Administrative Arts » Software

Ask the Admin: Making Tasks Private

Jodith — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:00:00 +0000

I got this e-mail from Marcie:

I am trying, for the first time to set a task in Outlook 2010. I would like the task to recur hourly, starting at 8:am and ending at 5:pm, every weekday. This reminder is to remind me to drink 8 oz. of water. My calendar is viewable by my 2 Directors and 3 Academic Coordinators, and even though I’m sure none of us personally care how much water I consume, I just don’t want to place it on my calendar, one of the coordinators, is on Atkins and has her snack times 10:30a & 3:00p visible on her calendar as a recurring appointment every day. I just don’t want my water consumption to show up like that on my calendar. Can you offer an advise?

Thanks for the question, Marcie. Since tasks don’t show on your calendar, using the task function is a good way to go. It’s fairly easy to set a task to private, so only you see it. Others who have access to your tasks can see that there is a task, but won’t be able to see what it is.

Open the New Task window. On the left hand side of the tool bar, under the Tasks tab, you’ll see a button called “Private”. Click that to toggle privacy on and off for that particular task.

As for setting an hourly task, I answered that question previously. Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy way to do it. Click here to read my post on setting hourly tasks.Similar Posts:

How To Find Your Electronic Files Faster

Jodith — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

In Part 5 of Setting Up a Filing System, I said I’d show you how to set up Windows Explorer to help you find your files faster. Many of you may know Windows Explorer as My Computer, since that is the name Windows gives the shortcut.

Windows Explorer Default View

The default view of files in Windows Explorer is the Icon view (click on the thumbnail to see in full size).

This view has a number of disadvantages:

Each file takes up more room on the page, so you have to scroll more to see all the files.
The files are alphabetized from right to left and then down. Your eye spends more time moving back and forth looking for the file you want, especially if you aren’t completely sure of the name of the file.
The only information you get is the file name and what program the file was created in, and that only if you recognize the icon.
If you have a long file name, it gets truncated, and you can only see the entire file name by clicking on the individual file.

Windows Explorer Detail View

Some people like the icon view, but I personally loathe it. The first thing I do on a new computer is to open Windows Explorer and change to the Detail view.

The things I like about the Detailed view are:

Files are alphabetized top to bottom, so there’s no side to side scanning.
You see the file size and date modified in addition to the name and file type.
You can easily change the column widths to see the entire file name.
Most importantly, you can change the sort order. Just click on the name at the top of a column to sort by that criteria. For instance, if you know the file you want was changed yesterday, click on the Date Modified column to sort by that date. If you know the file type is pdf, click on the Type heading to sort by file type. If you have a folder with many files, this can be very handy.

Changing the View in Windows Explorer

Changing the view in Windows Explore is quite simple. On the tool bar, there is a button that looks like a generic Windows icon. Click on that button to get a drop down list of available Views. Click on your preferred view. As I said earlier, my favorite view is the Detail view. Windows 7 note: You change the view the same way except that the button is on the right side of the tool bar.

Now, this only changes the view of the particular folder you are currently looking at. In order to change the default view in Windows Explorer, you need to take one more step.

Click on “Tools” on the menu bar and choose “Folder Options”. Then, in the Folder Options dialogue box, click on the View tab, and then on the “Apply to All Folders” button. This will change your default view.

Using the detail view in Windows Explorer will help you find the files you need faster.Similar Posts:

How to Share a Distribution List in Outlook

Jodith — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:59:00 +0000

If you’re like me, you’re always creating different distribution lists to ease regular e-mailing. I’ll have them for my boss’s direct reports, for his Chamber of Commerce contacts, for the Board of a non-profit he’s on. Invariably, someone will realize I have the list and want to use it. Sharing a private distribution list is actually quite easy.

Open Microsoft Outlook, then open a new message.
Open your Contacts in Outlook.
Arrange your windows so that you can see both the new message and your contacts list.
Drag the Distribution List from your Contacts to the new message, and send the message to the person who needs the list.

When the person receives the e-mail, all they need to do is reverse Step 4. Drag the Distribution List from the e-mail to the Contacts list.

That’s it. I told you it was easy.

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Ask the Admin: Advice on Calendar and Travel

Jodith — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Yes, we have another Ask the Admin e-mail today. This one is from Beatriz.

I have worked as Personal Assistant/ Companion for the last seven years?

I have never worked with calendars and extensive travel arrangements.

Which books or websites do you recommend for learning how to manage

Calendars and do extensive travel arrangements?

Hi, Beatriz. Thank for your question.

Administrative Assistants have a number of places they can turn to learn new skills. This blog is one of them. I’ve written a number of times on both of these subjects. If you look at the categories on the right, you’ll find a breakdown of topics. Choose Travel for travel arrangement posts, and Microsoft Outlook for various topics on Outlook (I’m assuming you use Outlook as it’s the most prevalent calendaring software being used in offices). I wrote two post specifically about managing the boss’s calendar: Managing Calendars: More Ways to Keep the Boss Productive and Managing Calendars Part 2: Scheduling More Than Meetings.

Other places to find information and get advice include OfficeArrow and AdminSecret. For specific training on Outlook, Microsoft offers some great free tutorials.

As for books, Amazon has any number of books on Microsoft Outlook (affiliate link). I hesitate to recommend any one book because I haven’t used any of them.

If you have more specific questions, just leave a comment here and I’ll help any way I can. Thanks again for your question.

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Ask the Admin: Outlook Appointment Properties

Jodith — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

We have another question today, this one from Sheila.

Hi Jodith

Is there a way in Microsoft outlook if you right click on properties for an appointment that you can see who created the appointment and when it was last edited and by whom?

If there is a way to do that I would create a monument in your honor! Seriously!

Hi, Sheila. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to earn your monument, because I can’t give your the “who” in your question. My understanding from perusing the Microsoft Tech Boards is that if your calendar resides in the default calendar location, and whose doesn’t, then the property for created and/or modified by will always be your name, regardless of who actually sent it. So even if you were up to coding a custom calendar view, which is required to get this information, it wouldn’t do you any good unless you have a custom calendar set up.

Finding the Created and Modified Dates

I can, however, help you find the created date and last modified date. The last modified date is easiest because it is in the appointment properties. Open your appointment and click on the Windows button (in 2007) or the File menu (in 2003) and choose ”Properties”. The last modified field is located there.

Finding the creation date is a bit more difficult. Click on “View” and then “Current View” and then “By Category”. Then click on “View”, “Current View”, and then “Customize Current View”.

Click on the “Fields” button. Then, under “Frequently Used Fields”, you should see “Created”. This is the field that tells you when an appointment was created. Click on it and click the “Add” button. Then click “OK”, and then “OK” again. This will insert the “Created” field into this view, so you can look up the created time in this view. Unfortunately, you can’t add it to other views unless you know how to do custom coding.

Sorry I couldn’t help more. You can always talk to your IT team and see if they can do some coding for you to create a custom form for appointments to show who created it and made revisions. And, of course, you would need a custom location for your calendars, which they could also help you with.

Talk To Microsoft

My main suggestion is give feedback to Microsoft on 2010, which is still in beta, to have these fields correctly added to the properties form in 2010. I know you aren’t the first person who has wanted this. Pretty much every assistant working in an Exchange environment has wished for this at one time or another. If enough of us ask for it, they might add it in. The best place I could find to do that is in the Beta Forums. You’ll need to register, but it’s worth it. The Microsoft forums is a great place to find answers to your Office questions.

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Ask the Admin: Recurring Hourly Tasks in Outlook

Jodith — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:00:07 +0000

I had a request from a reader about setting up recurring tasks in Outlook on an hourly basis. I know of only two options, both of which are workarounds. After doing some Google searches, I haven’t found anything else better, though.

Use the Snooze Button

The first option is to set a daily recurring task starting first thing in the morning. When your reminder pops up, set the snooze time for 1 hour. Then, throughout the day, whenever the reminder pops up, just keep snoozing it for an hour at a time. At the end of the day, remember to mark the task complete so you get the next task popping up the next morning. This isn’t the most precise option, since you may not see it immediately when it pops up, but it is the easiest to set up. If you need to set your reminder for an hour after the last one, it works well. If, however, you need to have your reminders at precise times, then try the next option.

Multiple Recurring Tasks

If you need your reminders to occur at precise times, then the other option is to set up a recurring task for each time of the day that you need a reminder. It takes longer to set up, because you have to set up multiple tasks, but you’ll get your reminders precisely on time. For example, if you need to be reminded of a task on the hour between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., then you’ll set up 10 separate recurring tasks, each with a reminder for one of the hours (8 a.m, 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., etc., etc., etc.). The set up is annoying, but you’ll get your reminders at the precise times you need them. Again, remember to mark each task complete so you get the task to reoccur the next day.

Software Workarounds

Remember, no software will ever have all of the options you’d like. Sometimes you have to use your ingenuity to make software do what you need. When you need a piece of software to do something it isn’t designed to do, stop and think about what the software does do, and how the software works. Often you can come up with what the tech folks call “workarounds”. Essentially, you use the software to do the job the software isn’t designed to do, as we did above with the recurring tasks in Outlook. Being able to come up with workarounds when you need them can make using your software a much less frustrating task.Similar Posts:

Learn Office 2007 with Ribbon Hero

Jodith — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:00:45 +0000

One of the biggest problems with Office 2007 is that the interface of the programs is very different from previous versions of Office. Tasks you can usually do with your eyes closed have become absurdly hard in 2007 simply because we have to relearn the interface. Once you figure out the interface, you’ll find that Office 2007 is really a great set of programs, but you might pull your hair out learning it.

Well, the folks at Microsoft have finally come up with a way to help us learn the new interface. It’s called Office Ribbon Hero, and it’s a game to help you learn the 2007 interface and new functionality. It installs seamlessly with all of your Office programs, and you earn points just through doing your every day work. However, you can also complete the “challenges” within Ribbon Hero to go through tutorials teaching you the new interface.

Office Hero is still in beta, and it has a few bugs (some challenges don’t update properly), but I’ve really enjoyed playing and learning some really great functionality that I didn’t even know existed in Word 2007. I’ve played through most of the challenges in Word 2007, and I’m looking forward to playing in the other Office programs as well. If the game is popular, Microsoft is planning to release new content and challenges for it in the future, to help you lean to use more advanced functions in the Office Suite of programs.

If you want to learn the ins and outs of Office 2007, download and install Office Ribbon Hero. Remember, it’s important to keep your software skills top notch, especially in today’s challenging employment environment.

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How to Organize the Boss’s E-mail

Jodith — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:00:15 +0000

Often as an administrative assistant (and very frequently as an executive assistant), you’ll have the job of monitoring and organizing your boss’s e-mail. This essentially entails reading through his new mail and either replying on his behalf, delegating the e-mail to one of her direct reports, or organizing e-mail that needs a response directly from the boss.

Microsoft Outlook gives you a number of ways to organize e-mail.

Folders - You can create folders for various categories of mail. These can be based on who sent the e-mail, the project the e-mail is about, the department it deals with, or any other logical pattern based on the needs of your boss. I frequently set up folders for newsletters he receives, since those are often lower priority, and getting them out of the inbox makes it less cluttered. Your boss may want you to set up a whole filing system for e-mails so old e-mails are easier to find. I had one boss that I not only set up the folders for, but it was my responsibility once a month to file the old e-mails into the folder system.

Color Coding – You have various ways to color code e-mail in Outlook. You can have the e-mail preview be in a different color, you can apply different colored flags to the e-mail, or you can color code by category (in Microsoft Outlook 2007 only). I’ve never been particularly fond of the color coding method, but for some people it works very well. Again, you can color code based on whatever system works for your boss.
Categories - You can also organize e-mail by applying categories. You can either choose from the default list of categories in Microsoft Outlook, or you can create new categories as needed.

Using Rules in Microsoft Outlook

Regardless of the method you use to organize e-mail, the use of rules can be very handy at doing some of the work for you. For instance, I mentioned earlier that I would create a folder for each kind of newsletter my boss received. I would set up a rule that when one of these newsletters arrived, Outlook should move it to the appropriate folder. You can make rules for all kinds of situations and with all sorts of effects, whether it’s moving the e-mail to a folder, changing the color, or applying a category. You can even use it to autoreply to commonly received e-mail that always get the same response. Using rules to organize e-mail is a great time saver for both you and your boss.

Do You Mange Your Boss’s E-mail?

How do you organize your boss’s e-mail? Do you have any tips to share to help us all out? Just leave a comment and share your e-mail tips. Remember, if you are reading this in e-mail or a feed reader, you’ll need to click the title and go to the website to leave a comment.

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Have You Got Google Wave?

Jodith — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:00:01 +0000

Google Wave is the newest application of the ever popular Google company. They’ve taken a variety of IM and networking tools and made a truly unique collaboration interface.

You can, of course, communicate with others in Wave as if you were in an IM, but you can do so much more than that. You can work on a document together, each typing at the same time, making changes as you go, attach documents, look things up on Google map, all within one screen. As more developers create add-ons, it will become more and more versatile. Even in it’s current beta stage, it already has some very cool functionality.

The Google Wave team has uploaded a number of videos over on YouTube to help people get started using Wave. Check some of them out to see the functionality of Wave.

If you’re already using Wave, you can connect with me at the e-mail address on the sidebar.

Do You Need a Google Wave Invitation?

If you’re not using Google Wave yet, I have some invitations left still. Send me your e-mail address (at the e-mail on the sidebar) and I’ll send you an invite. Note: You will need a Google account to use this (don’t worry, it’s free). If you (like me) have multiple Google accounts, be sure to be logged in to the Google account you want to use with Wave before you click on the invitation.

How Do You Like Wave?

Leave a comment and tell us how you like Wave! Is it useful? How do you think it might be able to help you in the office?

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“You’re over your limit”

Jodith — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:00:09 +0000

No, no, not your credit card. You’re e-mail account!

We’ve all gotten the dreaded “You’re Over Your Limit” messages in our e-mail. There’s no better way to ruin a good day than to realize you must suddenly drastically reduce the size of your e-mail (or worse yet, your boss’s). You really only have two choices: delete or archive.

Deleting E-mail

This is not your preferred option. Why? Because more and more, courts are treating electronic documents the same as paper ones for legal purposes. You’re probably thinking that you wouldn’t delete anything important. But unfortunately, we often don’t know what is important until after the fact. I keep all e-mail, including those annoying “me too” responses. That “me too” could prove that someone had read the e-mail. Your best bet is to just keep everything. That means you really only have one alternative.

Amazon.com Widgets

Archiving E-mail

When we talk about archiving e-mail in Microsoft Outlook, what we mean is moving the e-mail to a Personal File Folder, also referred to as a .pst file, because pst is the extension on the computer file.

There’s a few things you need to remember when working with .pst files.

When you create a Personal File Folder, Windows will create it on your hard drive by default. Most IT departments don’t run backups on individual computer hard drives, so if you have access to a private network drive that is regularly backed up, create your Personal File Folder there. If your folder is already created, you can change it’s location by clicking “File” and then “Data File Management”.
Personal File Folders do have size limits. Folders created in Outlook 2002 and earlier have a size limit of only 2 gigabytes. That may seem large at first glance, but if you frequently e-mail large files, you can fill that up in no time. In Outlook 2003 and later, the file size limit was raised to 20 gigs. So if you have some of these earlier file folders, export them to the newer file type to get more storage capacity.
By default, Windows gives Personal File Folders the terribly descriptive name of “Personal File Folder”. I recommend giving a name with a bit more meaning, especially since over time you are likely to have multiple folders in your archive.

Getting Your Inbox Size Down Fast

To get your Inbox size under control quickly, try these tips:

Sort your e-mail by size. Move the largest e-mails to archive immediately.
Archive your “Sent Items” folder especially if you often send out large attachments. These count against your mail account limits, and people often forget to check this folder.
Check for Sync Errors. If your e-mail administrator has you on cached mode, you will likely have a folder for Sync Errors, which will contain a copy of every e-mail that was duplicated by a Sync error. These files can be quite large. However, you can’t find it in Mail mode. Go to your Folder view in order to see the Sync folders and clear them out.
Don’t forget your Calendar items, Tasks, and Notes. These also apply to your limit, so archiving old items can bring down your total size.

Manage Your Inbox Size with AutoArchive

Once you get your account (or more likely, your boss’s) out of the red zone, keep it down by using the AutoArchive function in Outlook. When you set-up your AutoArchive functions, remember to click the button to “Apply these settings to all folders now”. Folders are generally set to “D0 Not AutoArchive” by default, so you want to be sure to apply the AutoArchive to all folders.

How Do You Manage?

How do you manage the size of your e-mail account? Share your tips with all of us here! Just leave a comment. If you receive this by e-mail or RSS feed, you’ll need to click on the title to go to the web page to make and read comments.Similar Posts:

10 Tips for Setting Up a Mailing List

Jodith — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:44 +0000

In my last post, I talked about the Pitfalls of Addressing Mail. Today I’d like to talk about actually creating your mailing list. I have created and maintained many mailing lists over the years, and have learned from my many mistakes how to avoid some of the problems you run across when you create a database. Here are 10 tips for setting up a database for a mailing list to help you avoid some of those mistakes yourself.

Use an actual database. If you only have a small set of addresses, you’ll be tempted to keep them in Word or Excel. DON’T! Seriously, if you don’t know Access, take a class. It will make your life so much easier and make you more employable to boot. You can do so many things in Access that you can never do in Excel or Word.
Put all the elements of a name in separate fields: honorific (i.e. Mr., Mrs., etc.), first name, last name, suffix (i.e. Jr., Sr., etc.). This way you can use the database in a mail merge where you use each part of the name separately. “Mr. John Smith” in the address, “Dear Mr. Smith” in the opening, and addressing the person by “John” in the letter to make it more personal. If you put “Mr. John Smith, Jr.” all in one field, you loose a great deal of flexibility in using the database.
Have secondary addressee fields for use with couples. Again, this gives you much more flexibility in using the database in mail merge letters, especially if they have different last names.
Put the zip code +4 in a separate field. The 5 digit zip code goes in one field, and the +4 goes into another. It makes for easier data entry, and you don’t have a bunch of empty spaces in your field if you don’t have the +4 code.
Again for different fields, keep the city and state separate for flexibility in sorting and filtering.

Give each client a unique code. This is just good database practice, but it also helps when you have 25 John Smiths.
Don’t forget an e-mail field. Companies are using e-mail more and more to reach out to their clientele.
Include demographic information if you gather it. Sometimes you might want to target mailings by age or gender. Make sure you include fields for any information your company gathers.
Add a phone number field to maximize the flexibility of your database. Now it can be used for a phone campaign.
Keep all your mailing lists in one database. Just use fields to distinguish what mailing list each name belongs to. This has several benefits:

You keep all data in one place, so only one database needs to be updated when people move.
If you have one client on multiple lists, you only need one entry per client.
You are less likely to be creating duplicate entries.
It’s easier to move people between lists or use queries to pull people from multiple lists for a new purpose.

Don’t forget to fill out the Administrative Arts Reader Survey

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Excel Is NOT a Database!

Jodith — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:00:05 +0000

We all know what Microsoft Excel is. It’s a spreadsheet software. It’s not a database. It’s never been a database. It never will be a database. Do I sound strident there? GOOD!

Seriously, it’s not a database, folks, so please quit using it as one. I can’t tell you how many places I’ve worked keep critical data in spreadsheets, jumping through all kinds of hoops and writing all kinds of code to get it to act like a database. The employee hours they spend maintaining these spreadsheets and getting information back out of them just astounds me. Why don’t they just convert it to a database and be done with it?

Why Businesses Don’t Use Databases

I’ve heard many excuses over the years as to why businesses use Excel over Access. Let’s debunk some of those reasons.

Access Is Too Hard To Learn

It really isn’t, you know. Most employees who interact with the database only need to know how to fill in a form or click on an already created report. The only people who need any in-depth knowledge of Access are the ones who create the database and those who maintain the back end of the database. And honestly, they need less in-depth knowledge than the person struggling with coding in Excel to try and get a spreadsheet to act like a database, and they don’t have to spend nearly as much time to manage the database.

We’ve Always Used Excel for This

So what? You may have always used a hammer to crack nuts, but it doesn’t make it the best tool for the job. If you’re working on the company financials, by all means, use a spreadsheet. If you’re detailing your budget, of course you’ll use a spreadsheet. But if you’re maintaining non-numerical data, use a database. Actually, even most financial data is kept on a database these days (that’s what accounting programs are, they’re databases). They simply export cumulative data to spreadsheets for special financial calculations such as projections and planning.

There’s Not Enough Data Here to Warrant a Database

How many times have I heard this? And a year or three later, they’re still using that spreadsheet, only it’s grown to 10,000 rows and takes 5 minutes to open. Unless you’re intending this spreadsheet to be a list of your 50 or so employees with phone numbers, you’re probably better off with a spreadsheet. Although, even the list of employees could possibly grow exponentially, so scratch that idea. Seriously though, if you think you’re just making a small list, go ahead and put it into a spreadsheet. But if over time that list is growing unmanageable, then create a database and import your data from the spreadsheet. It’s really simple to do and well worth the 5 minutes it’s going to take you.

Why You Should Use a Database

Here’s the nitty gritty of why you should use a database to store data and not a spreadsheet:

More than one person can update a database at a time. Only one person at a time can update a spreadsheet. Right there you have an efficiency incentive to use a database. And how many times has someone opened a spreadsheet in Read Only mode, saved changes to it to their harddrive, and then copied it back over the network copy, eliminating any changes the other person made *shudders*. I’ve seen that happen a number of times over the years.
A database stores information more efficiently. Relational databases, such as Microsoft Access, uses tables to segregate data. You’ll have one table for customer information, and another one for customer purchases. These would be tied together via the customer ID. So you don’t have to repeat all of your customer information for each purchase made. Therefore, your database is smaller than your spreadsheet. This is a crude example, but it gives you an idea how, overtime, your database is hugely more streamlined than your spreadsheet.
Queries, and the reports based on those queries, are easier to write and run. Because your data is relational, you can mix and match and re-sort your data in all kinds of different ways. You can do that with a spreadsheet, given enough time and code. But with a database like Access, a person with relatively little knowledge can produce complex queries and reports.
Data recovery is more efficient. If you have a large amount of data, finding the particular data point you want can be especially difficult in a spreadsheet. Those of you who work with large spreadsheets know this. You get a spreadsheet with thousands of lines, and paging through the spreadsheet can slow to a crawl, especially if you don’t have an ultra-fast computer.

Just Say No

The next time your boss wants to use a spreadsheet for a project better suited to a database, just say no. Explain why a database is better and get permission to use a database. Like I said, Excel is a good tool for certain things, but it just isn’t a database.Similar Posts:

Ask the Admin: Scheduling Tasks for Others

Jodith — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:00:52 +0000

And we have another question about Microsoft Outlook, this time about scheduling e-mails. Json asked in his e-mail:

Hi I read your article about setting up recurring tasks and wonder if there is any way to do automatic email reminders to my staff. My staff members have tasks with different due dates. For example, staff A has a yearly recurring task with due date on July 1, staff B has a yearly recurring task with due date on March 1…. Is there anyway I can set up auto email reminders to them respectively 5 days, 1 day prior to due date? Or do I have to buy a third party application for that?

My reply to Json:

You have two options here. You can schedule an e-mail to each team (I have directions here in my post about scheduling e-mails in MS Outlook), or you can create a task and assign it to the team, which will put the task on the task list of the person or persons assigned to the task. Just create a task and set the recurrence for yearly, and set the due date and start date for the task. Then click the Assign button and assign it to the person or persons who will be working on that task. Don’t forget to set the reminder before sending the task.

I prefer the second option. Microsoft Outlook has a nice setup for working on tasks as a team. You can put notes in the task to note the progress. Set up regular reminders of the task, and even attach documents the team needs to do the work. And it allows the boss to monitor the progress of the task and keep track of it. I think, probably, that most people don’t use even half of the powerful capabilities of Microsoft Outlook.

Thanks for your question, Json.

What’s Your Opinion?

Anyone have any alternate ways to solve Json’s issue?

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Ask the Admin: Set up Recurring Tasks at 8 Month Intervals

Jodith — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:00:10 +0000

I had a question stemming from my post on setting up recurring tasks in Microsoft Outlook. Pierre wants to know how to set up a task to recur at 8 month intervals.

This is actually quite easy. If you look at the Task Recurrence Window:

If you choose Monthly as the recurrence period, you’ll see that you can insert not only the day of the month on which the task occurs, but also how many months between occurrences. If you want it every 2 months, enter 2 in that box. If you want it every 8 months, enter 8 in that box. Very simple, very easy.

Hope this helps you, Pierre! Thanks for the question.

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Where Are My Outlook Calendar Items?

Jodith — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:00:12 +0000

I know you’ve all probably experienced this before. One day an appointment is on the calendar, and then it’s just gone. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accused my boss of messing up his calendar, but I’ve found out it wasn’t actually his fault (sorry about that, Val!).

The Problem with Delegates

It turns out that the problem is caused by delegates. If more than one person receives calendar invites for a particular person, everyone must mark them approved. If you delete a meeting request from your e-mail without approving it, even if someone else already has, then it will delete the meeting from the calendar. This can also happen if you access Outlook from more than one computer. If the meeting request comes up in e-mail on both computers, you’ll need to approve it in both places.

Limit Delegates on Your Calendar

This is a good reason to limit delegates on your calendar. It’s great to have a back-up for your boss’s calendar, but you need to work out an agreement with how to handle meeting requests. I recommend that one of you be the primary approver, and the other approve only after the primary has already approved. Then the primary will let the secondary approver know when she (the primary approver) will be away from the office so the secondary knows the duty of approving appointments falls to her. Wow…what a complicated couple of sentences! But the concept is actually pretty simple.

More Outlook Tips

Microsoft has a number of great tips for managing calendars in Outlook at this link. I highly recommend it for anyone who handles calendars in Outlook, but especially for administrative and executive assistants managing calendars for others.Similar Posts: