Outlook Express ?

I hope I am posting this is the correct spot. Currently where I work we use Outlook Express email for our customer service dept. There are 2 of us that share the account. Is there anyway that we can tell who's email is who's? When I answer and email and that person responds back, is there a way that it can be different, so that the other person doesn't think its theirs? Hope that made sense. We had thought about putting astracts in the Reply area ti signal each other, I just wondered if there might be a way to color code the email headings. Any help would be greatly appreciated....thanks

 

Did you know that you can have the emails from two or more email accounts checked in the same "profile" on Outlook Express? Would it be easier if you were to set up another email address and set up Outlook Express to keep the emails to and from both addresses together? They will show different details in one of the columns to show which email account they belong to.

Perhaps if you explained more about what you want to be able to do and why, it might be possible to give you better advice.

And by the way, welcome to Major Geeks!

 

Hello-I will try to explain the situation as best I can. Here goes: I work for a company that deals with products not only in North America but also internationally. I am in Customer Service-there are 2 of us that answer the emails. We trade off every other week. We may get 10-20 emails per day, which may not seem like alot but there is always alot of conversing back and forth several times. When it is the other gals turn to answer email (like this is her week), she has a hell of a time with knowing which are new emails and what are emails that I may have been working on from the week before. She isn't too fond of the computer. I have no problems. She has a hard time with just opening up the email and looking to see if I have been communicating with whomever. Is there a way that once I have replied to someone, (and I know we will be going back and forth a few more times) that it can be color coded or something else, so she knows that I am working on that particular email. Help.........

 

I might also add that the Technology/Computer dept. at the place where I work are no help at all. And the company won't spend any more $$ on new software.

 

A couple ideas came to my mind. First, do you and the other person insert signatures when composing initial messages or when replying? Seems to me that might be very helpful. Manually adding the date below the signature might also be a good procedure. With the signature and date at the bottom of each message, both originals and replies, that should help in following the trail of correspondence.

For info on setting up Signatures in OE, open Help and search on "signatures, personal".

The other idea is to Group Messages by Conversation. To do this, go to View, and select Group Messages by Conversation. Rather than explain exactly what that does, I suggest you just try it. It can easily be canceled, and you'll be back to the regular viewing of messages.

 

Just setting up different Identities would be the easiest way I would've thought.

 

Yes, if they both worked entirely different email inquiries, that would work. But, they alternate weeks on this duty and each may have to follow up on something that the other previously responded to. In that situation, different Identities might be a hindrance rather than a solution.

 

True then maybe a combination with an identity that all required e-mails (for both users) are forwarded to. All private e-mails can then be kept that way.

 

That would be true if they used the same computer(s) for private e-mails but I see no mention of that. The key point is that two employees are assigned the task of responding to business-related email inquiries and they alternate weeks on this task. And, since they alternate weeks, each of them may need to follow-up on something the other has previously responded to.

So, I believe my suggestion of grouping messages by conversation, along with OE's displaying in bold of unread messages, should be helpful in this situation.

 

I'm not decrying your suggestion. Just making one of my own. As long as the e-mails that are required for work are forwarded to an account they both have access to then that would seem to me to be all they need.

 

Wow-thanks so much for all the suggestions. Yes, we do work from 2 seperate computers. I did click on the Group Conversations this morning and thought I had found a solution. But, the other gal deletes all the email from the week that I work it. So, if someone responds to an email I was working on (on my week) it shows up on her email as just another email. Where as I don't delete the emails and it shows up with the little square box (group conversation). So I think I am back to square one....this gal can be difficult to work with. Just doesn't understand computers and fights it every day. So I think if this is going to work she will have to at least leave one weeks (most recent) worth of my email up on her computer. So when someone does respond, she will see that I am working on that particular email.

aaaaggghhhh.....

 

You're missing the point. That's how they are currently operating. From the original post:

 

Wow, 2 seperate computers, that complicates the situation. Frankly, it doesn't make sense to operate that way and yet expect to make that task run smoothly. With separate computers, the Group Messages by Conversation can not provide the benefit it would if a single computer were used. If you can't use the same computer for this, I think you really need to implement a procedure for synchronizing OE in the two computers so that you're both reading from the same sheet of music.

If not that, then establish a policy that each person handles specific inquiries and the inquirer will just have to wait until the person responsible for handling that inquiry returns to the task.

Why even have this alternating pattern? It makes no sense, with separate computers involved. Just divide up the inquiries between you and her and each of you work your cases from start to finish. And, both of you handle this stuff every week; no alternation. It would still be the same total workload, just spread out evenly. Actually, the total manhours consumed for this could be lower this way because of consistency in follow-up and less confusion in sorting out the sequence of messages.

A final conclusion: this could be viewed as primarily an organization/managerial problem rather than a technical problem.

Another thought: your peer is way to eager to delete messages. "Completed" cases could be moved to a folder for them and retained for some period. Do you never get inquiries after something was supposedly finished?

 

I know it doesn't make sense, but I don't make the rules, I can make suggestions and try to find resolutions (like I am trying to do now). Me and the other gal have alot of duties. Our 2 main duties are the email and quoting. I work for a company that produces aircraft & industrial hose. So we do alot of quoting and conversing. While she has the email for the week, I have the quoting. We have 800 companies that we work with. My boss does not want to split the companies up between us. He would like us to be able to each handle everything. Each company may come in with different dimensions etc. And prices can vary with the customers. I am not sure what you mean by synchronizing OE in the two computers, can you explain? thanks again

 

Will get back to you later on this. Don't have time now.

 

Thanks for your help & suggestions...

 

So the 2 of them share an account. Fine. Then set up different identities within the single acccount. Then each can have there own identity plus a shared identity.

And this is my last word on the subject. Honest.

 

Yargwel.....So do you mean that we can each set up a diff. idenity and the email that we each receive will show up in the same location? Along with emails to the general account?

 

If by the "same location" you mean the same PC, then yes. For instance on the PC I'm using here I've got my own identity, one for my wife and one for both of us. Each has its own identity and e-mail address which is what I assumed is what you were after.

 

Identities won't solve the problem here because of the requirement to both have access to the messages and the fact that two computers are used.

I mentioned synchronizing OE between computers, in a previous message. That means making the two computers hold the same messages so that you both have the same messages. This can be done with special software obtainable from various software vendors. Here's one such tool: Outlook Express Sync 2.0

 

I had a very similar situation and what we did was create a rule for replies. We entered our employee number on our initial reply then created a rule where our employee number was used. You could create a number if you do not use them. If our employee record was found in the message, it transferred it to our private folder. It worked well if the people you corespond with include your message in the message.

 

I am going to have to look into this further. We don't have employee numbers, I am wondering if I can do it by signature name.....thanks for the suggestion!