Any Outlook/IT Whizzkids out there??

[Mudball]

Final question first - because I'm an old-fashioned kinda gal and they don't deserve me. I've doubled my hours to help and am working like a dog...I've been there 28 years though and used to manage the function so can't stand seeing it in such a state.

So the main sort HAS to be date order as we deal with oldest first which is the major parameter. If the oldest order was placed on 8th June and then on the 20th the customer changed it then we need to know when we process the email from the 8th that somewhere above that is an updated version. Does that make sense? We (me mainly) are going through the emails as they come in so we catch any that aren't brand new orders. Those that aren't I find the older email and the system they had use was just to red flag them all but that doesn't distinguish one from another.

Today I started to categorise them by colour. So when said order from the 8th is processed the operator just needs to sort by category to find any later amendments.

I think I can use the same colours but call them something different to set more separate categories??

Perhaps someone who has replied here can answer that one.

Maybe 'Sort' is the wrong word.. How are you linking the emails? As i understood, sorting is easy, you can click on 'sort by date'.. The key here is linking. Hence the question.. Do they all have Cust ID, or from same email address, or Order #... There must be a way in which all the emails are related. You probably have this working in ur head already, just need to write it down as a set of 'rules' ... These rules can then be put into Outlook to move things around.


Something to chew over the weekend >> https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/create-a-rule-in-outlook--cms-30424

 

[AmandaJR]

Maybe 'Sort' is the wrong word.. How are you linking the emails? As i understood, sorting is easy, you can click on 'sort by date'.. The key here is linking. Hence the question.. Do they all have Cust ID, or from same email address, or Order #... There must be a way in which all the emails are related. You probably have this working in ur head already, just need to write into a rule.

Many will have come from the same email address or may have most of the subject the same. Others will originate as a fax and they all come from the same "sender" with the same "subject" which I guess is the software that converts the fax to a pdf and email. So customers might email and fax about the same order.

Does that make sense?

The current system is once the search has been done in all outstanding items to find the emails to link they are flagged red "to do". But as ALL emails with more than one message have been flagged it alerts there is something else to locate but they aren't unique. Hence trying using a colour category to uniquely link them.

 

[Mudball]

Many will have come from the same email address or may have most of the subject the same. Others will originate as a fax and they all come from the same "sender" with the same "subject" which I guess is the software that converts the fax to a pdf and email. So customers might email and fax about the same order.

Does that make sense?

The current system is once the search has been done in all outstanding items to find the emails to link they are flagged red "to do". But as ALL emails with more than one message have been flagged it alerts there is something else to locate but they aren't unique. Hence trying using a colour category to uniquely link them.

So you could do in several steps
1) Create folder for each of your 'Customers' ... JoeBloggs Company. Move all emails from anyone@JoeBloggs.com to that folder
2) Within that folder, you can use the categorisation/colouring technique...

...

 

[rulefan]

1) Put all the related emails into a subfolder. That however takes them out of the inbox and loses your date order.

Are you sure? I move many of my incoming emails from my inbox to a topic specific sub-folder and they maintain the date order.

 

[YandaB]

Are you sure? I move many of my incoming emails from my inbox to a topic specific sub-folder and they maintain the date order.

They will keep their dates in the sub folder ok but I don't see how you can then easily compare their dates to all the ones in the other sub folders.

 

[rulefan]

They will keep their dates in the sub folder ok but I don't see how you can then easily compare their dates to all the ones in the other sub folders.

Example:

If the sub-folders are 'organisation' related are you saying that the messages from different 'organisations' need to be related by topic (say)?
So you have multiple cross referencing requirements?

 

[YandaB]

Example:

If the sub-folders are 'organisation' related are you saying that the messages from different 'organisations' needto be related by topic (say)?
So you have multiple cross referencing requirements?

That was my understanding from Amanda's description. They need to process things in date order and also relate messages together that might have different senders and or subjects..