Looking for quick tips to optimize your Microsoft Outlook experience? Check out this article that includes all you need to know to get the most out of Microsoft Outlook. With over a billion users worldwide, Microsoft Outlook is the preferred email program for business owners. Though other email programs have some of the same features, no single one of them addresses the everyday needs of business professionals better than Outlook. In spite of its popularity and its versatility, many users are not getting the full range of benefits Microsoft Outlook has to offer. This program provides a rich array of valuable features. It allows users to sort, filter and categorize all emails. In addition, there are numerous other email shortcuts that can save users time and reduce their daily frustration. Below, we discuss some of the biggest time-savers. Please note that these shortcuts are based on Outlook 2010, but most will work on later versions, as well as earlier ones. Learn the Keyboard Shortcuts It may not seem like it to some people, but having to move your mouse around and click on something takes a lot longer than just pressing two keys. For people whose world revolves around email, the wasted time can really add up. Therefore, it’s expedient to learn a half dozen of the most commonly used shortcuts: Ctrl+R: reply to email Alt+S: send email Alt+R: reply to all in email or switch to work week calendar view Ctrl+M: or F9 to Send/Receive all Alt+W: forward email or switch to weekly calendar view Ctrl+G: open the “Go to date” dialog and jump to any date in the calendar New to Outlook? You won’t be a newbie for long once you learn these tricks. Below are a few great tips for newcomers that will have you working like a pro in no time. Switching Tasks This tip lets you easily switch between your calendar, contacts, email and other items by pressing Ctrl + [the place number of the item]. This can eliminate lots of clumsy maneuvering in the navigation pane. Quick Steps This feature, first introduced in Microsoft Outlook 2010, is the fast, painless way to create your own shortcut when performing any multi-step action (it’s also available for modifying default Quick Steps). For instance, let’s say you want to create a Quick Step for marking emails as read, then forward them to a specific group of people. Go to the Home tab and click Mail, then in the Quick Steps section, click the More arrow. Next, click on Manage Quick Steps. Select the Quick Step you would like to change, and then choose Modify. Look for Actions, then change or add the actions you want this Quick Step to perform. In the Shortcut key box, assign this Quick Step a name. You can also change the icon next to the Name box by clicking on it, then click OK. Create a New Item from the Clipboard This one is a real time-saver. Instead of going to Outlook, opening a new item and then copying and pasting content into it, you can do all this in one smooth step. Simply copy text to your clipboard and press Ctrl-V to create a new message that contains the selected text. Using Outlook for A Short Time? Sometimes we all must work on a specific project or with a team that’s already using Microsoft Outlook. For those people, it can be a hassle to get up to speed on how to carry out common tasks. The tips below will have you whizzing through your emails. How to Create a Calendar Event Most new users think you have to scroll through the calendar to find a date that works for your upcoming meeting or appointment. Outlook allows you to simply type phrases like “three weeks from now” or “next Wednesday”. Your calendar automatically sets up the appointment. Of course, you can always change these dates if you need to. Modify Desktop Notifications If you get lots of emails each day, you understand how distracting it can be to constantly be notified of a new email. Many of the emails we all get aren’t that important anyway. Outlook allows you to set your desktop notifications so that you are only notified of messages from people that you specify. You can set up a VIP email folder by going to Rules > New Rules, then select “Advanced Options”. The “Rules Wizard” allows you to specify which emails should be sent directly into the VIP folder. That way, you’ll have your important messages all in one place. Using the Rules Wizard, you can set up all your Mail Options so that they work for you, not against you. Creating Email Templates During an ordinary workday, we often send out similar messages to people. Why not create an email template for those? Open the email, then select File > Save As > Outlook template. Now when you want to send the message out to someone, go to New Items > Choose Form. Browse through your “User Templates in File System” to find the template and click on it. Seasoned Outlook Vet? Maybe you’ve been using Outlook for years and are ready to learn some new tricks. Below are a few amazing time-savers. Schedule Email Delivery Whether you’re running off to a meeting or rushing to the airport, you may want to send emails to special people later that day or even weeks in the future. First, write the email, then go to Options > Delay Delivery > Do not deliver before. and then simply type in the date and time you want the message sent out. Make Folders for Emails Organizing emails into specific folders is a great way to streamline your Inbox. A good folder system can save you time and prevent important messages from getting lost. Once you have your folders set up, simply drag emails into the right folder. Go to Folder > New Folder and enter a name for it. In the pull-down menu called “Folder Contains”, select “Mail and

The new Outlook 2016 has incorporated some cool features, designed to be helpful and make your work day a little smoother. It can look a bit different depending on what version of Outlook you’re using and how your admin sets it up. What’s New in Outlook 2016? When you open Outlook, you’ll see six areas. Across the top is that familiar ribbon we’ve all become used to seeing. Above the ribbon, you’ll find the Title Bar which has the File tab, Home tab, Send/Receive, Folder, and View. Across the main section, you’ll find four wide panes of varying widths. Across the bottom is the newest addition to Outlook, the navigation bar. While on the home tab, you can take a closer look at the four panes or main sections. The narrowest one located on the left contains your inbox, sent, deleted and other items pertaining to your mail folders. The second column contains your messages. Here, you can get a closer look at the items in your inbox. It shows the names and dates of each email. The widest pane shows the contents of the actual email. This section is called the reading pane. If you click on a specific email, you can read it and reply or forward it. The fourth smaller pane to the right contains your calendar and do-to list. At the bottom, you’ll see the newly added navigation bar. Hover over each item there for a closer look. This is handy because you can access frequently used features or people very quickly here. The dots, which represent “more”, open up a “navigation options” dialog box. There you can change a number of things pertaining to the way your email client is laid out. You can also choose navigation options > compact navigation. This will make the navigation bar smaller. Little icons replace the larger words that were used. The icons can run horizontally across the bottom or vertically along the side. Reading Pane Too Small? You may not always need your calendar to stay open. It’s easy to close. Simply click on the arrow at the top to close it. You can also close the folders section located on the far left the same way. By closing these two sections, you’ll now have a much wider email viewing pane. This can be helpful if you have a long or important email to read. If you need to take a quick look at the folders, simply click on the words “All Folders” (far left side, vertically written) and a handy pop-out appears. This pop-out will stay there until you click on “All Folders” again. The navigation pane appears vertically written as well and this configuration can give you the greatest amount of space to work on emails. In addition, you have the option of manually dragging the borders for each section. This is a quick and easy way to increase or decrease the width of a pane so that your Outlook email works best for your situation. The New Navigation Pane In the 2016 version, a navigation pane was added to the bottom. It has links that go out to: Mail Calendar People Tasks More – More is represented by small dots in most programs now. You can hover over each one to learn more about it or access that particular feature. For instance, hover over “People” to see all those listed in your contact list. You can also hover over a specific person to get more information about this person. For each of your contacts, you’ll see small icons along the bottom so you can email, call or video chat with that person. The same is true for each item in the Navigation Pane. Simply hover over your calendar for a quick look at your day, week or month. The calendar in your Navigation Bar performs the same tasks as the actual calendar portion of your Home Page. For that reason, you may find it handy to just leave that Calendar closed and use the one in the Navigation Bar. This will give you more room for emails and other tasks you do on the Home Page. Taking a Deeper Look at The Ribbon The Ribbon has been around since Word 2007 and most users are fairly knowledgeable about how to use it. If it’s in the way and you’d like to temporarily remove it, click on the small triangle on the far right side of the page. This collapses the Ribbon. When you want it back, click on the same triangle and it reappears. This works for all Microsoft Office programs, including Word, Excel, and Access. Of course, there are shortcuts for just about all the actions found on the Ribbon. Many users find it helpful to learn those shortcut keys and use them instead of navigating through the tabs/items on the Ribbon. You can also hide or view the Ribbon by clicking on the View tab. Outlook 2016 is all about making your email tasks much simpler. Dealing with Emails Once you get your work area set up so that it’s most efficient for you, it’s time to read and answer a few emails. At the top of each one, you have inline options to reply, reply all, forward or IM. Click on reply and you can just start typing your message. You can also right-click in this area for a list of other options like changing the font and color of your typing. Right-clicking in various areas of the page will always call up a list of other helpful options and this can often prevent you having to reopen the Ribbon to accomplish a task. When an email has attachments, you can click on the attachment to view it there in the Outlook program. This is true for PDF docs, Word docs, and Excel. This saves you the trouble of having to open Word, Excel or Adobe and this can be a real time-saver. If you do want to open up the

This chat-based meeting application for agile teams – but only if you know how to use it properly. So many things have changed in business circles. From lighting fast computers to programs that allow you to accomplish any task, today’s technology makes almost anything possible. One of the big changes in America’s corporate culture is the way that workers meet. It probably all began with the huge rise in companies employing remote workers. Remote workers save a company money in numerous ways. You don’t have to provide offices, desks, or office equipment and supplies in most cases. It’s better for the workers and studies have shown that remote workers actually get more work done each day than on-site workers. Today’s technology has responded to this growing trend with apps to facilitate remote workers. One of the big winners in this space is Microsoft Teams. This app makes it easy for a team to meet even if they live in various countries around the world. The big surprise to many business people is how well virtual meetings have taken off. Every team member may work in the same building, but when asked, they’ll tell you that a virtual meeting is much easier to fit into their daily schedule. This has led developers like Microsoft to create virtual meeting space tools that accommodate team members’ preferences. Microsoft Teams is their flagship virtual meeting product and users may not realize that it is included in MS Office 365. It works well for chats, phone calls and meetings of any size. This app provides virtual meeting rooms where people can collaborate on any subject. It’s available for your PC, Mac or mobile device, and it’s revolutionizing the way workers communicate. It also works well in classrooms – the classroom of the future may very well take place online. You can meet with the teacher and other classmates to discuss a topic or go over a lesson. There’s no need to get dressed and drive to the school or office building. Just turn on your computer, log into the meeting room and you’re all set. You can discuss a challenging math problem, find out how everyone is progressing on a new marketing campaign or you can plan an office party. There are endless ways to use the app in schools, colleges, and business. The Microsoft Difference There are already abundant team meeting apps available, so what sets Microsoft Teams apart from other virtual meeting apps like Zoom or Go-To-Meeting? Of course, with Microsoft, developers went the extra mile to include features that were helpful and convenient. Some virtual meeting space apps do not have the ability to upload or exchange files, but this one does. You can even edit those files during the meeting. Just about everything you could do in real life can be accomplished in a virtual meeting room. Many of the exciting features are available with just a single tap – even better, Teams is fully customizable. It works the way your team needs it to work, as a seamless program that will evolve as your business evolves. You can quickly and easily create a new team and set up a meeting in just moments. How to Begin Open Office 365 and then go to Microsoft Teams. There, you will create a new team by selecting “Create Team” in the bottom left corner of the screen. Give your team a name and include a short description of it. Once you get familiar with this app and begin using it more frequently, you’ll better understand the need to name and describe your team accurately. You might have several different teams for any department in your company. That’s why it’s important to distinguish between a graphic design team that is working on Project A and other graphic design teams working on other projects. Once you’ve named your team, enter each member’s name. Team members are easy to add or delete from a team as needed. MS Outlook groups allow you to add an entire group of people at once without having to enter their individual email addresses or names. This can also be done using a security list or an email alias. Now select “Done” and create a channel for the team by selecting “” located next to the team name. Now choose “Add channel” and enter a name and description for your channel. Finally, click on “Add” and you’re done. Once you learn the process, you can set up a team and channel in less than five minutes. In the beginning, you’ll have one channel called “General” that can be used for any purpose. Later on, you can add channels as needed. Team Management Tools By selecting “View Team”, you can change the settings, add or remove team members and manage team ownership. As a team manager, you will have additional privileges that allow you to make numerous adjustments. This can be very helpful when working with people from multiple departments or various projects. Different team members can take charge of the meeting as needed. You will quickly learn how to structure your team so that it’s highly efficient or just more fun for team members. Regardless of what type of work you do or what type of projects you may be currently working on, Microsoft Teams will become an indispensable business tool. This digital hub makes quick work of creating and customizing your team so that it’s tailored to meet all your needs. The app is fast replacing email as a way to communicate because it’s so much more efficient. You can view replies, likes, and @mentions with just a single tap. Add other apps your team uses or websites you want team members to visit. Since the app is part of Office 365, you can easily access all Microsoft programs such as Excel, Outlook, and Word. Exciting Features Microsoft Teams supports flexible communication, including chats, calls, meetings, and private and group conversations. Below are a few more helpful features available in the Microsoft

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is truly an important part of marketing for any business. Businesses that rely solely or largely on online marketing must understand the concepts of SEO marketing in order to be successful. If you’ve been doing this a while, then you probably know that it’s not as easy as it seems on the surface. Today, there are numerous specialists in this field with years of experience in Search Engine Optimization. They will testify that search engine optimization is a complex procedure that requires several layers of precision efforts in order to work. Search Engine Optimization is an art that if well mastered, will ensure that your website is ranked higher than the competition. Of course, being on that first page of results is every business owners dream and if it were easy, everyone would be there at one time or another. As with all technology, people have found ways to master SEO and they’ve found ways to “beat the algorithm.” This process, though effective, can cause a website that really shouldn’t be there, to appear at the top of your search results for a specific word or phrase. Beating the algorithm sometimes results in the website that should be right at the top, falling to the bottom of the page. Though Google and others do work hard to make sure things like this don’t happen, we all see it every day. Below, are our top 12 tips for getting your website to that first page of the listings. Focus your content on fulfilling a need. This is simple. All you need to do is find a need and fill it. If you do this well enough, consumers will come looking for you. Know your target consumer. Speak to them personally in your content. Make sure you’re addressing their pain points and hitting all their hot buttons. Be sure your content speaks to people in a personal way. Always remember that the customer is who you’re after; not the search engines. Write content that is useful to your customers. Ensure your content is mobile friendly. In this age, where people are somewhat addicted to their mobile phones, your web content must be mobile friendly. Make sure that everything is easily accessible from any device. People are using their smartphones more to shop and make purchases, so this process must be just as simple on a smartphone as online. Do use keywords but ensure your web content makes sense Knowing that keywords are the way to beat algorithms, some people load their web content with keywords. Check online to see what the current density rate for keywords is. At the moment, it’s around 2 percent. If you go over this, the search engines could classify your site as SPAM. This is the exact opposite of what you really want. In addition, loading your content with keywords makes it sound less authentic and even annoying. It diverts the attention of the readers from important information about your business. Give your audience more than they expect Your website should contain good information about your company and your products and services. You can also add interesting trivia, a surprising story about one of the company owners, or anything unique that might make visitors remember you. Some sites use humor. Above all, be truthful and sincere and this will create trust in your website visitors. Ensure your work is amazing Do not bore your audience with irrelevant information. While writing informative pieces, ensure they are entertaining. It’s often a good idea to work with a professional copywriter who can create incredible content that will WOW your audience. Link, link, link You don’t want your visitors searching elsewhere on the internet for information concerning things that you’ve discussed on your site. Instead, provide links that go out to these stories. People today appreciate the convenience. Inbound and outbound linking can be tricky so get help from a specialist if you feel you need it. Keep creating content Do not just create your website and then walk away. Instead, keep tweaking the content there. Keep adding fresh content each week.  Make sure articles and blogs are relevant and valuable to your consumers. Think like your consumer Being an internet user yourself, you probably know a few things about how consumers think. But, it’s important to learn what motivates a person to make a purchase from your site. There’s a whole science behind these concepts. Once you understand the mindset of your target consumer, you can better address their needs and speak to their heart. Ensure that content is evergreen Before you post your content, ask yourself this question: “Three months from now, will this content still be relevant? What about in 6 months or two years?” Is the answer is yes, go ahead and publish it. If not, you may need to rewrite your content so that it’s just as relevant in two years as it is today. Every piece of your content matters Your writing should focus on the value of your products and services. You want an amazing website that stays at the top of search listings for years, not just a few days. If you focus on SEO tricks, you may be at the top for a while, but then shoppers may realize that in fact, there is not much on your site they need. Stay relevant. Give shoppers what they’re looking for. This is how you get return visitors. Social media should be your best friend Maintain all your social media sites placing fresh content there daily. Most business owners hire someone to do this for them and this can be a valuable investment that really pays off. Social media gives you the opportunity to interact on a personal level with customers and potential buyers. Don’t miss out on this opportunity. Focus on retention Work with someone who understands the analytics that you get from your site each week. You can use analytics to tell exactly when someone clicks away

“Hey Cortana, remind me to contact Bill at Acme to set up that sales meeting.” More business people are relying on their voice assistants and AI chatbots to help them save time and effort, according to market research firm Spiceworks. After surveying more than 500 technology professionals throughout North America and Europe, they found that 40% of large businesses and 15% of smaller ones will now be using voice-assist technology to improve their business efficiencies. Right now, Microsoft Cortana is the most commonly used AI assistant for businesses, at 49 percent – and 14% of businesses are using AI chatbots, with their Microsoft collaboration tools like Slack and Teams. This is probably because it’s so accessible and is integrated into Windows 10. Apple’s Siri isn’t far behind at 47 percent – it’s integrated into iOS and macOS. Some of the tasks respondents use voice assist for include: Voice-to-text dictation Employee calendar management Customer service purposes Helpdesk management tasks Sales and marketing New Players in the Business Voice-Assist Marketplace. Integrating voice assistants in the enterprise market is unleashing new use cases for the technology. In November 2017, Amazon launched their Alexa for Business platform, which lets businesses to create their own Alexa skills. IBM recently launched their Watson Assistant for businesses. They plan to license it to enterprises so they can build customized, interactive tasks into their own products and services. The Watson Assistant is more focused on customization and privacy than are Google and Amazon. This might give IBM a competitive edge in the business marketplace. Watson allows for better-tailored voice interactions and eliminates the need for a universal wake-up word like “Hey Siri” or “Alexa.” Plus, you can train the assistant using your own datasets. This makes it easier to set actions and commands. The Watson Assistant also gives each user control over their personal data. It doesn’t pool users’ information and allows each person to control which Watson-powered devices and applications can access their data via the IBM cloud. The technology then learns and remembers each user’s preferences. IBM is introducing their Watson Assistant to hotels, hospitals, banks, offices, restaurants, connected cars, and more. They’ve partnered Harmon where they’re using the Watson Assistant in a Maserati concept car. The Munich airport is also using IBM’s Watson Assistant to power a robot that provides directions to travelers. And Chameleon Technologies is using it to control temperatures in homes based on residents’ daily schedules. What Voice Assist Will Demand from Your IT Professionals. As voice assist becomes increasingly mainstream in the workplace, IT departments will face many challenges. As it stands now, the various forms of voice assist, machine learning and artificial intelligence operate on multiple platforms, operating systems, apps, and hardware. This will make it difficult to harness their potential without considerable investment in resources and expertise. Not only will IT professionals need to have a complete grasp of its functionality and how to integrate it with networks and legacy systems, but they must also define and implement strategies for using it, and provide training and education for an entire pool of users in the enterprise. As voice assist becomes more interactive and “personal,” IT professionals will need to combine their technical skills along with strategic and interpersonal capabilities to achieve greater success. Adoption of the technology is moving slowly but is predicted to pick up as the power of voice achieves a new level yet to be discovered. Those businesses that stay informed and ready for and prepared for change will be better positioned to take advantage of its benefits. Some of these benefits include increased productivity and sales, more and better innovations, improved collaboration, and the ability to increase global market share. Deep Learning Voice assistant providers are improving recognition capabilities through the power of deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence (similar to facial-recognition technology). Deep learning goes a step farther than machine learning that is based on algorithms and historical data. It will be able to predict a pattern of speech based on previous content without training by compiling vast amounts of data from the Internet. Voice assistants will be capable of taking meeting notes with much more accuracy. And, they’ll be able to identify different voices in a room to transcribe who said what. Deep learning will be better at translating foreign languages. Imagine how this could fuel the growth of a global business, and the ability for more seamless collaboration. Right now, voice assist is a bit “robotic,” but eventually it will be more conversational in tone and respond more accurately due to deep learning. But, Don’t Fire Your Administrative Assistant Just Yet. Those who aren’t using them say it’s because they don’t see a use for them, that the cost is holding them back, and they worry about security issues. They also worry about technology distracting their employees and that it could negatively affect productivity. Although voice assistants and chatbots are helpful in the workplace, the technology still needs improvement. 59% said that it can misunderstand requests and 30% said that it is inaccurate when executing commands. And, 29% said that it can’t distinguish their voice from others. Other than using them for simple tasks, voice assist has yet to become widely used in the workplace. If you have a lot of employees in one area, the technology won’t work for you. It has difficulty deciphering commands with there are simultaneous conversations taking place. But, as the technology improves, more will be willing to use it. Is your business ready to meet the demands that voice assistants and future technology advancements will surely bring? If your small or mid-sized business is struggling to manage your existing IT systems, or you can’t keep up with IT security concerns, it’s time to consider partnering with a Technology Solutions Provider. In this way, you’ll be prepared for what’s coming next in the world of voice-assist, and other technologies that can help you better compete in your marketplace, improve productivity and ultimately your profitability.

Are you using Outlook to its fullest potential? If not, you’re missing out on a valuable tool that will make your work so much easier. Not only will it incorporate everything you need to do with emails, like make appointments and set “Quick Steps,” it can save you a lot of time. We have 9 great timesavers we want to share with you here. 1. Turn Off Notifications You know those little pop-ups that appear when you’re trying to concentrate on a project? They are there to let you know that you have new mail. This is great if you’re waiting for an important email. Otherwise, they can be very distracting. Here’s how to turn these off: Just go to the bottom right-hand side of your screen (in Windows) and click on the little triangle. A check box will come up. You can see here where it says, “Show New Mail Desktop Alert”. Uncheck this and no more annoying pop ups! You can also do this right from Outlook: Go to the left-hand side of your screen with Outlook open. Select “File” and “Options.” Under “Mail” you’ll see a bunch of options. Here’s where you can select all the notifications and sounds that simply distract you, and that you don’t need. Ah, peace and quiet for a change! 2. Drag Mail to the Calendar When you’re in an email, and you want to add a meeting to your calendar, simply go up to the top Ribbon where it says “Meeting” and you can “Reply with Meeting” to all the people on the email stream. Set up the time and place, and then invite everyone. 3. Block Off Time Slots Let’s say someone emailed you a proposal and you need to block off some time to read it. Here’s how to do this right from the email and attachment: Here’s the email with the proposal marked in blue. Drag the box down to the left where it says “CALENDAR” and it will create a prompt where you can enter the block of time in your calendar, on the day and time that works for you. It will appear as an appointment in your calendar. When you’re entering time in your meeting time slot, Outlook does some of the work for you. Say you want to start at 10:00 am. Simply key in 10 and hit TAB, and Outlook will enter the rest (10:00 AM). You can even enter military time. 15:15 TAB and Outlook will convert it to 3:15PM. You can do the same with the end time as well. 4. The Ignore Button If there’s an email that keeps appearing in your inbox, but you don’t want to see it anymore, rather than deleting it you can simply go to the Ignore button on the top left, (or Control >Delete) and emails about this subject will automatically go into your Deleted Items. You’ll get this prompt to ensure that you want to delete the message every time. Check “Don’t show this message again” and click “Ignore Conversation.” You won’t be bothered by the message anymore. 5. The Quick Access Toolbar Microsoft provides this toolbar in all of their software solutions. You can put some of your most used commands in this toolbar. Simply check the ones that you want to appear. They will always appear at the top of your screen until you remove them. And you can easily add more commands, as you see below. Simply highlight the commands to the left and click “Add” and they will appear in your ribbon. To remove, do the opposite. Highlight the commands to the right and click “Remove.” 5. Respond Fast with Instant Messaging Sometimes you need a fast way to get a message to someone, and email isn’t doing this for you. Right from Outlook, go to the top ribbon to: “Reply All with IM” Now, you can send everyone on your email stream an Instant Message instead of an email. This comes in handy if you need to get a quick message to your team. However, it only works if your team is connected to you with Microsoft Link. If not, you can do this with Skype as well. 6. Quick Steps You may recognize this in the top Ribbon. It’s been in Microsoft products since 2010. Sometimes you do things manually. Or you may set up Rules. For example, “If the email is from Molly Dempsey save it to Project Falcon.” Or something like this. You can also save commands like this in Quick Steps. Here’s one we set to move the message, mark it as read, tag it, and put a follow-up flag on it. Quick Steps moved the email, categorized it and marked it as read, just as we specified. There are multiple actions you can choose from in Quick Steps. Start with “Create New” and your selections will pop up. Click “New Message.” Then preset the email that you think you’ll use over and over. Here’s a Quick Step to create an invoice right from Outlook. Click the invoice you want (we have one called Tailspin already set up). Outlook will take you to your contact list where you can choose who to send it to. Then we set the importance level as “High.” And we simply fill in the information in the preset template, send it and it’s done! 7. Out of Office in Advance Now you can set your “Out of Office” messages in advance. Remember when you had to do this right before you left town? No more. Here’s how to set it up: Go to the “File” menu. Click ” Automatic Replies (Out of Office) Then set up your parameters. Click “Send Automatic Replies” and type in the start and end date, along with the message you want to send when you’re away. Check the box that says, “Only send during this time range”. Outlook will remember to send the Out of Office message beginning on the date and time