K2's Road to Excellence with Outlook - Part 1
and Wolters Kluwer, iFirm Portal

This is the first in a series of sessions on Microsoft Outlook that will provide you with the information you need to become more proficient in using this powerful communication tool.

Microsoft Outlook is the most utilized business application in the world today, but for many users dealing with Outlook is the most frustrating part of their day. This session is designed to help Outlook users better organize and manage their email communications. It contains coverage on how to reduce e-mail interruptions, triage the Inbox rapidly, find related messages quickly and easily, organize the Inbox with folders, categories, and rules, and use drag-and-drop to create new tasks and appointments. The information provided in this session will ease your frustration and improve your productivity in using Microsoft Outlook.

Learning Objectives

  • Identify related messages quickly and easily using Conversation View
  • Create Quick Steps to automate routine, recurring processes
  • Employ drag-and-drop to create new appointments, tasks, or contacts from email messages
  • Use folders and categories to organize the Inbox
  • Apply rules to automate the process of filing email messages
  • Describe how AutoArchive automates the process of cleaning the Inbox


Power of Portal
CCH iFirm® Portal allows you to communicate with clients easily and securely, on a contemporary platform that boosts efficiencies across the board. From simple document sharing to detailed collaboration, there’s never been a more secure way to communicate with clients. Join us for this informative webinar to learn how CCH iFirm Portal can automate the ultimate client experience.

Learning Objectives

  • Security of today’s portal and what you need to ask
  • Evolution of portals
  • Client engagement and experience
  • Portal integration

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Questions & Answers

Outlook Questions
Answers
Can you change the calendar pane to show just one week or day?
Yes. See this screen shot.

If using conversation view, how do you deal with emails that are about a different topic but the subject line has not been updated?
You would have to turn off the conversation view, respond to the email with a new subject line and then turn conversations on again. One of the few weaknesses with the conversation view.
I found Conversation mode prevented my editing the Subject line text appearing in mail folder.  I used to do this to add meaning to the Subject but can't now that I'm using Conversation mode.
That is true. The conversations are tracked by the title. See my response above.
In some cases, when I receive reply to an e-mail that I have sent, the fonts on some of the e-mail sent are huge.  This is haphazzard and I don't know why this happens.  Is there a setting in Outlook that causes this?
I reviewed a number of suggestions and the best one I found was here.
If either the sender or myself edits the Subject line does that mess up the Conversation view of a conversation?
No you can’t change the subject line. See my response to the questions above.
What version of Outlook is this?
Outlook for Office 365
Are there any cautionary steps that should be taken when "converting" from Office/Outlook 2010 to Office 365?  I would like to ensure that all of my e-mails are retained in Office 365.
I have never had a problem moving between versions or when we moved to Office 365.
I have two e-mail accounts set up. and several folders in each - when I search. It doesn't search everything. I have to click in each folder individually - is there a way to search for it work ALL folders and subfolders?
Are you doing the search on “All Mailboxes”? That works for me.
At one time, there was a size limit to the .pst file.  Is this still the case with the newest version of Outlook?
That was changed in Outlook 2010. Check out this link.
What’s the Coming Soon button do?
Office 365 puts out updates monthly and the  “Coming Soon” button will give you a chance to try them before the changes are released to all users.
Where is the autocomplete list for email addresses?  i need to delete a bunch of them.
Outlook remembers every address you type in a To, Cc, or Bcc field. This saves time: When you start keying in a name or address, Outlook automatically suggests the contact in its entirety.

Unfortunately, Outlook remembers the mistyped and old contacts as well as the correct and current — and suggests them indiscriminately. Fortunately, getting rid of entries you no longer want to appear in the Outlook autocomplete list is easy.

To remove a name or email address from Outlook's autocomplete list:
  1. Create a new email message in Outlook.
  2. Start typing the name or address you want to remove.
  3. Use the down arrow key to highlight the undesired entry.
  4. Press Del.​
You can also hover the cursor over the entry you want to remove and click the X that appears to its right.

For additional information on working with the AutoComplete list visit this link.
Alan has Grammarly on his screen. How or where did he get that?
Grammarly is an app that automatically detects potential grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice, and style mistakes in writing. Grammarly's algorithms flag potential issues in the text and suggest context-specific corrections for grammar, spelling, wordiness, style, punctuation, and plagiarism.
 
It works with all the office products. It is available via a browser extension for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge. I use it all the time with my e-mail. I can correct  issues on the fly.
 
It is not cheap it currently sells for $29.95 US for a monthly plan, $19.95 US a month for a quarterly plan or $11.66 US a month for a yearly plan.
 
Because I do so much writing, I have no trouble justifying the cost. It identifies the common grammatical mistakes that I make. I also use it to check my work for plagiarism.
 
By the way professors use it all the time to check students work for plagiarism.
Can Outlook be saved on NAS such that 2 notebooks can access same emails?
Not that I know of. Your best solution would be to go to Office 365. There I can access my e-mail on my main notebook, my Surface, my iPad and my smartphone and create shared mailboxes or share my email account
Is there any way of seeing all calendar items on the monthly view in each day (if there are a lot of them), other than buying a bigger monitor?!
I have the same issue. I solve it by changing to a weekly plan or even a daily plan. You can click the drop down arrow on the day to quickly go to day view or turn on the calendar To-Do Bar on the View tab in the layout group.
When is 2019 coming out?  Is it worth waiting buying my new PC until it is out?
2019 is available now, check out this Microsoft article for the new features in Outlook 2019.
Assuming some of the security features which are grayed out are managed by central IT control.
Yes
Wolters Kluwer Questions
Answers
Does the CCH iFirm Portal link/communicate with Outlook?  Many clients still send e-mails to Outlook and it is very time consuming to reply using a secure portal.  Can e-mails be directed from Outlook to iFirm?
CCH iFirm Portal will send out emails (ex. You have a file in your portal) through any email provider.  The portal only needs to be used for sending sensitive information.  Typical email communication back and forth can be through Outlook.  There is no Outlook integration with CCH iFirm.  Emails can be stored in the Document module.
How much is the annual license fees for a firm with 3 staff?
I am not in sales so unfortunately can answer that.  Please go to ifirmtax.ca to Request A Quote for the modules you are looking for (there are 7 modules so the pricing is dependent on that).
When expiry is set, will the document automatically be deleted?  Will notice indicate whether client reviewed document prior to expiry?  Is there a master list of items not reviewed?
The document will be removed from your client’s portal but will remain in your firm’s portal.  It will need to be moved to the Recycle Bin or deleted at this time.  The roadmap for Portal will include moving expired items to the Recycle Bin automatically.  There isn’t a notice if the client read it or not but an icon that shows you if they read it.  There isn’t a master list for all Portal unread items.
If email is not secure, and, the notice is sent by email with a link to the portal, how is this secure?
It is secure because the client needs to log in with the UserName and password they created and the MAF (Multi-Factor Authentication) will send your client a 6 digit pin number to their email or mobile phone to be entered on the client portal log in screen. 
Does this assist regarding the signing of documents that are required?
e-Signature will be added to CCH iFirm Portal in Feb 2019.