnect or exit the Husky OnNet VPN application.
More about how activating Microsoft products works at the UW, can be found on UW-IT’s website:
Before you proceed, note that by default everyone at the iSchool (and everyone else at the UW that uses the UW Microsoft 365/Office 365 service) can already see the default free/busy info of everyone else. This means people can already see when you are free, when you are busy, what your working hours are and when you are out of the office.
“Advanced” sharing options are possible if you want to give someone access to more details. This could be allowing someone outside of UW the chance to view to your calendar, or if you want to give someone “delegate” (edit) rights to your calendar.
Microsoft Outlook stores data (E-mail, Calendar items, Contacts, etc.) in a file. If you use Outlook at home and like many users are not connected to an Exchange server, the file is called a PST (Personal Storage) file and is stored on your computer. If you are employed as a faculty or staff member at the iSchool or another business and connect to an Exchange server, the file is called an OST (Offline Storage) file. It contains copies of all the data, which is subsequently stored on the server.
Regardless of what type of file you have, the size of this file is limited if you want good performance and reliability. Although the absolute maximum size of OST files keeps growing (at the UW the limit is currently 100GB), for optimal performance we recommend you keep your OST file much smaller, less than 10GB is ideal.
These instructions will explain some best practices so that your mail store (read: Mailbox size) never grows too much and shows you how to determine the size of your mail store.
NOTE – this process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to complete (depending on the size of your Mailbox), so please allow enough time.
General Best Practices
Regularly empty your Junk E-Mail and Deleted Items folders.
Don’t save attachments in Outlook. Instead, save the files to your cloud storage, your computer (or some other media), and then delete the message. At the iSchool your computer is backed up so all the files saved locally will be safe.
Do not send messages to yourself.
Do not send large (read: bigger than a couple of MB) attachments via email, instead put the file in the cloud and send a link to the location so the recipient can view or download it.
If you do forward a message with a large attachment, delete the item from your Sent Items. There is no need to keep the file in your Inbox and your Sent Items folder.
Outlook Microsoft 365
1) Check to see how big your mail store is.
– In the left pane of Outlook, right-click your account and select Data File Properties.
– Under the General tab click Folder Size.
2) Sort mail by size.
– In the left pane of Outlook expand Search Folders.
– Click on Large Mail to activate it. By default, your large mail items will be sorted by size with the largest on top. Since large items always contain attachments now you can easily save the files and delete the messages.
3) Using the Mailbox Cleanup tool.
– Click the File menu > Tools > Mailbox Cleanup
– We recommend all the options in the Mailbox Cleanup tool except AutoArchive. We do not ever recommend archiving your email and instead always recommend keeping all of it in your Exchange Mailbox.
– The Cleanup tool can remove redundant messages in any folder or any conversation. Cleaning up redundant items in conversations is a great way to free up space. Here is a video demo of the Cleanup tool, the “Clean Up Conversation” feature is mentioned at 5:12:
Outlook on the web
1) Check to see how big your mail store is.
– Click the gear icon (Settings) > View all Outlook settings > General > Storage
2) Clean up your Mailbox.
– While in Storage, empty your Deleted Items folder.
3) Apply Retention Policies.
– Right click every top level/parent folder and select Assign policy. We recommend choosing 6 Month or 1 Year.
iSchool faculty, staff, and PhD students have access to several physical rooms, for meeting purposes. Some rooms have Exchange Mailboxes and Calendars. These rooms can be scheduled/reserved directly via an Outlook Meeting Request, similar to scheduling a meeting with a person. A list of rooms and information about the rooms can be found on this webpage: https://uwnetid.sharepoint.com/sites/ischoolnew/sites/ServicesSupport/DropInSpacesReservations . Detailed instructions for scheduling rooms via Outlook/Exchange are below.
1) Click the arrow button next to New Email , click Meeting. (“1” in the screenshot below).
2) Click Meeting (“2” in the screenshot below).
3) Click Required (“3” in the screenshot below).
4) Search for the room you want to reserve/schedule. The most accurate way to search for a room is by using either the email address or the “display name” from the list above. (“4″ in the screenshot below).
5) Add the room you wish to schedule/reserve to ” Required “; double-click the room from the list or click “Required.” Click OK (“5” in the screenshot below).
6) Click Scheduling Assistant to see when the room is available, add other attendees’ NetIDs as necessary, and adjust meeting times.
7) Click Appointment , add meeting information as necessary, click Send. All attendees will receive the meeting request including the room itself. The request for the room will be accepted or rejected based on room availability.
Outlook for macOS
01) Click New Items, click Meeting.
02) In the “To:” field, the most accurate way to search for a room is using either the email address or the “display name” from the list above. Then, select the desired room.
3) Click Scheduling to see when the room is available and adjust meeting times.
4) Click Appointment , add other attendees’ NetIDs in the To: field as necessary, click Send.
All attendees will receive the meeting request including the room itself. The request for the room will be accepted or rejected based on room availability.
Outlook for the Web
1) Sign into the Outlook Web App , use your @uw.edu email address and UW NetID credentials when prompted.
2) Click the Calendar icon in the bottom-left corner.
3) Click New event.
4) In the Invite attendees field, add desired room using email address from the list above. Add other @uw.edu email addresses as necessary. Use the Scheduling Assistant to confirm all attendees, including the room itself, are available. Click Send once all other meeting details are finalized.
All attendees will receive the meeting request including the room itself. The request for the room will be accepted or rejected based on room availability.
If you have any questions after reading this article or if you need any help, please don't hesitate to contact the iSchool IT Help Desk.
https://ischool.uw.edu/help
(206) 616-3086
