Locked lesson.
About this lesson
Quick Steps are a way to set up a 'work flow' of a redundant process. It's one of the best-kept secrets in Outlook!
Quick reference
Quick Steps
A Quick Step is an item that you design to do a specific task, such as creating a pre-addressed email or filing a conversation into a certain folder.
When to use
When you find yourself clicking through a redundant process, like filing a conversation into a certain folder, simply design a Quick Step to handle it in the future with one simple click.
Instructions
Design your own Quick Step
- Open Outlook and find the Quick Step section on the Home ribbon.
- Click the Drop Down arrow on the side and choose Create New.
- Type a name for your Quick Step and choose an action or maybe two actions (up to 12 separate actions.)
- Click Finish and you will see your new Quick Step in the display box on the Home ribbon.
Give it a CLICK and test the result!
Login to download- 00:05 Microsoft Outlook has given us some automation tools called Quick Steps.
- 00:08 These are wonderful, you really need to know about these.
- 00:11 I've opened up the Manage Quick Steps, so
- 00:13 you can see the dialog box that will be opening.
- 00:16 And so we do have some pre-formatted templates to give you an idea of what
- 00:21 you can do.
- 00:22 This comes standard with Quick Steps.
- 00:24 I'll hit Cancel, and we'll go ahead and set one up.
- 00:26 I'm on the Home ribbon, about halfway over, this section called Quick Steps.
- 00:30 And in the drop down, here's the same templates.
- 00:33 And then we have one that says Create New.
- 00:35 I'll go ahead and click that.
- 00:38 It pops open and it wants me to name my Quick Step.
- 00:41 I'm going to call it a Payroll Notice.
- 00:43 Now, this icon here just looks like a little symbol, but
- 00:45 it's actually an active button.
- 00:47 When I click that, I can now attach any little picture I want on this, and hit OK.
- 00:54 Now, I can choose an action.
- 00:55 You can have up to 12 actions in here.
- 00:57 So let's take a look.
- 00:58 I can file this into a folder, I can change the status of something,
- 01:03 I can flag a message, I can respond to it, create a new meeting, or
- 01:07 handle the conversation filing.
- 01:10 I'm going to go ahead and hit the Respond section, New Message.
- 01:13 Here we go, New Message.
- 01:15 So action number one, it's starting to format the message for me.
- 01:18 Who do you want to send this to?
- 01:20 So I'll click the To line.
- 01:22 And I can choose who's going to get this message and hit OK.
- 01:25 So everyone in my corporation.
- 01:27 Now, I haven't typed the message yet, so that's buried under the Show Options.
- 01:32 And now, what's the message title?
- 01:35 I'll just go ahead and drop in the message title.
- 01:38 Choose whether I want this to be a a flagged message on my account or
- 01:41 on the recipient's account, yes.
- 01:45 Do I want to set the importance?
- 01:47 No change at all.
- 01:48 And now the text of the message, and I'll drop that in.
- 01:52 Do I want to automatically send after one minute delay,
- 01:55 giving me time to make a quick change?
- 01:57 Generally, I might do that, but not right now, because I want to test everything.
- 02:01 The next thing I want to happen is another action.
- 02:03 After this gets sent, I want it to be filed in my GoSkills folder I've already
- 02:07 created on the left-hand side.
- 02:09 So I'll click the Add Action, choose an action, move this to a folder.
- 02:15 Which folder?
- 02:16 My GoSkills folder.
- 02:17 That's it for now.
- 02:19 I can also attach this to a shortcut key.
- 02:21 And on the tool tip, I can type in what I want to be reminded of what
- 02:25 this is when I float my mouse over the top of it, and finish.
- 02:30 Okay, now I just set up the Quick Step, I have not sent the email yet.
- 02:34 Take a look at the top, there I have Payroll Notice,
- 02:36 with my little smiley face icon.
- 02:38 I'm going to go ahead and click this.
- 02:40 A brand new email, already populated who it's going to, subject line written,
- 02:45 all the text written.
- 02:46 I just need to hit Send.
- 02:48 Here we go, hitting Send.
- 02:51 All right, I'll hit the Send/Receive button, because after it sends,
- 02:55 it's supposed to file itself back in my GoSkills folder.
- 02:58 Okay, let's go ahead and check.
- 03:00 Did it send and did it go in my folder?
- 03:02 Click, and there it is.
- 03:04 So the brand new email went out, got sent, and filed itself into my GoSkills folder.
- 03:09 I don't know about you, but that's a lot of saved steps.
- 03:13 That's called Quick Steps.
- 03:14 Go ahead and set one up.
- 03:15 Test it, make sure it's working for you, but
- 03:18 this is one of the best kept secrets in Outlook.
Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.