The use of the Outlook mail service in the workplace focuses largely on dealing with clients, prospects and work team, so you need to be as aware of your inbox as possible.
Yes, for one reason or another, we can’t answer an email, either because we are not during working hours or we are simply not available momentarily, Outlook has the ability to configure automatic responses.
In the next few paragraphs, you will learn everything you need to know about this useful Outlook tool, and how to use it to improve the productivity of your work through this mail service.
What are automatic replies in Outlook?
It is a function, accessible from the settings of Outlook, which allows the user to schedule the sending of automated responses to emails received at a certain time. This function is quite common in the most popular mail services, such as Gmail.
As they are mail providers widely used in the workplaceThey constantly deal with communication with customers and between employees. The objective of this tool in Outlook is to maximize user productivity, providing you with the means to maintain interaction with your clients and members of your work group, in the hours when you are not active in Outlook.
Learn how to create default responses and improve your productivity in Outlook
For use the automatic answer functions, We will only have to access the Outlook settings. This function is accessible from all clients of the mail service, so we can use it no matter where we are, or what device we are using.
Go for it:
From the phone
This procedure is quite simple and straightforward, since It consists only of activating the automatic response settings and defining the response we want to send to all incoming emails.
To activate them, you just have to follow this procedure:
- Start the application of Outlook.
- Press About you profile picture.
- Choose the gear icon located in the lower left corner.
- Select an Outlook account. You can do this from the list of accounts that you will see at the beginning of the settings screen.
- Active the option “Automatic responses.”
- If you wish, Mark the box “Respond for a period of time” and defines from when and until what date and time the automatic responses will be sent.
- Enter your text with which the answers will be sent.
- Press about button “Confirm” located in the upper right corner
The mobile app is just a means to activate the Outlook function, so that those who send any mail to our account, receive an automated response indicating, for example, that you are outside of business hours.
From the computer
To access this function from the computer, the process is quite simple, since it does not require access to the specifications of the Microsoft account, but to the most basic functions of Outlook mail.
All this in the following way:
- From the inbox, click the gear icon.
- Choose “See all Outlook settings.”
- In section “Mail” click on the last option named “Automatic responses.”
- Active the function by selecting the switch labeled as “Enable automatic responses.”
- Indicate the span for which they will be active.
- Define the reply message to be shipped.
- click in “Keep”.
The Outlook web app gives us the most direct access method to this configuration, so that we can activate it quickly and keep it in use for as long as necessary, or by the time programmed in the settings.
Other actions to improve your productivity in Outlook
As users who employ Outlook as a working method, it is necessary to have available all possible methods to improve productivity how much we use in postal service.
In addition to creating automatic responses for downtime, we offer three more tips to help you get the most out of your Outlook account:
Create contact groups
The creating a contact group, regardless of which service we are using, it is one of the most effective ways to organize our agenda, gathering in a single list the contacts that are in some way related to each other, either by work, family and common group of friends, among other criteria.
The procedure to create a new contact group is described below:
- From the inbox from Outlook, select the people icon, located on the left toolbar, to open contacts.
- Choose the arrow that you will see next to the option “New contact” and then click “New group”.
- Define a name for the group and add the relevant information.
- click in “To create”.
- Enter names or emails of the contacts you want to add to the group.
- click in “Add”.
Use text predictions
The predictive text function of Outlook offers the user an important time saving when composing messages, since as you type, the predictor suggests the words or phrases that can be used next:
- Select the gear icon, found on the top bar.
- Click on “See all Outlook settings.”
- In the section “Mail”, choose the option “Write and reply.”
- Swipe until you find the section “Text predictions.”
- Check the option “Suggest words or phrases while I write.”
- Click on “Keep”.
Create signatures for your emails
The function of email signature allows you to enter a single signature to all emails written, giving your emails a distinguished and personalized appearance, as well as a very professional aesthetic.
To create a custom signature for your emails, you just have to follow this procedure:
- Click the gear located on the top bar.
- Choose “See all Outlook settings.”
- In section “Mail”, click the option “Write and reply.”
- Create a signature in the editor that you will see in the window.
- Enable the option “Include my signature automatically in new messages I write.”
- Click on “Keep”.