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About this lesson

This lesson will teach you how to apply advanced filters to screen and process your emails as they arrive.

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3.09, Rules and Alerts - Exercise.docx
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Quick reference

Rules and Alerts

Rules will automate email chores, such as auto-filing certain emails into folders.

When to use

When you find yourself repetitively moving emails into folders, set up a rule to do the work for you. 

Instructions

Create a rule in your inbox
  • On the Home ribbon, click Rules, Create Rule.

  • Or right-click an email and click Rules.

Select the conditions for your rule
  • There are 2 sections in the dialog box -"When I get an email..." and "Do the following..." - and you must choose both areas.
  • If choosing to Move the item, you must click the Select Folder button as shown below.

  • Choose the desired folder or create a new folder.
Run the Rule
  • You will have the option to activate the rule immediately. It is your choice and a good idea to make sure it works:

View all possible Rule options
  • On the Home ribbon, or when you right-click an email, click Rules, Manage Rules & Alerts.

  • Click New Rule and make your selections.

 

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  • 00:04 This lesson is about rules and alerts, which is basically automation.
  • 00:09 If we take a step back, we had a previous lesson about quick steps,
  • 00:13 which is automation as well.
  • 00:14 The difference is I have to come in here and manually click one of the steps,
  • 00:18 whereas with they're running in the background constantly automating anything
  • 00:23 I tell it to do.
  • 00:24 Okay, let's set one up.
  • 00:26 I'm going to go ahead on the Home ribbon halfway over into the Move group,
  • 00:31 click on Rules.
  • 00:32 I can create or manage rules.
  • 00:33 So I'll create and a new box pops up.
  • 00:37 I do want to point out that I've already flagged three emails that do have
  • 00:41 the word, material, in the subject line.
  • 00:44 Whether it's singular or plural, it has the word, material.
  • 00:46 So from this box, I can choose any of these six items, or
  • 00:51 I can choose Advanced Options.
  • 00:53 So I'll go ahead and do the short version here.
  • 00:57 Anything with a subject contains, and I'll type the word, materials,
  • 01:02 singular for material, then it'll catch any version of that word.
  • 01:06 And what do I want to happen?
  • 01:07 Display a new item, select a sound, or move.
  • 01:10 Yes, I want to move this, and up pops my inbox, and
  • 01:14 I want it to go into a folder called materials, which doesn't exist.
  • 01:19 So I don't have to cancel, because I have the button to add it right here.
  • 01:24 I'll type the name of the new folder.
  • 01:26 Confirm again that is going to the correct email box and inbox.
  • 01:30 Hit OK, hit OK, and I'm going to go ahead and
  • 01:34 click OK one more time and run it right here.
  • 01:37 So we're going to see a new Folder in my inbox, and
  • 01:41 those three emails should land in it.
  • 01:43 Clicking OK, and it just happened.
  • 01:46 It worked like a charm.
  • 01:48 All right, well, what if I want to tweak this a little bit or change it?
  • 01:51 Let's go back up to our Home ribbon,
  • 01:54 Rules, and now I can manage Rules and Alerts.
  • 01:58 And as you can see, there is the one I just made,
  • 02:00 I've got a couple other hanging out here.
  • 02:02 So I can run Rules now, I can change the rule, make a new one.
  • 02:07 If I want to change the rule, I can hit Edit Rule Settings, and
  • 02:12 now check this out.
  • 02:13 Look at this long list of anything you want to change.
  • 02:17 Now, the thing to watch out for in here is if you choose, like this one,
  • 02:22 with specific words in the body, you must come down to the bottom and
  • 02:26 hit that link with Specific Words.
  • 02:29 I can add that word to the list, click OK, then I can hit Next.
  • 02:34 And I could tell it to do one more thing, hit Next.
  • 02:38 I could create exceptions, hit Next.
  • 02:41 Turn this Rule on, and hit Finish, and Apply, and OK.
  • 02:46 Nothing met that expectation on the inbox, so everything's fine.
  • 02:51 Now just a minute, I have got an email ready to land in my inbox.
  • 02:56 So let me get that sent, and we'll watch it land.
  • 02:59 It should skip this entirely and go straight to my materials.
  • 03:03 Here we go.
  • 03:05 And it did, there it is, fantastic.
  • 03:08 So take some time, set up your rules and alerts and
  • 03:11 you'll amazed when they start filing themselves in your folders.
  • 03:15 It's such a huge time saver.

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