Exchange Messaging Outlook
Volume 6, Number 19

Greetings! Welcome to Vol. 6, No. 19, of Exchange Messaging Outlook, 2 Jan 2002, a biweekly newsletter about Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook.

• 2001 in Review
• More Farewells: Intellisync.com and PurpleCRM
• Overcome Email Overload tip: Save time with voting buttons
• Voting buttons for Internet Mail Only mode
• Putting Outlook macros on the toolbar
• Sue Mosher on the air with Jesse Berst

Regular features:

• New utilities
• Updated utilities
• Other new resources

2001 in Review

Since many people are happy to have 2001 behind us and hoping for a better 2002, I'm not going to dwell too much on the past. I do feel a need, however, to hit the highlights of the past year if just to give us a solid context for moving forward.

In 2001, Microsoft released of Office XP (plus three public updates for Outlook and Service Pack 1), Outlook 2001 for Macintosh, Service Packs 1 and 2 for Exchange 2000, and SharePoint Portal Server, not to mention Internet Explorer 6.0 and Windows XP.

Despite enhanced security in Outlook that causes some applications to prompt the user when the programs access certain features, interest in enhancing Outlook and Exchange remains high. In 2001, we added 189 new utilities to the addins listed at http://www.slipstick.com/addins/, plus a whole new page covering utilities that provide mobile access to Outlook (http://www.slipstick.com/addins/mobile.htm) and a short listing of applications based on the Exchange 2000 storage system at http://www.slipstick.com/addins/ess.htm.

I lost count of the number of Outlook-related viruses sometime during the summer, but 2001 was a very bad year for viruses. Nimda and BadTrans dashed the previous perception that a machine couldn't get a virus unless the user opened the attachment payload, while others like Goner proved that, despite endless headlines, some users are still stupid enough to open unexpected files (and some administrators haven't bothered to shore up their virus defenses by blocking .exe attachments).

I think we can all agree that keeping up with the necessary client and server updates to stay secure became a much more tedious chore in 2001. I don't see that it will get easier any time soon. We'll try to help you stay vigilant.

More Farewells: Intellisync.com and PurpleCRM

As the year was turning, we bade farewell at the end of 2001 to a number of well known Outlook applications. Intellisync.com will join MyVisto.com and the MyPalm portal at http://my.palm.com in shutting down its service for synchronizing Outlook data. Intellisync.com and MyPalm will close and delete data Jan. 10. MyVisto.com has already turned off its service.

In addition, Purple Solutions -- developer of the award-winning customer relationship management application PurpleCRM based on Outlook, Exchange, and SQL Server -- has closed its doors. Purple CEO Terry Benish says he still feels that Outlook + Exchange + SQL Server is a viable CRM platform, but poses significant hurdles and not just technical ones. One obstacle, he says, is a lack of support from Microsoft for third-party CRM efforts, with Microsoft announcing a major integration project with Siebel and the Outlook and Exchange groups "at war" with each other.

Overcome Email Overload tip: Save time with voting buttons

Do you ever send a message hoping for a simple answer, and get back a long,rambling message that you have to labor to understand? Do you ever need to compile responses from a lot of people? If so, you can save time with voting buttons.

When you send a message with voting buttons, your correspondents can respond simply by clicking one of several buttons presented to them. Furthermore, all the responses will be totaled and listed in one convenient place for you.

To add voting buttons to a message:

1. Select View | Options from the message composition window's menu.
2. Put a check in the box next to Use voting buttons.
3. Type the phrases that you want to appear on the buttons, separated by a semicolon. For example, if you want to ask everybody in the company what meal they want at the company holiday party, you can replace "Yes;No;Maybe" with "Salmon;Beef;Chicken."

To see the vote results, you will need to go to the original message in your Sent Items folder, then click on the tab marked Tracking. Voila! You'll have a record of the voting so far.

Note that for your correspondent to get these voting buttons properly:

• They must use Outlook (and no, Outlook Express doesn't count).
• You can't be using Outlook in Internet Mail Only mode (see next article for IMO mode instructions).
• The email addresses in recipients' contact records need to be marked to send messages in rich-text format.

**** This tip is adapted from _Overcome Email Overload with Microsoft Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2002_ by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood. Find out more at http://www.OvercomeEmailOverload.com/outlook/

Voting buttons for Internet Mail Only mode

The above instructions for creating a voting button message won't work if you are using Outlook 2000 in Internet Mail Only mode. You can still create voting button messages, though, using a different method:

1. Make sure you are not using Word as your email editor. (Tools | Options | Mail Format).
2. Choose Tools | Forms | Design a Form, and select the Message form.
3. On the (Actions) page of the form, create a new action for each response you want recipients to be able to make. For example, if you want recipients to vote on a menu choice of salmon, beef, or chicken, create three actions named Salmon, Beef, and Chicken. Each action should create a form named IPM.Note or Message (two names for the same form). Under Characteristics of the new form, choose Do not include original message when responding and Address form like a Response.
4. 4. Choose Form | Run This Form to create a new message using the customized form.

Also, make sure that the form recipients' contact records have not been marked Send in plain text only.

Putting Outlook macros on the toolbar

In response to Kaitlin Duck Sherwoods's article in the last EMO (http://www.slipstick.com/emo/2001/up011219.htm) about useful macros for moving messages, Norman Schmuff wrote asking whether it's possible to change the name of the macro on the toolbar button from Project1.MoveToDone to something shorter.

Yes, indeed! You can edit the name of any toolbar button or menu command to anything you want. Just use View | Toolbars | Customize to start the customization process. You can then right-click on any button and change its name, i.e. the caption you see on the toolbar. We have more information on customizing the toolbar at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/toolbar.htm.

Sue Mosher on the air with Jesse Berst

I'll be talking about Outlook on an upcoming "BerstAlert on Tech Success" program on the Business Talk Radio network. On Wednesday, Jan. 9, at 9 p.m. EST, the show will focus on Outlook troubleshooting.

New Utilities

CONTENT SURVEYOR
http://www.neuropower.de/product/CS.en.html
Multi-lingual document management and content analysis program that can index and search Outlook folders, as well as many other kinds of information.

EXTENDED REMINDERS
http://www.slovaktech.com/extendedreminders.htm
Outlook 2000 and 2002 COM add-in that enables you to receive reminders from any mail, calendar, contacts, or tasks folder in your default information store except the Outbox.

INBOX PROTECTOR
http://www.inboxprotector.com/
Outlook utility that categorizes different types of junk mail and moves it out of your Inbox. Triggers the Outlook Email Security Update address book prompts.

PRINT INCOMING EMAIL
http://www.sperrysoftware.com/Outlook_Solutions.htm
Automatically print all incoming messages and attachments.

ZOOT
http://www.zootsoftware.com/
Add search and "information processing" to Outlook data by synchronizing it with a Zoot database, which supports quick query, quick filter, folder rules, and other functions.

Updated utilities

IKAKURA
http://www.ikakura.com/
New version adds support for Exchange 2000 to this tool for automating the subscription process for Exchange distribution lists. Formerly ReddFish ListServer.

MAIL ATTENDER
http://www.sherpasoftware.com/MAEXchOverview.htm
Version 2.0 of this Exchange management tool adds the ability to locate and manage content in public folders, as well as mailboxes.

SCRIPTLOGIC
http://www.scriptlogic.com/eng/home.asp
Version 4.0 of this Windows graphical logon script generator expands Outlook features to allow administrators to specify common user settings such as force spell check, empty deleted items, and message format. It also uses validation logic to determine which computers and users get which settings.

Other new resources

UPDATING OFFICE BY USING CLIENT UPDATES
http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/xp/journ/Cliupdt.htm
An alternate strategy for applying service packs and other patches without patching the main administrative setup image.

VERNOTER
http://www.bpsmicro.com/Vernoter.htm
Sample using Ñ++ and ATL showing how to create a basic stub for an Outlook 2000/2002 COM add-in, add a toolbar button, and add a property page to the Tools | Options dialog.

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Updated Apr 07 2008

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