Incoming Mail Organizer v4.0
Incoming Mail Organizer 4.0 is now in beta for Outlook 2010 (both 32-bit and 64-bit). It has a new feature that puts up a “Close And File” button into the ribbon that when pressed, will cause the email to close and the add-in will ask you where to file the email. You can find more on the add-in’s page at http://www.SperrySoftware.com/Outlook/Incoming-Mail-Organizer.asp.
Reply To All Monitor released out of beta
Reply To All Monitor (which prompts you before you make a mistake by replying to everyone) has passed our beta testing phase and is now released.
In addition, Quick Text Hotkeys was also released out of beta.
They both support Outlook 2010 in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.
Outlook 2010 64-bit
We’ve begun releasing Outlook 2010 64-bit versions of the add-ins. The add-ins are located on the Downloads page along with the 32-bit versions for Outlook 2010 and the older versions.
That said, I suddenly have a craving for everything 64-bit…it’s so fast. I mean, I’ve been using 64-bit versions of Windows 7 for about a year, but after having worked with 64-bit versions of Outlook 2010 over the last two weeks, I won’t be going back to Outlook 2007!
On a side note, the Outlook 2010 64-bit versions of the add-ins are now available on the downloads page (as free, fully functional 14 day trial versions).
More betas released!
We now have 26 Outlook 2010 betas in progress!
Three more Outlook add-ins (beta) available
Well, we tried to get a dozen, but but three more is better than zero! This week, we were able to add Quick Text Hotkeys (handy if you find yourself typing the same thing over and over, or for quick replies (as in click Reply, hit F5, click Send)), Insert Date/Time (useful for who’s modifying contacts in public folders), and Attachment Forget-Me-Not (which also checks for blank subjects). In an effort to keep our wishful thinking under control, we should get three more add-ins out next week, not a dozen. 
Outlook 2010 versions
We’re making great progress on our new Outlook 2010 versions - we now have a total of four add-ins available for testing, and we should get to about a dozen by the end of the week. This is due to the way Sperry Software add-ins all work - they depend on a framework (or engine) that performs the bulk of the operations any add-in is required to do. Once the issues regarding that framework are worked out, then we can start releasing the betas in quick succession. See the home page for the beta links if you’re interested.
Three Things You Don’t Want To Do When Emailing
There are really more than three things that we can think of to not include in an email - but these three top the list in terms of frequency or severity. In no particular order they are…
Don’t type when you’re angry
Typing while you’re still angry is no different than having an argument where the other person is not talking back - it’s not going to end well. Usually it’s best to cool off first…get a bite to eat or just wait 24 hours before you allow yourself to respond and when you come back, you can present a clear and logical presentation of your view.
Don’t gossip about co-workers
This rule could really be generalized to something like “Don’t put anything in email that you wouldn’t want your priest/rabbi/cleric to read.” In other words, stay away from non business matters because you don’t know who is reading your emails (besides your recipients) in an office environment.
Don’t put anything you don’t want to become public
Ask yourself this question before hitting send: What if everyone were to read this? Would it spell legal or moral issues? If you have any doubts, it takes just a few seconds to pick up the phone or go have a face to face meeting with someone.
As an aside, our Safeguard Send tool can be used to catch some of these occurrences by looking for, and flagging you when, phrases like these appear in the email: “I am so pissed at”, or “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this but”, or “Are we even allowed to do this?”. Find out more about Safeguard Send at http://www.SperrySoftware.com/Outlook/Safeguard-Send.asp.
In Defense of Email
From time to time, there’s always an article that proclaims a new technology as the demise of email.
Advances in cell phones, voice mail, instant messaging, RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Google Wave - they all have been proclaimed as email killers.
Facebook (and even Microsoft’s Sharepoint technology) have their place - facilitating the collaboration of groups and the collective wisdom to complete projects. Instant Messaging (and texting in general) allows for faster communications. These styles of working cannot easily be done over email.
But what would it take to really kill email? The new technology would have to have a rich set of tools (for the interface, searching, and backup), the ability to serve as a matter of public record (e.g., compliance with government regulations), and the ability to send messages one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many (among other requirements).
However, the most important function that email provides is the ability for you to leave a message for someone and later, at their own computer and their own leisure, have them read it. This concept is called “Store and Forward”.
So far, nothing beats the Store and Forward concept.
Granted, there have been other technologies (social networks in particular) that store your messages for reading later by an audience (in fact, Facebook (and others) have email systems built into them) but because email was “first to market” it has become entrenched like no other technology.
By the way, did you know that email is 38 years old this month? Ray Tomlinson is widely regarded as the first person to send an email from one computer to another (first to himself for testing, then later a message to his colleagues explaining how to use email).
Yes, email has been the killer app for 38 years and I’m guessing, the next 38. Happy birthday, email.
Mailtips in Outlook 2010
The Microsoft Outlook Office Team has been posting and previewing some of the changes that are coming with Outlook 2010. There’s come pretty cool stuff coming down the pike! One in particular has us pretty excited - the feature called MailTips. Mailtips provides a functionality somewhat similar to our Safeguard Send, or our Attachment Forget-Me-Not add-ins. We think that this will go a long way to making sure that you are more productive than ever with email.
Recently we had a customer ask if we thought if Microsoft is stepping on our toes with the new Mailtips feature. After considering it, we decided that the answer is no. Here’s why:
Mailtips and our add-ins do not directly overlap - there are some features in Mailtips that are useful and not in any of our products (Moderated Contact Group, Invalid Recipient Address, Message Too Large For Recipient for instance). There are features that are in both (Restricted Recipient, Large Number of Recipients, External Recipient). Then there are the features that are only in our products (missing attachments, missing subjects, warn when using certain keywords).
In addition, our add-ins do not require Microsoft Exchange Server and they work in older versions (Outlook 2000 and higher).
So no, we do not think Microsoft is stepping on our toes, in fact we recommend moving to Outlook 2010 as soon as possible and think our add-ins will make a great compliment to your email platform.
Worst Email Mistakes
Recently, The Creative Group published a list of some of the mistakes that managers admitted to making. Note that these are just the ones they admit to; we have a feeling that there are many more that never see the light of day. Nonetheless, in the bullet list of 13 descriptions of gaffes 9 of them (at least by our count) could have been prevented with one of our add-ins:
“Someone sent out confidential salary information to the whole firm.”
Safeguard Send has a keyword filter and warns you when you send out an email with words like “salary information”, or “salary figures”.
“Someone made a nasty comment about a supervisor and it was sent to the supervisor by mistake. It eventually led to dismissal.”
Although the author didn’t say how this happened, it easily could have been from clicking a “Reply To All” - this could ahve been prevented with the Reply To All Monitor which simply puts a prompt like “Are you sure you want to reply to everyone?”
“A person called another employee an idiot in an e-mail to everyone in the company.”
This definitely could have been prevented with the Reply To All Monitor.
“One of our vendors accidentally e-mailed me information about their sales performance, so I gained some inside knowledge about that vendor.”
“We sent an e-mail to a client that was meant for a vendor. It made it difficult when the client had seen our costs.”
“Confidential information about one client was sent to a different client. It was certainly embarrassing.” Safeguard Send will optionally prompt you when you are sending an email outside the company, or to certain people. In all these cases above, it could have helped by alerting the sender that they were sending the email to a client - giving the sender a chance to think before sending.
“Someone crafted a scathing, sarcastic e-mail about a customer and did not mean to hit ’send.’ It caused problems.”
Here we have case where an add-in might not be as helpful as simply adding a delay to your Send/Receive time. Doing this causes your emails to sit for a few minutes in your Outbox so that if you think of anything else before the email goes out (like what being professional means to you) you can catch it and edit it. (Note: to implement the delay, go into Outlook, then to Tools…Options…Mail Setup. Uncheck the box that says “Send immediately when connected”. )
“I once sent an internal memo about restroom etiquette to a prospective client by accident.”
As soon as the words “accident” and “internal memo” show up in the same sentence, our ears perk up because it’s usually a case that our aforementioned Reply To All Monitor can help.
“Someone sent me a copy of an employee’s bank records by mistake.”
Safeguard Send, with it’s ability to warn when you are sending an email outside the company (in this case the bank) would have helped here.
Over and over again, each day many email mistakes are made - let us help you to not make one of them!
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