Exchange Messaging Outlook Volume 14, Number 23

Poll: Do you keep Outlook open all the time?

Larry had this to say following last week’s issue -

"re the "create OL item w/o opening OL" discussion-- I'd be interested to know the % of people who "use" OL but do not have it opened, say, 100% of the time. I find it hard to believe that resources still would prevent users from basically having OL open 24/7--that's what I do--"

There are many reasons users don't keep Outlook open all the time and it’s not always related to resources. For example, new messages are distracting to some users and affect their productivity, while others like clean desktops so they close applications as soon as they're done with them.

Since there are no stats for this, we'll collect some in an anonymous poll. The results won't be scientific and will have a high margin of error, but it should be close enough to satisfy my curiosity (and maybe Larry's).

Do you keep Outlook open all the time?
http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=22205 

Note: you do not need to be registered to Vote in the poll but do need to register if you'd like to comment on the poll. I'm most curious to find out why people keep outlook closed - opening Outlook takes more time than I want to wait because I need to enter passwords for my Exchange account, 2 different SharePoint servers and accept 2 certificates because my laptop is not logged into the network.

The poll has four responses you can choose from:

1: You fit the 24/7 crowd. You open Outlook soon after the computer boots and leave it up until you shut the computer down. If you accidently close Outlook or it crashes, you reopen it immediately.

2: You'd like to be a 24/7 user but often close Outlook to release resources or to avoid being distracted by new email. If you accidently close Outlook or it crashes, you'll wait until you need it for something to reopen it.

3: You don't open Outlook soon after booting the computer, but once its open, you'll leave it running until you shut the computer down or Outlook crashes. If you accidently close it, you won't reopen it right away. Outlook is running about 50% of the time the computer is running.

4: You open Outlook when you want to check mail then close it immediately. You like a clean task bar and don't leave any programs running. You never accidently close Outlook (because it never runs long).

More iPhone and Exchange Problems

The past week brought more problems for iPhone 3G users with Exchange 2007 accounts. Users who upgraded their phone's OS to 3.1 had problems connecting to Exchange because of hardware encryption issues. Users with the newer iPhone 3GS models are not affected as their devices support hardware encryption.

The issue begins with iPhone OS 3.0 and enhancements to Exchange Active Sync security policies in Exchange 2007 SP1. The iPhone doesn't correctly identify itself to Exchange 2007 so that when the administrator has Exchange configured to require hardware encryption for iPhone 3G devices, users can still login even though their devices don’t have hardware encryption. After upgrading to OS 3.1, the 3G correctly identifies itself to Exchange 2007 as supporting hardware encryption. When the administrator has Exchange configured to require hardware encryption for these devices, Exchange won't allow them to connect. If the administrator wants to allow these iPhone 3G users to access the server they’ll need to turn off encryption, otherwise, 3G users will need to remain on OS3.0 (or upgrade to a newer phone) if they want to sync with Exchange.

Drafts, Templates, and Resend

An Outlook user recently asked how to remove FW from the subject line automatically. His problem: "I need to send a message to several people with minor changes for each person. To do this, I hit Forward and edit the message then delete the "FW:" added to the subject."

While Forward gets the job done, Outlook has other methods that are better suited for this scenario.

Method 1: Use Drafts. Write the message and save it to Drafts. Select, Copy and Paste (Ctrl+A,C,P) the draft as many times as you need and use one draft for each recipient.

Method 2: Create and save a template. This method is great if you are going to send the same messages over a period of weeks or months.

Method 3: Open the sent message and go to Actions, Resend this message.