Living in Outlook: Message Templates

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

SFieldsKEDC — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:21:35 GMT

We use the practice of creating signatures to accomplish this. What are the advantages of templates over signatures?

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

IGL — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:31:44 GMT

And it's precisely step 2 which shoots it down. If templates are so easy to set up (and they are), then their selection and use ought to be easier than the four-levels-down list as described. We need a "Templated Message" item in the "New" menu option list which lists available templates and (after a separator) has a one-click to save current message as a template, leading to the "Save" dialogue box with the right extension chosen, the (profile-specifiable) default directory, and the filename/display-name filled in but user-changeable.

On signatures, I used to be able to build from elements, but now they are not cumulative, I need a different signature for each combination of elements.

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

John — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:49:09 GMT

In addition to signatures I use Notes as email templates by copy/pasteing when needed.

IMHO, templates are way too slow to open. They should be openable from New Message dropdown menu without any additional clicks.

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

Amadou — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:42:24 GMT

An additional tip might be usefull if you often use the same template.

You can add a dedicated button in the toolbar and map it to the template. Once done you can also associate a keyboard shortcut to it :-)

Very handy if for dealing with customer resquests, orders confirmation, etc..

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

fkm — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:02:00 GMT

Why would you use Windows Explorer if this is about living in Outlook? As for the Outlook way of opening the template, surely there is a quicker way?

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

tiago — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:21:08 GMT

here shows how to create a menu shortcut to the template:

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-6129939.html

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

outblog — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:58:57 GMT

Thanks for all of your constructive comments regarding template use. Tiago, thanks for the link. It seems like a great way to make this process even more useful!

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

Duane Nutley — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:56:26 GMT

The advantage of templates is that they don't have to be just text in the body of the email - you can have the recipients already chosen, the attachment already included, and if you go into forms, you can have more than just the textbox.

Admittedly multiple signatures is the quickest and easiest way to have different texts for email body (esp as Outlook 07 forces the user to use Word as the email editor)

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

Martin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:17:45 GMT

[quote]Tune in later this week for a follow-up post on content linking with Excel that makes table and graph updating even easier.[/quote]

did the dog eat that post or where did it go? that's exactly what i've been looking for...

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

Joann — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:49:21 GMT

After you send a message using a template, if the user moves it from their inbox to another folder the template is no longer accessible. Is there away around this? Why is this happening?

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

Yannick — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 01:54:25 GMT

Hi all, thanks for the tips shared here, this makes it easy to deal with templates.

The next step I would like to try is to insert automatically date in the text message (the date of yesterday, not today) and even better, automatically attach a file, but this file will change every day (the names contains the date of yesterday also) any clue on how to do this ?

I haven't found yet...

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

Ryn8tor — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:31:31 GMT

I am trying to build a cover letter template. I would like to address job requirements in the body of the template in a columnar format where there is a "Your Requirements" and "My Qualifications" as headers. In outlook messages (I have Outlook '03), I don't believe you can create columns in the body of the message by means of the toolbar menus. I have also tried sending in Word a document with columns but it doesn't arrive in outlook in print layout, it arrives in reading layout.

I am trying to do this to create something that stands out from other candidates and I think it may be asking a bit much to send an attachment for a cover letter and an attachment for a resume. Does anyone have a suggestion?

re: Living in Outlook: Message Templates

jackeh3 — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:45:56 GMT

I was wondering if we could insert fields into templates? I can't find this addressed anywhere. It would be great if we could use Dear {FirstName}, at the beginning and have it auto populate that or any other fields from Outlook BCM. It doesn't seem to offer that. Can this be done? How?