Make sure the Subject of your email is right for the recipient

There was a big jump in sales for SendGuard over the last month so this month's product tip is for SendGuard.

We did a survey last year to see what annoyed people about emails they received. Number 1 on the list was MISLEADING SUBJECTS… and most of the time the misleading subject was an accident.

First an explanation… a common cause for incorrect Subjects is… I need to send an email to someone who is not in my contact list… I find an email from them and click Reply… I type my new message but I FORGET TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT.

The contents of my new email have absolutely nothing to do with the original Subject!

How does SendGuard protect you from this… anytime you do a reply on an old email, SendGuard will ask you if you want to change the Subject.

How old is an old email… that's up to you. You can decide on how old the email has to be before the prompt will be triggered. SendGuard's default is 28 days and that works well for me.

To turn on this feature and/or to change the number of days:

Go to your Inbox.
Click Tools-Standss-SendGuard-Settings.
Click on the Subject Guard tab.

Change the appropriate settings and click OK.

Do you think this is a useful feature? Let us know by leaving a comment on the blog.

Outlook To Do Lists for the Disorganized: Use Emails instead of Tasks

Need to make sure that you get something done… EMAIL YOURSELF! This works much better for me then putting it on a Task List. Why? Like many people my Inbox acts as my real (or at least more immediate) Task List.

Here are some ways to get the most out of this super easy tip.

1. Basic Way: Just Email yourself when you need to remember to do something.

2. Need to follow up on an email that you are sending out to a client: BCC yourself on the email and a copy will end up in your Inbox.

3. From your BlackBerry or other email-enabled phone: This is my FAVOURITE. It means that I can update my To Do List from anywhere… I'm at the supermarket and remember that I need to call a client on Monday… easy… I create and send a email from my phone… and I can get back to chasing my 4 year old down the candy aisle.

Did you find this tip useful? Do you have your own creative ways of applying this tip. Leave a comment on the blog.

Other blog for this week:
Make sure the Subject of your email is right for the recipient

Use SendGuard for Outlook to avoid sending emails to the Wrong People

In my earlier post Why and how you may want to turn off Auto-Complete I wrote about how someone accidentally leaked confidential details to a New York Times reporter. If you deal with a lot of confidential information, here's another way you can make Outlook warn you when you send out emails.

SendGuard for Outlook will prompt you when you send out an email to anyone (or to selected recipients).

Assuming that you actually look at the message, instead of blindly clicking Yes, this simple prompt could save you a lot of embarrassment.

Do I use this feature myself? No.. The majority of the emails I send don't really have confidential information… I still use SendGuard for Reply and Reply/All warnings, missing attachment warnings, Subject Warnings and Clean-Up etc.

Your situation may be different if you send out a lot of confidential emails… still having the message come up for all emails may be a bit annoying.

In that case, you can also configure SendGuard to only prompt you on emails sent to particular people (for example your boss or your most important clients... or news reporters).

Go to your Inbox.
On the main menu, click Tools-Standss-SendGuard-Settings.

Select the Send Confirm tab.
Click Display message for only these email addresses.
Click Add and use the screen that comes up to add an email address. Repeat for as many addresses as you need to add .

Your criteria for choosing people to add to the list should be:

1. People whose emails must be worded correctly (e.g. important clients)
2. People to whom you don't want to accidentally send the wrong emails

Do you find this feature of SendGuard useful? Tell us what you think by leaving a comment.

Related Posts:
Why and how you may want to turn off Auto-Complete?

Why and how you may want to turn off Auto-Complete?

I like the Auto-Complete feature in Outlook. I like typing a few characters of an email address and then having Outlook give me a quick list to pick from based on the characters that I typed in. It saves me a lot of time… but it can also create problems too.

For example… a few days ago I needed to send an email to Anand Kumar… I was in a rush and accidentally picked and sent the email to Anand Singh instead… luckily for me the email did not contain any confidential information.

On the other hand, this lady wasn't so lucky...

The emailer higlighted in Lilly’s $1 Billion E-Mailstrom accidentally sent a confidential memo to a New York Times reporter (whose name was very similar to that of the intended recipient)… and they published a story on it.

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/02/05/Eli-Lilly-E-Mail-to-New-York-Times

I have to admit… this lady had the absolute WORST luck… it's bad enough to send an email to the wrong person but what are the chances that the one email you mis-send has highly confidential information… and it ends up in the Inbox of a New York Times news reporter.

How to avoid this mistake… IF it is important enough to you.

I like Auto-Complete and I don't think the contents of most of my emails need me to take any drastic steps. However if you deal with a lot of confidential information then you may want to turn off Auto-Complete in Outlook.

On the Outlook menu, click Tools-Options.
Click the Email Options button.
Click the Advanced Email Options button.
Clear the tick next to Suggest names while completing To, CC, and BCC fields.
If you're really paranoid you may also want to clear the tick next to Automatic Name Checking.
Click OK. Click OK. Click OK.

Like I said earlier… my emails don't contain any highly confidential information and I'm happy to leave these settings on. Your situation may be different…

If you want an additional level of protection, you may also want to check out Use SendGuard for Outlook to avoid sending emails to the wrong people.

Do you have your own horror stories of mis-sent emails that you can share. Leave a comment on the blog.

Related Posts:
Outlook Auto-Complete Tips
Use SendGuard for Outlook to avoid sending emails to the Wrong People

SendGuard Tip: Avoid False Attachment Warnings

SendGuard 4Outlook warns you if the text of your email indicates that you meant to attach a file …. and you then tried to send the email without attaching anything to it. We recently updated SendGuard to avoid SendGuard warnings due to "original messages", signatures and disclaimers..

These changes were implemented in version 1.0.33 of SendGuard.

If you are a registered user, your existing unlock code will be picked up automatically after installation. User of the trial version will be given up to 5 extra days to test the software.

Download and install SendGuard 4Outlook Version 1.0.33
Learn more about SendGuard

False Attachment Warnings

SendGuard may display false attachment warnings if:

1. You are replying to an email and the original email has words in it that trigger the warning message. As of Version 1.033 the text of the original message will be ignored so this is no longer a problem.
2. You have words in your signature (or disclaimer) that trigger the warning message. There is now an easy way to tell SendGuard to ignore your signature or disclaimer.

How to tell SendGuard to not check Signatures and Disclaimers

Open an email which has your Signature or Disclaimer in it and copy it to the clipboard. (Select the text and press CTRL-C).

Go to your Inbox.
(On the menu) Click Addins4Outlook-SendGuard-Settings. The Settings screen will be displayed.
Click the Attachment/Subject Guard tab.
Click "Advanced Settings (Avoid false triggers of Attachment Guard)"
Tick the check box labelled "Ignore words …"
Paste the Signature/Disclaimer in the text box/field on the screen. (press CTRL-V)
Click Save.

Another Solution… the Attachment warning does not get displayed because all my emails have my vCard attached to it.

Although not very common, some users configure Outlook to automatically attach their Business Card (vCard) to all outgoing emails. As a result the warnings don't get triggered.

Here's how you can configure SendGuard to ignore your vCard i.e. not count it is an attachment.

Go to your Inbox.
(On the menu) Click Addins4Outlook-SendGuard-Settings. The Settings screen will be displayed.
Click the Attachment/Subject Guard tab.
Click "Advanced Settings (Avoid false triggers of Attachment Guard)"
Tick the check box labelled "Ignore attachments with specific names"
Enter the name of your vCard file in the space provided (e.g. name.vcf).
Click Save.