Saving to Drafts vs Automatic Delay

We recently launched a new Outlook addon, SendGuard 4Outlook. During our morning walk I tried to explain SendGuard's Automatic Delay feature to my wife … to which she replied … sounds like a waste of time to me … why not just save it to the Drafts folder and then send it when you are ready.

Waste of Time???? Now that I have cooled off, I hope that this post will make the benefits of Automatic Delay clearer to my wife (and to any others who may be wondering why they should bother)

What is Automatic Delay?
SendGuard 4Outlook can automatically delay all emails (or selected emails or emails to selected addresses) for a preset time. This means that after you click Send on an email, it will sit in your Outbox for the preset time before getting sent out.

Why Automatic Delay?
Have you ever written an overly sentimental or aggressive email that you wished you could call back?

I have … and most times I realised it within a few seconds of the email being sent. Within a few seconds of the email going out I think …. What have I done???

Saving to Drafts vs Automatic Delay
My wife is absolutely right. You could save your email to the drafts folder and then send it out later.

The reality however is that this is not the way most people work. We write our emails, click Send and move on to the next email.

Even if we changed our method of working, we would then need to remember to go to the Drafts folder periodically to send out all our unsent email(s).

With Automatic Delay … the emails get sent out automatically … unless you change your mind.

What else does SendGuard do?
Automatic Delay is only one of the ways in which SendGuard protects you. SendGuard will:

* Warn you if you forgot to attach a file to an email
* Warn you if you try and send an email with an empty subject
* Warn you if you clicked Reply (instead of Reply-to-All)
* Warn you if you clicked Reply-to-All (instead of Reply)
* Ensure that you use the correct email account for each person you communicate with.

INTRODUCTORY DISCOUNT
As part of our launch Save 25% if you purchase SendGuard 4Outlook before October 31st.

Common (Costly) Emailing Mistakes in Outlook and How to Prevent Them

If you are running a business, particularly a professional business, these seemingly small errors can make you look unprofessional and waste precious billable time.

Please raise your hand if you ever:

-- Forgot to attach a document to an email message.
-- Clicked Reply when you meant Reply-All or vice-versa.
-- Forgot to write a subject.
-- Emailed someone using the wrong email address (for those of us with more than one email address).
-- Fired off an angry message that you later regretted.

Our latest Microsoft Outlook addin, SendGuard 4Outlook, protects you from all these mistakes by automatically warning you if it detects the possibility of any of the above mistakes (and more).

SendGuard even gives you a way of changing your mind about an email after you have clicked Send.

SendGuard works inside Outlook and times no time to learn - you continue to write and send your emails the same way you always have. SendGuard will automatically warn you and let you take corrective action if it detects a mistake.

You can download a fully functional 30 Day Trial of SendGuard from:
http://www.Addins4Outlook.com/SendGuard

SendGuard 4Outlook works with Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007.

If you like it, buy it by October 31st and receive a 25% discount.

Changing your mind AFTER sending your email

I haven't had time to write a post in the last week because we have been busy putting the finishing touches to a new Outlook addin.

This Outlook addin, like most of our products, started off as a solution that we needed ourselves. I have been using a rough form of the addin for a long time and the polished version is almost ready for launch.

I won't give away exact details just yet but (very) briefly ... the new Outlook add-on does automatic checks as you are writing and sending your emails to ensure that they get sent to the correct people with all the required information.

It even gives you a way to change your mind AFTER you click Send.

Has this ever happened to you?

You're having a particularly stressful day and receive an email that nudges you over the edge. The content of the email on its own was not particularly bad ... but combined with everything else that has been happening during the day ...

So one poor person gets a reply from you that is totally disproportional to his original email ... he pays the price for everyone who has been spoiling your day so far.

A minute later you realise that your undiplomatic (and probably unprofessional) reply could come back and cost you dearly.

If there was only someway you could stop that email!

Our new Outlook addin provides a solution for this and many other issues that make your outgoing emails look unprofessional.

Keep your eye out for another post in the next few days announcing the new Outlook addon.

In the meantime, if you're writing any email in a bad mood … don't click Send when you're done.

Click Save instead to save it to your Drafts folder. When you're in a better frame of mind, go back to your Drafts folder, read through and amend the email as needed ... and then click Send.

Tip: Getting File and Folder Paths

One of the things that Microsoft (for some reason) did not implement in Windows ... an easy way to get the full filename (inlcuding the path) of a file. Here are the two quickest ways I know to do this:

In Windows 2000 and XP (and Vista).

Open Explorer and navigate to the file that you are interested in.

Click Start-Run to display the Run dialog box.
Click Delete to empty whatever is currently displayed in the Run box.

Now drag and drop the file (or folder) from the Explorer window into the Run box.

The above tip will also work in Vista if you have configured Vista to have the Run command as part of the Start menu. However Vista also has another even easier method ...

In Windows Vista

Press and hold down the Shift Key and right-click over the file (or folder) you are interested in. Choose Copy as Path and Vista will copy the path to the clipboard.

You can now paste (CTRL-V) the path anywhere you want.

Why Microsoft chose to hide this option by requiring us to press Shift, I'll never know.