Microsoft Outlook: Features and Functionality

Until now, combined scheduling and messaging programs have shoehorned users into less than obliging applications. But there's hope—after several years and more than a few stumbles, Microsoft has developed Outlook, a personal information manager that is becoming as usable, flexible, and accommodating as it's cracked up to be. Intended as a replacement for Schedule+ and the Exchange Inbox mail client, Outlook has solved the multiple-contact database problem between Office, Schedule+, and Exchange. Outlook has also improved the connection between the files in the Windows Explorer folder system and the mail and documents sections. Although Outlook has had a rocky start, necessitating the release of several bug fixes to make it work properly, it's an improvement over previous Exchange client and Schedule+ versions. As with any software, Outlook has weaknesses and strengths, but Microsoft has made a valiant effort to solve the problems most troublesome to Exchange and Schedule+ users.

Perhaps Outlook's greatest advantage is that Microsoft has designed it as a standalone product that connects to an Exchange server. Functions you see when an Exchange client is attached to an Exchange server (e.g., public folder storage and access, global address lists, rules, and mailbox storage limits) are available in Outlook even without an Exchange server connection. And Outlook includes the former standalone functions of Internet email, tasks, and scheduling. Let's explore Outlook and look at how you can get the most from this program.

One Big Happy Family
Microsoft is organizing Outlook into a product family that will grow to incorporate all of a company's email, scheduling, and collaboration products. Outlook now consists of three products—Outlook, Outlook Express, and Outlook Web Access—that will replace all previous products and provide a standard messaging interface across supported platforms. Microsoft has announced that it will support but not improve the traditional Exchange client and the Windows messaging client in NT and Windows 95. Microsoft eventually will phase out these clients in favor of the Outlook family of products.

Outlook Express is the Outlook-family replacement for Internet Mail and News and originally was a Post Office Protocol (POP) 3 and Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) client with basic functionality. The latest version of Outlook Express supports Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) 4, which Microsoft has implemented as the server-side includes piece in Exchange 5.5. IMAP is a protocol that lets any client access and store data on messaging servers, and it provides for server-based folders with online and offline access and other message-management features not previously available to Internet messaging clients. IMAP lets any client connect with any server as long as both support IMAP4. Outlook Express is free (though you pay a fee for the client-access license to connect to Exchange, even through IMAP4). Microsoft designed Outlook Express for users with basic Internet needs: mail and news.

Outlook is the upgrade to Outlook Express and ships with Microsoft Office 97 and Exchange Server 5.0. You can also buy Outlook as a standalone product. With Exchange 5.5, Microsoft has included versions of Outlook for the Windows 3.x and Macintosh operating systems. These versions of Outlook include the Outlook user interface and facilitate interoperability with the 32-bit Outlook calendaring environment. Outlook users who connect to Exchange Server gain functionality in using public folders and centralized mail and folder storage.

A new service, Outlook Web Access, was available in the Exchange Server 5.0 original release, and Microsoft upgraded it in Exchange 5.0 Service Pack (SP) 1. The Exchange Server 5.5 upgrade lets Outlook Web Access users access public folders, and includes calendar objects that let users manage their individual calendars and participate in group scheduling. Through a server-side component (active messaging), Outlook Web Access supports any browser equipped with frames and JavaScript. Server-side includes render the Messaging API (MAPI) from Exchange into standard HTML for display by the browser.

The beauty of Outlook is that it lets any user running any machine get mail from anywhere. As long as users have connectivity and a Web browser, they can retrieve their mail, calendars, and folders. Telecommuters and salespeople can check their schedules, add appointments, and respond to or send messages from any kiosk machine at a client site, or even from an airport or public library.

The downside to Outlook is that Microsoft has released four versions since the company first shipped the product. Microsoft first released Outlook as version 8.0 for use with Office 97 and soon followed with version 8.01, which users needed for connectivity to Exchange Server 5.0. Version 8.02 shipped with the ill-fated release of Office 97 Service Release (SR) 1. Microsoft withdrew the SR1 patch for a short time to fix a problem with saving Word documents, but SR1 is again available. Microsoft has scheduled a fourth edition, Outlook 8.03, for release in the first half of 1998. You'll need version 8.03 to capitalize on new Exchange Server 5.5 features such as deleted item recovery.

Making a Good Thing Better: Downloading Useful Tools
Without a doubt, the best source of client extensions and information for Exchange, Windows Messaging, and Outlook is Sue Mosher's Slipstick Systems Exchange Center, at http://www.slipstick.com. This site is updated with the latest information about Outlook in its various forms, and an email service lets you receive updates when new information is added to the site. One of the many valuable things on this site is an Outlook 8.02 page detailing the ways you can verify which Outlook version you have and how to upgrade.

Freebies from Microsoft. Outlook has its own page on the Microsoft Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/outlook with links to relevant information regarding configuration and setup issues. You can reach one especially useful troubleshooting page by going to the Help menu in Outlook, selecting Microsoft on the Web, and choosing the Frequently Asked Questions link. You'll reach Microsoft Technical Support, and it will be the Holy Grail for you if you've ever spent loads of time trying to troubleshoot Outlook or Exchange with limited information. At last count, this page had links to 33 documents relevant to general Outlook usage, configurations, interoperability, and troubleshooting. From there, you can link to the Outlook Support home page, the Knowledge Base, troubleshooting wizards, Help files, service packs, newsgroups, and telephone numbers.

On Microsoft's Web site you can also find many useful tools to improve Outlook's functionality. At http://www.microsoft.com/outlook/optimize, you will find helpful free program enhancements. One of these enhancements is the Internet Mail Enhancement Patch Final Release, which offers improved functionality to Outlook Internet Mail users. It fixes some of the early problems users experienced when they tried to send messages to MIME or uuencode recipients. It also lets you install more than one Internet mail service so that Outlook can check several POP3 accounts for the user from Inbox. This patch lets a user leave copies of messages on the server for download later to another machine, and it lets Outlook send Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and receive POP3 messages sent over a Secure Sockets connection.

Another useful add-on is the Outlook 3-Pane Extension. It will display a window at the bottom of your Inbox to give you a preview of your messages and let you read and scroll through each message without having to open it. If you have a lot of messages to sift through in a day, this capability can save you time and annoyance. Touching or scrolling through the preview pane with your mouse marks a message as read; you can move or delete the message without ever touching it again.

Two utilities that fix compatibility problems when a user goes back and forth between Exchange and Outlook are the Email Forms Fix utility and the Switch Forms utility. These valuable tools compensate for problems that arise because Outlook and Exchange use different forms to view mail and other data. Sometimes the client software gets confused and uses the wrong forms when both clients are installed on the machine. This confusion can cause mysterious problems, such as corrupted appointments and tasks that generate error messages. You can see the appointment or task in the calendar, but it will not open, even after you check the properties and run the Inbox Repair Tool. Even reinstalling Outlook and reapplying the Microsoft Office 97 SR1 upgrade will not fix the problem.

If you are lucky, persistent, or both, you might discover that the forms are the problem. These utilities will let you switch back and forth safely between the two clients during transition, or you can use them to permanently migrate the user so that the client uses the correct forms all the time. Try these tools, and let your users know that they might experience problems switching back and forth between the two clients unless they use the Email Forms Fix and Switch Forms utilities.

Additional Outlook converters and Windows CE and Palm Pilot synchronization utilities can come in handy. Generally, the Outlook tools for sending data to a palmtop or a Timex Data Link watch are pretty good and have improved from earlier versions. Getting them to work well, however, takes some time. The process still leaves something to be desired, but with the new contacts database in Outlook and these tools, you can now maintain a common database of clients and suppliers on both platforms with relative ease. Transferring tasks and appointments is a little more difficult but has improved and will get better with time.

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