Those who use Outlook as a means of contact with suppliers and customers of a company, usually find themselves in the need to answer similar questions on a fairly regular basis, so it is necessary to have a tool that optimizes this process.
In this sense, Outlook gives the user the ability to create, manage and use automatic reply templates that will allow you to interact with your email contacts much more efficiently and easily.
In the next few paragraphs, you will learn step by step how to use this function, how to create templates on any of your devices, to other useful tricks to optimize your productivity when using Outlook.
What is an auto reply template in Outlook?
The automatic reply It is a function that you can enable for a while to reply to incoming messages that arrive when, for example, you are outside working hours or are not available at the moment.
This is a function where you can create a custom message that will be sent automatically to senders of the emails that arrive in your inbox, when the function is active. This tool is not used on a personal level, since there is really no reason. In the labor field, however, it is widely used to maintain contact with customers and suppliers, and keep them abreast of business hours.
Learn how to create quick reply templates in Outlook
The procedure for activating and editing these settings is really easy, and it is possible to do it from any of your devices, so you would not have to worry about interrupting communication with your contacts.
Go for it:
From the phone
This process is quite straightforward when done from the mobile app, since it only requires activating the function and defining the response text.
To do this, all you have to do is follow the process described below:
- Open the app from Outlook.
- click About you profile picture.
- Choose the gear icon located in the lower left corner.
- Choose an Outlook account. You can do this from the list of accounts that you will see at the beginning of the settings screen
- Enable the option “Automatic responses.”
- If desired, select the box “Respond for a period of time” and defines the time range (date and time) in which the automatic responses will be sent.
- Enter your text with which the answers will be sent.
- Click the button “Confirm”, which you will see in the upper right corner.
The mobile app is just one more method from which you can activate this function, but once it is running, All emails that arrive during the period of activity of the function will be answered automatically.
From the computer
Unlike many other more complex functions, for which it is necessary to access Microsoft’s settings, This tool only requires a simple adjustment from the Outlook mail settings.
The procedure to activate the automatic reply function is as follows:
- From the inbox, select on the gear icon.
- Click on “See all Outlook settings.”
- In section “Mail” choose the last option, labeled as “Automatic responses.”
- Activate the feature by clicking the switch, labeled “Enable automatic responses.”
- Define the time for which they will be active.
- Enter your reply message to be shipped.
- Select the button “Keep”.
Through the Outlook web app, you can quickly access the automatic response settings and keep them active for as long as necessary, according to the settings applied.
Other actions to improve the productivity of your email account
As a user, you have a variety of options and tools within Outlook that you can use to improve your work performance and make the use of this mail service more productive.
These actions are really simple adjustments and modifications, which can be applied from different points of the platform and affect different processes, making them more direct:
Create label
Mailing labels, also known as categories, are used to mark and separate emails according to different criteria, each email can be assigned to multiple categories, so it can work to create something similar to specific folders for messages.
To create and apply the labels, you just have to follow the steps described below:
- Log in with your user credentials from Outlook.
- Choose a message from any folder on your tray.
- Choose on the arrow visible next to the label “Categorize”.
- click in option “New category” in the drop-down menu.
- Login the name of the new tag.
- Assign a color from the available list, and then click “Keep”.
Set the filters
The Outlook web portal provides a search bar with access to fairly accurate filters, which have a wide variety of criteria that you can use to locate emails more easily.
To access this configuration, you just have to follow these steps:
- Login to your Outlook account.
- click on the search bar.
- Arrow selection that you will see on the right side of it to open the filter criteria.
- Fill in each space necessary with the data that you want to locate within the inbox. These can be sender, subject, delivery date, and keywords.
- click in “Look for”.
Once the filter is applied, the messages that include the data specified in this will be visible at the top of the inbox, giving the user easier access to each of these.
Create custom rules
Mail rules They work as permanent filters that modify the behavior of incoming emails. It is one of the best features that Outlook has when it comes to email management.
Basically, it gives you the option to define parameters by which incoming emails will be chosen to be the object of some specific action, which will be chosen by the user through the following procedure:
- From your inbox, click on the gear icon, located on the top bar.
- Choose “See all Outlook settings.”
- In the section “Mail”, you must click on the section “Rules”.
- Select the button “+ Add new rule”.
- Define a name for the rule.
- Select the condition under which this filter will be applied.
- The next step is to open the drop-down menu in “Add an action.”
- Specify what will be done with the emails that meet the condition.
- Choose the button “Keep”.
Synchronize with calendar
The Outlook calendar is a powerful time organization tool, in which you can schedule any pending that we must carry out at some future date. To do this, it will send notifications for the reminders you set.
From the Outlook web, access to the calendar is visible from the left sidebar, and it will give you the option to create events through the following procedure:
- Click on the calendar icon.
- When the monthly calendar is displayed, select the day you want to schedule an event.
- Enter the event specifications, like title, time, location and duration, for example.
- Click on “Keep”.
You can use the calendar from the web application, and these events will be automatically synced with the Outlook mobile app calendar, sending a reminder of the event, regardless of where you are.
Computer emails automatically
Keeping your inbox orderly is one of the main actions you should take to ensure maximum performance. The Outlook web application gives you a wide variety of criteria by which to organize your inbox.
The procedure for ordering the inbox is as follows:
- Login to your Outlook account in the web.
- In the inbox, click “Filter”.
- At dropdown menu, select the option “Tidy”.
- Select the order you want to apply to incoming emails.
When selecting the order, the inbox will update automatically, thus ordering the messages to conform to the selected parameters.