The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on March 5, 2020.
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Today's Highlights:
- Change Insight's Focus Time Appointments
- Recover Deleted Lists in the TO-DO App
- Automatically block off 15 minutes before and after each meeting
- Email invitees who have not responded to a meeting request
- Don't forget: Daylight Saving Time Starts
Change Insight's Focus Time Appointments
An Outlook user really likes the new feature added to Insights: the ability to have ‘focus time’ appointments added to your calendar, so you have time blocked off to work on tasks.
I like the idea of automatically generating activities/appointments for 'Focus Time' and 'Meeting preparations' but would like assign a category to the Focus Time appointments and change the Show time as state to 'Tentative' rather than 'Busy'.
Although you can't change this through the Insights feature, you can use a macro to update the events in your calendar. It’s easy enough to run once a week after Insights generates the events, but you could use a reminder to run it automatically.
If you are going to run the macro manually, put the macro in a new module and add a button for it to the ribbon or quick access toolbar. If you want to automate it, you'll put it in ThisOutlookSession.
Get the code and instructions from Change Insight's Focus Time Appointments
Recover Deleted Lists in the TO-DO App
Imagine this scenario: you are using the Microsoft To-Do app regularly create new lists. Then somehow you accidently deleted some of the lists by mistake.
How can you undelete the lists?
Answer: Using Outlook for Windows. The lists are subfolders in Outlook Tasks. You can see the folders in the Deleted Items folder if you look in the folder from the Folder list (Ctrl+6 to open it).
You will not be able to see the folder in Outlook on the web, in the To-Do app, or in Outlook for Mac.
If you don’t have Office software, you can use the eM client to recover the folder. eM shows the folders in the Task module, not in the Deleted items folder, and you can move them back as subfolders in Tasks.
Automatically block off 15 minutes before and after each meeting
An Outlook user had this problem:
I always block some time before and after meetings. I would love to see a feature or someone explain to me how I can tell Outlook, to by default make my meetings appear to start 15 minutes earlier and stop 15 minutes later, than they actually do, so no one can book back to back through my entire schedule.
Adjusting the length of the meeting is a non-starter. It will be reset when the meeting is updated. But you can use a macro to block off time before and after the meeting automatically.
It watches the calendar for new meetings and creates an appointment before and after the meeting.
Get the code at Automatically block off time before and after meetings
Email invitees who have not responded to a meeting request
This user wants to email meeting invitees who have not yet accepted or declined the meeting.
It should be easier to send an email to those who have not responded to an Outlook invite to a meeting request. I’m currently extracting those addresses and then resend a new meeting request.
Outlook has an email option on the meeting form, but it sends to all, not just to the users who haven’t yet replies.
And yes, I have a macro for that. Get the code from Send an email to attendees who have not responded
Don't forget: Daylight Saving Time Starts
We "spring ahead" this weekend and this always results in a few complaints that Outlook has the appointments at wrong time in the calendar display. This is the result of starting the week on Sunday and Outlook's inability to drop 2AM from its time scale. Start the week on Monday or use the work week view this week to fix.
For more information, see Daylight Saving Time Calendar Display Bugs
New & Updated Office 365 KB Articles
March 3, 2020, update for Office 2016 Language Interface Pack (KB4484136)
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4484136
March 3, 2020, update for Office 2016 (KB4484247)
https://support.microsoft.com/help/4484247
New & Updated Outlook KB Articles
April 14, 2015 update for Outlook 2010 (KB2965295)
https://support.microsoft.com/help/2965295
You cannot open an .msg e-mail message file in Outlook 2007 if the file contains many attachments or many recipients
https://support.microsoft.com/help/952295
Other Resources
Delete folders using a macro or PowerShell
Use an Outlook macro or PowerShell script to bulk delete folders from Outlook.
Enable automatic replies (OOF) using a macro
How to use a macro to set up an Automatic reply (out of office reply) in Outlook on Windows desktop, using a macro and Redemption.
Outlook command lines using /m switch fail
After installing Office Outlook 365, Version 2001 (Build 12430.20184), the command line switch /m fails, adds the subject and other fields to the To line of a new message.