One of the most sought features of an e-mail program is the ability to automatically route, print and otherwise process incoming messages -- and outgoing messages as well. In Microsoft Outlook, this function is provided by the Rules Wizard. Outlook provides application-level events, allowing you to write VBA routines to respond to new messages in a folder and to perform operations on outgoing items. Beginning with Exchange Server 5.5, the Exchange Server Event Service can run scripts on a schedule or when messages arrive, change or are deleted.
Outlook also supports "run a script" rules, allowing you to do some message processing as the messages arrive in the Inbox.
Rules Wizard | Inbox Assistant | Other General Tools | More Information
Rules Wizard
Rules Wizard processes both incoming and outgoing messages. Outlook 98 and Outlook 2000 come with the Rules Wizard. There's nothing extra to download. For Outlook 97, you can downloadthe Rules Wizard from Microsoft.See also:
- Custom Actions -- Add-ins to provide new capabilities to Rules Wizard or Inbox Assistant
- Rules Wizard and Assistants
Inbox Assistant
Inbox Assistant processes only incoming messages. In Outlook 97 or 98, you can revert from Rules Wizard to Inbox Assistant by removing the reference to Rules Wizard in the Add-in Manager (Tools | Options | Other | Advanced Options | Add-in Manager in Outlook 98). Only Inbox Assistant can send responses as a server-based rule or forward messages with headers intact.The Rules Wizard in Outlook 2000, on the other hand, provides parity with all Inbox Assistant rules and conditions. Therefore, Inbox Assistant is no longer needed and is not available in Outlook 2000.
Tools in the Spotlight
Sperry Software's Compliance Copies add-in for Microsoft Outlook will automatically add multiple BCC or CC recipients based on multiple different rules for different people. Unlike the Always BCC add-in, this new add-in also supports exceptions to the CC/BCCs conditions. This tool works with Outlook 2007/2010/2013. |
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E-mail Follow-up reminds you to send a follow-up e-mail message if the reply has not been received in specified time. E-mail Follow-Up will watch for the messages and show you alert when the reply has not been received. Moreover, E-mail Follow-Up allows you to send follow up message using a predefined template to remind the recipient that the reply hasn't been received. Version 1. |
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eeminders gives you an uncluttered inbox that shows you what you need to work on, in the order that you want to work on them. Defer/snooze emails out of your inbox and have them magically appear back when you actually need them. Get email reminders to follow-up on important emails right in your inbox. Get reminders for non-email actions in your Inbox. Prioritize or schedule your emails in the order that you need to work on them and more... Supports Outlook 2007, 2010 and 2013 (32bit and 64bit). Free 30 day trial available |
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File emails via eFiler Outlook toolbar into LAN and Cloud file systems (Google Drive, DropBox, OneDrive and WebDAV for Sharepoint, ODB, Box, DriveHQ etc.) in msg format with definable filenames to keep within Mailbox size limits and archive emails securely. File into predicted folders, drag and drop or by eRules to automate repetitive filing. Mobile filing for iPhone, Android, OWA by IMAP. Fast indexing search to find and use saved emails as if still in Outlook. Autosave for offsite backup. For all Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016. Free 14 day trial. |
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File emails from Outlook into project or client folders automatically. Match email addresses, project numbers, client names or references to a folder name located anywhere on your network. Watch as the bulk of your emails are automatically filed (ZERO clicks!) and finish the task with manual filing for emails that do not fall within the scope of a project or client folder. Organize filed emails into relevant sub-folders within your mailbox and auto purge dated email over time. Supports Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013 & 2016 |
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File 90% of your emails at the click of a button. Manage your Inbox and Sent Items folders. Move emails out of the Inbox to the correct folder at the click of a button. QuickFile remembers the folders used for each person and presents a short customized list each time. Use the same list to Send&File in one step instead of having to go back to your Sent Items folder. Plus many more email management features such as one-click creation of task/appointments from emails, newsletter processing, deferred non-urgent emails and much more. |
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Timed Email Organizer is a brand new add-in which can replace or augment your Outlook rules. Unlike Outlook, this add-in will act on emails based on how old they are, supports ANDs, ORs, NOTs and wildcards in the conditions, and has a test mode so that you can see what the effect of a given rule would be if it were run. It will even import your current Outlook rules and automatically disable them for you. |
Tools
Email Responder plug-in for Microsoft Outlook is an out-of-office assistant. Auto reply with away message templates; change your status and reply templates remotely. Change or schedule your free-busy status manually (Away, Out of Office, Vacation, Tentative, Custom) or use you Microsoft Outlook Calendar or Skype availability status. Auto response to selected Contacts or Distribution lists only. Enable Microsoft Outlook auto forward. Windows 10 and Outlook 2016 support. |
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Attachment management addin for Outlook enables you to detach attachments and embedded images as files in a local or network drive and link them up within the emails, for easy reference and retrieval. Remove links and re-attach files back when required, or when replying or forwarding the emails. You can also set Attachment Manager to monitor any number of mail-enabled folders and mailboxes to automatically detach incoming emails, with no manual intervention. You can set the addin to skip detachment of certain attachments. |
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Auto-Mate is an Outlook utility that allows you use define rules to move mail from your Inbox (or other folders) based on several criteria, including the age of the message. While Outlook rules only run as messages are downloaded or when you click Run Rules now, Auto-Mate rules run on a schedule, enabling you to apply rules to messages that have been in your Inbox for a given number of hours, days or weeks. Available in Standard or Pro Version. Supports Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013. Now supports Windows 10 and Outlook 2016 / Office 365. Version 10. |
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Categorize Plus enables users to categorize and search Outlook items using a selectable menu hierarchy. Categorize Plus also allows user to automatically process emails by creating Category Actions. In addition, Categorize Plus will automatically assign categories to items as they arrive in your Inbox or any other folder that you choose. Categorize Plus also includes a dock-able Category Editor that is used to quickly edit item categories and commands to copy/paste categories and to undo/redo categorizations. Available in both Free and Paid versions and works with Outlook 2003/2007/2010. |
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CI-Mail-Policy is a rule-based email action framework which allows you to control email flow and apply policies to messages which pass the Exchange Server. Centrally manage actions such as adding email signatures / disclaimers to emails sent from any devices (including smartphones), sending auto-responders, redirecting messages, rewriting sender's addresses, rejecting or silently deleting messages and many more. Actions can be filtered on Active Directory Groups, OUs and other AD attributes. Free & fully featured trial. |
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Available in two versions, a free personal edition and a more powerful professional version, ClearContext IMS is an add-in for Outlook that automatically prioritizes, organizes, and color-codes the e-mail in your inbox, placing the most important e-mails from the most important senders at the top of the inbox, ready to be dealt with immediately. Less important e-mails, such as newsletters and correspondence from low priority senders, are placed further down in the inbox and junk/spam e-mails are moved to the bottom. ClearContext IMS automates the e-mail filing process to help you keep your entire mailbox organized. Version 3.0 |
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Data Publisher add-in provides a means to bring your Outlook contents such as mails, appointments, tasks or contacts to SharePoint lists, where these can be shared with other users. This process can be performed manually, or automatically and is achieved without using any scripts or programming, with complete seamless experience to the users. In other words, Data Publisher extends your Microsoft Outlook to effectively act as a content provider for your enterprise SharePoint repository. It can be adapted to feed data to SharePoint lists for various purposes, such as for issue tracking, timesheets, projects or contact managements. |
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Exchange/Outlook add-on to create custom replies, forwards, signatures -- inserting any type of boilerplate text into your message. Templates are stored in Outlook or Exchange folders and can contain scripting elements (in VBScript or ET's own script language) to build replies that use information from the incoming message. Various extensions can handle such tasks as mailing list subscriptions. For a rotating quote, download the Rotating Text template. Has some issues with Outlook 2002 -- make sure you get the latest update, disable RTF templates, and don't try to use ET as a custom action in Rules Wizard. |
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Extracts information from incoming messages into databases, sends automatic replies, manages newsletter subscriptions, sends and collates questionnaires. Supports XML and scheduled tasks. |
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Exclaimer Auto Responder allows you to automate replies to emails, redirect messages, add and remove senders and recipients from emails, as well as prevent messages from being delivered. Create personalised auto responses by including the sender's original message, add company branding, and attach files. Redirect messages to new domains or group mailboxes instead of sending to individuals. Change the senders and recipients of emails by switching from individual mailboxes to team mailboxes. For Exchange Server 2007 and 2010. |
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Anti-spam, disclaimers (with variables), archiving Internet mail, Internet mail usage reports. Includes a POP downloader and personalized server-based autoreplies that can include attachments and tracking numbers. Can archive to an ODBC database. Current version includes Overall improved anti-spam technology, an additional anti-spam engine called SpamRazer along with improved performance and a real-time dashboard. GFI MailEssentials now supports GFI Directory, enabling administrators to manage users just like they would with Active Directory when installed in a DMZ. |
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Inlook Time Management helps you optimize how you spend your valuable time. Inlook leverages advanced email and meeting analytics to help you prioritize your day to day work, increase productivity and measure how much time you are spending per task, per project or per customer. Inlook also helps you implement email handling techniques by automating many time consuming, administrative actions such as smart archiving (fully automated or by providing smart suggestions) , deferring email handling, scheduling time to handle an email and more. |
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An incident ticket management groupware add-in that leverages Microsoft Outlook, Exchange and SharePoint. Provide an easy way for support staffs to collect ticket data from emails, assign technicians and problem areas, set due date and other custom metadata. And then use this information to generate trouble tickets in one of the administrator defined SharePoint lists, where customer issues can be tracked and collaborated with other technicians and stakeholders to seek early resolution. |
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OLAP Statistics tool for Outlook helps you gain insight into your folder items and make new discoveries. It analyzes Outlook data in multi-dimensional view in grids, charts and graphs and supports pivoting, drill down/slice and dice and filtering. You can run analysis tool on individual Outlook or public folders. Specify any field as the measure using functions such as sum, count, distinct count, maximum, minimum etc, and use this against other fields to generate statistics. Save and share reports as PDF, JPEG, HTML or PNG formats. |
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The On The Go Add-In is for busy professionals who need a tool to help them manage their Inbox and their busy lives. Using the buttons on the Outlook ribbon, you can convert emails to Tasks and Appointments with ease, automatically removing them from your Inbox. You can assign each Task or Appointment a project and for Tasks you can set the context in which they are to be performed. If you use On The Go every day, you will find your Inbox empty and your Calendar and Task list full of places to go and things to do. |
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Mail organiser for Outlook to replace the built-in Rules Wizard. Offers unlimited rule capacity (only limited by your computer hardware), quick folder find, attachment renaming, and Bayesian antispam mail filtering. |
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An automated ticketing system for one-person helpdesk and issue tracking in Microsoft Outlook. Log, analyze, track and escalate support requests in an organized and structured process in Outlook. Auto-process incoming support requests and send automated notification emails or SMS alerts. Supports enforcement of SLA in line with ITIL guidelines. Integrated knowledge base, asset tracking and statistical tools. Support for Skype and Phone calls. Includes a self-service website where end-users can submit new support requests, check status, search through the knowledge base. Improves your efficiency to enable faster response time. |
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ITIL helpdesk with automated ticketing and issue tracking for support team to log, analyze, collaborate, track and escalate support requests in an organized and structured way in Outlook. Can auto-process incoming support requests, auto-assign technicians, enforce service level, set due date and send automated notifications to cut the overhead of manual tasks significantly. Comes with integrated Knowledge Base, Asset Tracking, SLA, Report builders and OLAP Statistical tools. Support for Skype, SMS and Phone calls. Includes Web Access sites for technicians and end-users. Improves your efficiency to enable faster response time. |
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ITIL help-desk with automated ticketing and issue tracking for support team to log, analyze, collaborate, track and escalate support requests in a structured way in Outlook and SharePoint. Can auto-process incoming support requests, auto-assign technicians, enforce service level, set due date and send automated notifications to cut the overhead of manual tasks significantly. Support for Skype, mobile SMS and Phone calls. Includes Web Access sites for technicians and end-users. |
More Information
- Contact Management Tools -- Many of these utilities include autoresponders as one method of managing communications with contacts.
- Content Control Tools -- Includes tools to filter incoming and outgoing messages for content and attachments
- Message Extraction Tools -- To pull information automatically from incoming messages for use in databases, replies, etc.
- Pager Tools -- To automatically forward messages to a pager
- Fax Tools -- To automatically print or forward incoming faxes
- Notification Tools -- For enhanced alerts when new messages arrive
- Microsoft Exchange Server Scripting and Routing -- Building server-based automatic processing applications
- OL Overview of Programming with Rules
Leave a Reply
40 Comments on "Automatic Message Processing Tools"
Hello,
I am looking for a third party software or script for outlook that can take part of an incoming email ( ...say a transaction alert from a bank) and send said part to another email address. Any help would be appreciated.
Many Thanks
as long as there is a pattern, you can use regex to grab it and insert it into a new message. https://www.slipstick.com/developer/regex-parse-message-text/ shows how to get it out, you just need to insert it into a new message and send - https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/rules/send-a-new-message-when-a-message-arrives/
Hi There,
I am looking for a third party piece of software that will manage auto replies even if the user isn't logged into that mailbox. There are plenty of options for replying when the user is logged in to the profile for the mailbox however other than using a vbscript I am unable find a solution. Anyone come across this issue before? any help would be greatly appreciated
Cheers guys
It would have to run server-side - otherwise something has to log in on a client to check mail. If you use Exchange, the out of office feature can use rules for autoreply and can use simple templates stored server side.
Yes, I want to have the code to identify the pattern of the email subject first and then auto reply to the sender if the pattern of the email subject is not correct. For example, the subject email should either be 123-456789/CO01/ABCD or 987-654321/CO02/DEFG and thus the pattern should be:
""[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{6}/CO[0-9]{2}/[A-Z]{4}" <- Am i right?
So if the email subject is not following this pattern, then the code should send an auto reply to sender.
Hi Diane,
Thank you so much! I got the code working for email that I selected in the Outlook window! However, what should I do such that it will run on every email in one of my inbox folder and perform the code without having me to select it 1 by 1?
If you want to run it on selected messages, you need to loop through the selection.
Sub ReplywithNote()
Dim olInspector As Outlook.Inspector
Dim olDocument As Word.Document
Dim olSelection As Word.Selection
Dim Session As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim currentExplorer As Explorer
Dim Selection As Selection
Dim item As MailItem
Set currentExplorer = Application.ActiveExplorer
Set Selection = currentExplorer.Selection
For Each item In Selection
ExtractText (item.Subject)
'rest of code
Next
end sub
See https://www.slipstick.com/developer/code-samples/working-items-folder-selected-items/ for a code smaple to run it on all items in a folder.
If you want it completely automatic, the sample I posted earlier works as a run a script rule, or you can use an itemadd macro to watch the folder and run when new messages arrive.
Ok... use the if statement to control whether to reply -
If code = "" Then Exit Sub <== replies if code in subject
If not code = "" Then Exit Sub <== replies if the code is not in subject
or use
If code = "" Then
' set reply etc
' send reply
end if
Hi Diane,
The arrangement of numbers and letters will always be the same.Examples: 123-456789/CO1/ABCD or 456-654321/CO2/DEFG. I think the pattern to lookup for should be:
"[0-9]{3}-/[0-9]{5}/CO[0-9]{1}/[A-Z]{4}"
Am i right?
This matches your samples: "([0-9]{3}-[0-9]{6}/CO[0-9]/[A-Z]{4})"
Hi Diane,
I am trying to write a code to auto reply emails where its subject does not follow a certain type of pattern. For example, if email I received does not have its subject written in a pattern of XXXXX/ABCD/XX (where X represent numbers), I would like the code to auto reply the mail to sender to ask him to resend the email to the desired subject pattern. Could you please advise? Thank you.
You'll need a run a script rule. Will /ABCD/ always be the same text? If so it'll be fairly easy to look for it using instr or mid function. If you need to look for the pattern you'll need to use regex or something to id the pattern.
I have a bunch of samples at https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/rules/outlooks-rules-and-alerts-run-a-script/
Hi Diane,
Thank you for your kind reply. ABCD may not always be the same. I need a code to auto reply an email if its subject does not follow a certain patterns. Do you have a similar sample to this?
Will I be able to use regex to capture the email's subject pattern and then run a code to auto reply to the sender if the pattern does not follow a certain condition?
Thank you.
i have a reg function that might work - but the pattern it looks for needs to be unique - will it always be number/letters/number and will the number of numbers or letters vary?
Diane-
I need a way to automatically monitor an inbox on Outlook 2010 and based on the email address that was sent to or other subject/body data, will be able to route that email as a print job to different printer pools automatically. I don't care about attachments at this point, just the email body. I would want to set rules and route the job to one of several printer pools based on specified rules. Outlook 2010 has a very basic rule format that needs some enhancements.
You can easily do everything but the route to a printer part - Outlook uses the default printer. While it is possible to use a macro to reset the default printer so outlook uses it, I don't think i have any code samples for that.
Thanks Diane,
I will try that method and see
Best regards