Color Code Your E-mails Advanced

This guide handles advanced color coding settings and is good for when you’ve used color coding before. If you are new to color coding press here for the basics.

If the basic color coding options discussed in Color Code Your Email is to limited for you this guide will probably help you on your way creating color for practically every query you might think of.

Some general information about the automatic formatting.

• You can access the Automatic Formatting in Outlook 2003 by going to View-> Arrange By-> Custom…-> button Automatic Formatting. Here you’ll also see the View Rules created by default and (if any) created in the Color Code Your Email guide.
  For previous versions of Outlook it is under View-> Current View-> Custom…
• You can sort the rules by using the “Move Up” and “Move Down” buttons. The higher listed rules takes precedence over the lower ones
• The formatting of the name is very tricky. Your contact name must be saved with the name that is displayed in the from field when you receive a message from him/her. Better is to create the rule based on the e-mail address. If you are in an Exchange environment you can simply add the names listed in the Global Address Book of your company
• The Automatic Formatting only applies to the folder where the formatting is created
• If the rule doesn’t do what you expect it to do once created you might want to try to remove or even isolate statements (by creating a separate rule for that statement) to find out where things go wrong
   
• Do not add to much color to your mailbox or the organising effect gets lost but you’ll be left with a nice rainbow though

I’ll explain the advanced color editing by the following examples/ideas. The examples are getting more advanced each time so when you’ve practised them all you should be able to handle it as a pro because in contradiction with the basic coloring you are not limited to these examples;

• Color code messages by words in the message
• Color code messages by Category
• Color code messages when the message is larger than 1MB and contains specific words
• Color code messages received today addressed directly to me coming from specific persons
• Color code messages that have a receipt request and is considered confidential
• Color code a meeting request where you have not yet responded to

Color code messages by words in the message

1. Go to Automatic Formatting…
2. Press the Add… button
3. Give the rule a name
4. Press the Condition… button
5. In the “Search for the word(s)” field add the words Automatic Formatting should respond on
6. By the “In” dropdown list you can specify whether to look in Subject, Subject and Body or common mail fields (like From or Category)
7. Press OK
8. Press the Font… button to specify how the messages that correspond to the conditions you just set are displayed. Press OK when you are done.
9. Press OK to leave Automatic Formatting. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created

Color code messages by Category

1. Go to Automatic Formatting…
2. Press the Add… button
3. Give the rule a name
4. Press the Condition… button
5. Press the More Choices tab
6. Press the Categories… button
7. Select the categories you want to Automatic Formatting to respond to. To instantly add a Category press the Master Category List… button type the name of the new category and press the Add button. When you are done selecting categories press OK.
8. Press OK
9. Press the Font… button to specify how the messages that correspond to the conditions you just set are displayed. Press OK when you are done.
10. Press OK to leave Automatic Formatting. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created

Color code messages when the message is larger than 1MB and contains specific words

1. Go to Automatic Formatting…
2. Press the Add… button
3. Give the rule a name
4. Press the Condition… button
5. In the “Search for the word(s)” field add the words Automatic Formatting should respond on
6. By the “In” dropdown list you can specify whether to look in Subject, Subject and Body or common mail fields (like From or Category)
7. Press the More Choices tab
8. At the bottom in the Size frame press the down arrow where now “Doesn’t matter” is displayed and set it to “Greater than”
9. One text area will become active now. In this window type 1024 (1024 kilobytes is 1MB)
10. Press OK
11. Press the Font… button to specify how the messages that correspond to the conditions you just set are displayed. Press OK when you are done.
12. Press OK to leave Automatic Formatting. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created

Color code messages received today addressed directly to me coming from specific persons

1. Go to Automatic Formatting…
2. Press the Add… button
3. Give the rule a name
4. Press the Condition… button
5. At the bottom next to Time press the down arrow where now “none” is displayed and set it to “received”
6. The dropdown list next to “received” will now become active and is set to “anytime” by default. Set this to “today”
7. In the Sent To… field type your e-mail address. If you’ve got more than one e-mail address configured in Outlook you can enter here more than one e-mailaddress. make sure you divide them with an ” ; “. Example; address1@domain1.com; address2@domain.com; address1@domain2.com. Please mind the rules about using the Sent To… button; read them here.
8. In the From… field type the addresses of the people you want Automatic Formatting to respond to. Again; mind the rules about using the From… button
9. Press OK
10. Press the Font… button to specify how the messages that correspond to the conditions you just set are displayed. Press OK when you are done.
11. Press OK to leave Automatic Formatting. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created

Color code messages that have a receipt request and is considered confidential

1. Go to Automatic Formatting…
2. Press the Add… button
3. Give the rule a name
4. Press the Condition… button
5. Press the tab Advanced
6. Press the Field button
7. Navigate to and select All Mail Fields-> Receipt Requested
8. You’ll now see “Receipt Request” in the text box under Field and next to it (under Condition) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “equals to” and next to that (under Value) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “no”. Set this value to “yes”
9. Press the “Add to List” button. The statement is now added to the “Find items that match these criteria:” window
10. Again press the Field button
11. Navigate to and select Frequently-used fields-> Sensitivity
12. You’ll now see “Sensitivity” in the text box under Field and next to it (under Condition) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “equals to” and next to that (under Value) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “normal”. Set this value to “confidential”
13. Press the “Add to List” button. The statement is now added to the “Find items that match these criteria:” window so you’ll now see both statements just created.
14. Press OK
15. Press the Font… button to specify how the messages that correspond to the conditions you just set are displayed. Press OK when you are done.
16. Press OK to leave Automatic Formatting. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created

Color code a meeting request where you have not yet responded to

1. Go to Automatic Formatting…
2. Press the Add… button
3. Give the rule a name
4. Press the Condition… button
5. Press the tab Advanced
6. Press the Field button
7. Navigate to and select Appointment-> Meeting Status
8. You’ll now see “Meeting Status” in the text box under Field and next to it (under Condition) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “equals to” and next to that (under Value) you’ll see a dropdown list set to “Meeting organizer”. Set this value to “not yet responded”
9. Press the “Add to List” button. The statement is now added to the “Find items that match these criteria:” window
10. Press OK
11. Press the Font… button to specify how the messages that correspond to the conditions you just set are displayed. Press OK when you are done.
12. Press OK to leave Automatic Formatting. Your rule will apply immediately to al messages already received which correspond to the rule just created

Well that should be it! You are now able to create rules with combined types of conditions. Again; If the rule doesn’t do what you expect it to do once created you might want to try to remove or even isolate statements (by creating a separate rule for that statement) to find out where things go wrong.