Volume 22 Issue 21

Today's Highlights:

• Recurring Events in Outlook on the web
• Coming to Outlook apps
• Add Sender name to a Read Receipt
• Outlook's Spam Filtering
• More Outlook Update Problems

Recurring Events in Outlook on the web

If you don’t use Outlook on the web often you may have missed a new recurring appointment feature: dynamic end dates. When you create a recurring event in Outlook on the web, a variable end date is set, based on the recurrence pattern.

Daily events default to 13 weeks: the start date plus 12 weeks. Weekly events default to 25 weeks (approximately 6 month), beginning on the start date and running an additional 24 weeks. Monthly events run for 1 year, from the start date and continuing for an additional 52 weeks, while yearly events run 3 years (start date plus 2 years).

This feature is available in both Office 365 and Outlook.com accounts, but only in the browser. I’m hoping it comes to Outlook desktop since recurring events with no ends dates are problematic when you need to end them but keep the history. By setting an end date, this is less of an issue but few people set end dates because ‘no end date’ is Outlook’s default.

Coming to Outlook apps

The Outlook app on iOS and Android is getting some updates in the coming days, with improvements to the folder list and conversation views. We'll see some improvements to search in the future.

The Conversation feature should be similar to the Conversational mode coming to Outlook desktop (available in the Insider builds now), with the messages in a thread arranged in order, in a compact but better defined view. When a new message in the thread arrives, you'll go to the first unread message. A reply field is at the bottom, similar to text messaging apps, so you can reply in place.

I'm not impressed with the Conversational mode on my desktop, in part because it doesn't support the macros I use, which gives it one strike from the start but I'm going to try using only the conversation view while I'm on vacation next week.

Outlook desktop is getting a "smart" autocomplete list, displaying the recently used addresses first with a small contact card rather than just the display name and address. Because this autocomplete list displays contact photos when available and each entry is about 3 lines high, it may help reduce errors in selecting the wrong address, especially on touch screens.

Add Sender name to a Read Receipt

Michal wanted to add the sender's name to a read receipt subject. You can use a run-a-script rule for this but because it's a Report item and not a Message, you need to tweak the script a bit.

Another problem is Reports don't have a sender name, so it’s not as simple as reading the sender’s name, but you can use Regular Expressions (regex) to grab the name from the message body.

The Rule condition will be "uses the Report form" (choosing Reports from Application Forms in the Forms dialog) and the only action should be run a script.

If run a script is not an option in Actions, see Run-a-Script Rules Missing in Outlook  for the registry key to restore run a script (and run an application) action.

Get the code sample (and other run a script samples) at Add the sender name to a read receipt

Outlook's Spam Filtering

Many Outlook users are complaining about the spam filtering in Outlook in recent weeks. While some of it is due in part to the retirement of the SmartScreen filter, which means no new filter updates in Outlook, it’s apparent there are other problems with both Outlook’s Junk Email settings and Office 365 filters.

On the desktop side, Outlook is not blocking addresses on the blocked senders list. When using the safer sender only option, Outlook is letting addresses through that are not on the safe sender list.

In my own case, it looks like the 90’s are back – simple, plain text spam for insurance, loans, websites, drugs, diets, etc. Either this format fell out of favor or my filters were so good that I never saw it. Now they are (or were) landing in my inbox (some of it on the Focused side), getting past with the Office 365 filter with an SCL of 1 and valid SPF records. Most of the spam is sent from a .us domain (which I am now blocking).

For more information on SmartScreen, see Deprecating support for SmartScreen in Outlook and Exchange

Note: Server-side spam filtering is generally the best option as it removes the spam from your Inbox before you download load it. Smartphone users won't waste data downloading spam (unless they look in the junk mail folder from their phone); on the desktop side, with an IMAP account, Outlook will sync the Junk mail folder, making it easy to review.

More Outlook Update Problems

The June 30 update for Outlook, which was supposed to fix the problems caused by the June 13 2017 update was temporarily withdrawn. It should be re-released soon.

The fixes for the blocked vbscript code in custom forms is expected to be fixed in the August update.

New & Updated Exchange KB Articles

Cumulative Update 20 for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 (Build 48628)
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4024641

Description of the security update for Microsoft Exchange: July 11, 2017
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4018588

How to remove duplicate folders in Outlook when connected to an Exchange Server mailbox
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2509983

OAB generation stalls in an Exchange Server 2013 or Exchange Server 2016 organization
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3124071

OWA published through WAP with ADFS pre-authentication doesn’t redirect to ADFS login after the ADFS SSO token expires
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4012524

Performance problems when you try to access folders in a secondary mailbox in Outlook
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3115602

Security update deployment information: July 11, 2017
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/20170711

Skype for Business mobile users can't sign in when Modern Authentication is enabled
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3126604

New & Updated Office 365 KB Articles

'AADSTS65005' error when you try to sign in to Microsoft ...
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3124219

Add a student to a class in Microsoft Teams
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4022454

Can't access a hidden mailbox in Outlook after a migration to Office 365 dedicated/ITAR (vNext)
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4034273

Change your display language in Microsoft Teams
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4025392

Changes aren't synced by the Azure Active Directory Sync tool after you change the UPN of a user account to use a different federated domain
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2669550

How Class Notebook works in different apps in Microsoft Teams
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4032689

Unsupported characters in UserID for Office 365 ProPlus activation
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4025557

You can't remove a calendar item or an email message in Outlook in Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2503266

New & Updated Outlook KB Articles

A new contact in OWA may be merged into an existing ...
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4024648

Description of the Focused Inbox feature in Office 365
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4025253

Downloads and product keys - support.microsoft.com
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4000641

Emojis are not displayed in Office applications in Windows 7
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/4021341

How to view all e-mail messages in plain text format
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/831607

How to suppress the AutoDiscover redirect warning in Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2480582

How to troubleshoot crashes in Outlook 2010 and later versions
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2934538

July 5, 2017, update for Office 2016 (KB3191928)
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3191928

July 5, 2017, update for Office 2016 (KB3203471)
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3203471

July 5, 2017, update for Office 2016 (KB3213547)
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3213547

July 5, 2017, update for Office 2016 (KB3213549)
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3213549

Performance problems when you try to access folders in a secondary mailbox in Outlook
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3115602