Exchange Update 4/14/2009

Featured in this update:

• Missing Important Emails? Check the Outlook Junk Filters
  
• Information for Entourage Users
  
• Delegates & Owners - Can Modify & Delete Appointments from People or Resource Calendars Without Getting a Prompt to Confirm
  
• Timezone Reminders
  
• Vacation/Auto-Reply Notices
  
• Scheduling Time Out of the Office
  
• Reminder - Meeting Requests Not Appearing on Your Calendar
  
• Reminder - How to Avoid Scheduling Conflicts
  
• Questions

 

MISSING IMPORTANT EMAILS? CHECK THE OUTLOOK JUNK FILTERS

If you haven't been getting those important emails from University leadership or other offices on campus, you might find them in the Junk folder within Outlook.  By default, Outlook has junk mail filtering turned on, which can often lead to legitimate emails getting tagged as junk since Outlook's junk mail filters are very strict.  The OIT recommends that you turn junk mail filtering off in Outlook by following these simple steps:

1. In Outlook, go to the Tools menu and select Options.
2. Click on the Junk E-mail button.
3. Select the option for No Automatic Filtering.
4. Click OK.

Now those important emails will no longer be automatically sent to the Junk folder.

Note:  If you happen to be running Outlook in non-cached mode, you'll need to switch to cached mode before making these changes.  The OIT recommends that most people should run in cached mode to improve performance. 

 

INFORMATION FOR ENTOURAGE USERS

Many Entourage users have expressed frustration on a variety of topics - from slow email delivery, to meetings not showing up for days, to problems when acting as a delegate.  We've documented these issues and any known workarounds on the OIT web site at http://oit.nd.edu/exchange/entourage.shtml.  For people who just need the basics of email and calendaring, OWA (https://owa.nd.edu) may be the best option for you for now.  We are in the final steps of implementing a solution that will help those that need to act as delegates or manage resources, and we will send out information very soon.

 

DELEGATES & OWNERS - YOU CAN MODIFY & DELETE APPOINTMENTS FROM PEOPLE OR RESOURCE CALENDARS WITHOUT GETTING A PROMPT TO CONFIRM

As a delegate/owner of a person or resource calendar, you can accidentally modify a meeting or appointment on the calendar without being prompted to confirm the change.  If you inadvertently click and drag the meeting to another time or another date, the change can be made without requiring you to confirm that you wish the change to occur.  Be very cautious when clicking and dragging inside of calendars to ensure that you do not make unintended changes to meeting dates/times.

 

TIMEZONE REMINDERS

Since daylight savings time started last month, you might notice a meeting or two that appears to be an hour off on your scheduling.  There's a couple reasons that this might happen.

1. Some meetings that converted from CorporateTime were created under the old Indiana-East timezone when we did not observe daylight savings time, or that were created before the new schedule for daylight savings time was implemented.
2. The timezone setting on your computer might be incorrect in one or more locations.

You will want to make sure that you have the timezone configured correctly on your computer, and that the correct timezone is selected in any meetings that you own.  Information on how to do this is available on the OIT web site at http://oit.nd.edu/exchange/timezone.shtml.

 

VACATION/AUTO-REPLY NOTICES

If you are going to be out of the office or unable to respond to email, you might want to setup a vacation/auto-reply notice so that anyone sending you email is aware that you can't respond right away.  Configuring these notices works differently than it did on the legacy email service, so you'll want to be sure to review the instructions we've posted at http://oit.nd.edu/exchange/autoreply.shtml.

 

SCHEDULING TIME OUT OF THE OFFICE

At the OIT, we're hearing a lot of questions about how everyone is using Exchange to notify others of time out of the office.  Below is a refresher on how to notify others of out of the office time without causing problems on their calendars.

1. Setup a meeting on ONLY your calendar and mark the time as "Out of Office" so that anyone trying to schedule a meeting with you that day sees that you have a conflict.
2. Create a SEPARATE day event to notify others that you are out of the office.  On this day event, you will want to use the following guidelines:
   1. Invite ONLY those people that need to know you are out of the office as OPTIONAL attendees.
   2. Set the Reminders option to "None" so that the invitees don't get woken up in the middle of the night if they have a smart phone with access to their calendar.
   3. Set the Response option to "No Response Required" since it probably doesn't matter to you who chooses to keep your notice on their calendar.
   4. Mark the time as "Free" so that it does not block time on the invitees' calendars.

Complete instructions with screen grabs on how to do this in Outlook, Entourage, and both versions of OWA are available on the OIT web site at http://oit.nd.edu/exchange/vacations.shtml.

Also, when you receive invitations to these notices, please remember that you also have the ability to change the reminder and free/busy time for your own benefit, in case others do not follow these instructions.  And always remember that you have the ability to decline these notices if you don't need to know that someone is out of the office.

 

REMINDER - MEETING REQUESTS NOT APPEARING ON YOUR CALENDAR

We continue to receive reports that meeting requests are not appearing in calendars or are not appearing consistently.   The most common action that causes this to occur is meeting participants deleting the calendar invitation message before responding. It is important that meeting requests are not deleted from your inbox until AFTER you have responded (Accept/Decline).  If you delete the email message before responding, you are deleting the meeting request from your calendar.   If you inadvertently do this, and your deleted items folder has not been purged, you can still find the original email and respond “Accept” to have it appear on your calendar.   Note: Due to the way that Outlook and Entourage "cache" information, users may experience a delay in meeting requests appearing on calendars.

 

REMINDER - HOW TO AVOID SCHEDULING CONFLICTS

If you used CorporateTime before to schedule meetings, you probably made use of the "Check Conflicts" button to make sure that everyone was able to attend your meeting.  In Exchange, this works a little differently.  When you schedule a meeting, you'll want to use the Scheduling Assistant.  The Scheduling Assistant shows you if there are any conflicts for people or resources, and even will suggest what times have the fewest conflicts on any day.  Information on using the Scheduling Assistant is in the Quick Reference Guides for Outlook, Entourage and OWA at http://oit.nd.edu/exchange/training.shtml#qrg.

 

QUESTIONS?

As always, many questions can be answered by reviewing the information found on the OIT Exchange web site at http://oit.nd.edu/exchange.  The OIT has also created Quick Reference Guides that will walk you through these types of questions, as well as many other common calendaring functions.  Quick reference guides are available for Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, Entourage 2008, OWA with IE, and OWA with other web browsers, and you can find them all at: http://oit.nd.edu/exchange/training.shtml#qrg  You can also register for training on email or calendaring at http://endeavor.nd.edu.

If you need further assistance, please contact your departmental IT support staff or the OIT Help Desk at 574-631-8111 or oithelp@nd.edu.