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Summary
In the combined Inbox environment, it can be difficult to distinguish emails from subsets of users. For example, emails from your advisees vs emails from your students. This article provides some information to help you manage your emails in the integrated Microsoft environment
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There are a couple of ways to help you manage your emails in this integrated environment.
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One of the easiest ways it to request that your students add a keyword or two in the subject line of the messages they send. For example: Eng101 – Questions about the group project; Advising – How do I register for my Fall classes. This allows you to do a quick visual scan of the messages in your inbox and for you to use the flag feature to mark or categorize the messages.
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You might choose to set-up rules and workflows in Outlook which is a bit complicated and works best in situations where the population of a group or subcategory of users is not likely to change often, as you would have to manage the memberships in those rules/work flows manually. If you chose to implement # 1 above, rules could also be leveraged to help you further manage how those messages were handled as they came into your inbox. More information about rules and filtering can be found here: Outlook: Filtering Email Messages Automatically using Rules
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If you have a Windows machine you might choose to download the Outlook Desktop client and leverage a feature called Outlook Quick Steps. Quick Steps apply multiple actions at the same time to email messages. This helps you quickly manage your mailbox. For example, if you frequently move messages to a specific folder, you can use a Quick Step to move the message in one click. Or, if you forward messages to your manager or peers, a one-click Quick Step can simplify the task. Unfortunately, this feature does not work in the web-based Outlook client and is not available for Mac users. More information about Outlook Quick Steps can be found here: Microsoft Support: Automate common or repetitive tasks with Quick Steps Information for downloading the Outlook Desktop client can be found here: Outlook: Set up your account in Outlook Desktop Application
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You might consider using Microsoft Teams as way to communicate with one or more of the sub-groups. Teams can be divided into channels by topic or modules and can be an easy way for you to send directed communications to the students in that Team. Depending upon how you set up your notifications, you can have teams alert you via email when a member of the team has posted or made an inquiry. You may also upload and share documents in a team which is great for group projects and shared documents. Additionally, Teams has an integrated chat feature which allows you to have a chat conversion with one or more students or colleagues. More information about teams can be found here: MS Teams: Accessing Microsoft Teams
Further Readings
Outlook: Filtering Email Messages Automatically using Rules
MS Teams: Accessing Microsoft Teams
Outlook: Set up your account in Outlook Desktop Application
Microsoft Support: Automate common or repetitive tasks with Quick Steps
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