Microsoft Office

You can integrate your accounting system (accounting system: The accounting program.) with Business Contact Manager for Outlook so that you and your co-workers can access your customers’ (customer: A person or company to whom your company sells products or services.) financial information while using Business Contact Manager for Outlook. The financial information remains in your accounting system.

Important To integrate your accounting system with Business Contact Manager for Outlook, you must be the database owner (database owner: The person who created the database, and has full control, including granting access permissions or deleting records. When a database has been restored, then the person who restored it becomes the owner.) for the Business Contact Manager database that is integrated. You may also be required to be an administrator (administrator: The person in charge of managing a Windows computer. The administrator is responsible for installing software, assigning passwords, and managing files.) or system administrator on the computer where your accounting system is installed.

For more information about how to integrate your accounting system with Business Contact Manager for Outlook, see Help in your accounting system.

When your accounting system and Business Contact Manager for Outlook are integrated, your Account records (Account record: The location for storing Account information, including information that is entered on the Account form, linked records, and communication history items.) are added to your accounting system as customer records, and your product and service items (product and service items: Goods and services that you purchase or sell, or offer for purchase or sale.) list is also integrated.

Note Product and service items from the Items list in your accounting system are integrated into the Product and Service Items List in Business Contact Manager for Outlook. Product and service items from Business Contact Manager for Outlook are not integrated into the Items list in your accounting system.

By Nancy Buchanan, for Office at a Small Business:

Great hints and tips that you can actually use for home, office or small business.

Stake out network connections
When I am home or at my home office, I take a notebook computer wherever I am. With a wireless network I can access all of the files I store on my Office Live Workspace from whatever room I am in. If I am waiting for a delivery, for example, I can work from the den by our front door quite easily. If I need to access other files, I simply bring an Ethernet cable with me and plug into the nearest Ethernet port so that I can access my file server or one of the NAS devices.

When away from home or my home office, I look for Wi-Fi signs that tell me that I can get a connection from my laptop computer to the Internet. You will see these signs at most coffee shops, airports, and libraries. From these locations I can access my Microsoft Office Live Workspace files and work comfortably, often with a tall single mocha within easy reach.

Surround yourself with computers
When your files are centralized and you have a network connection, you can work from just about any computer. That’s why I have my super cool Windows Vista desktop as my primary computer in my office, but also have 2 inexpensive laptop computers I take with me – one for the house that goes wherever I want to work, and one for the car in a discreet case with all of the power supplies and cables and connectors I might need. With computers where I need them I can sneak in a half hour of work here and there while I am taking the kids from activity to activity after school.

Tip If you use Outlook Personal Folders (PST files) to save e-mail messages to, if you close Outlook on every computer before you leave it you can open those same PST files on other computers. So when I am home or in the home office I store the PST files on the server and then open them from whatever computer I happen to be working on at that time.

With today’s economy and layoffs, we all need all the help we can get when searching for jobs.

MSN and Careerbuilder offer these five steps to building an e-mail friendly resume. Good luck out there!

Here are five easy steps to format your existing résumé into an e-friendly work of art.

1. Remove all formatting from your original résumé.
Unfortunately, the same formatting that makes your résumé nice to look at makes it almost impossible for a computer to understand.

To remove the formatting, open your word-processed résumé and choose the “Save As” option under the “File” tab on your toolbar. Save the document type as Plain Text or Text Only. In the following dialog box, choose the option to insert line breaks.

2. Use Notepad, WordPad or SimpleText to reformat.
Close your original résumé document and reopen the text version using editing software like Notepad, WordPad or SimpleText. Your text version should be free of most graphic elements, like fancy fonts, lines and bullets. Text should be flush with the left side of the document.

3. Stick to a simple font and style.
Use clear, sans-serif fonts, like Courier, Arial or Helvetica. This way, the computer won’t mistake your fancy lettering for a jumbled word.

Use a 12-point font; anything smaller won’t scan well. Also, stay away from italics or underlining. Rather than using boldface type, try using capital letters to separate sections like education and experience.

Instead of using bullets, use such standard keyboard characters as an asterisk or a dash. Instead of using the “Tab” key, use the space key to indent. Make sure all headings – like your name, address, phone and e-mail – appear on separate lines, with a blank line before and after.

(more…)

The Living in Outlook series is about sharing tips and workflows around real-world scenarios.

OUtlook Team Blog has this great tip for you:

Quick Parts exist both in Outlook and Word, and allow you to save pieces of content to easily re-use, like the introductory text at the beginning of the Living in Outlook series, as you see in this post. Personally I like to use Quick Parts for all those answers that I repeat over and over again, and am tired of re-typing. I also have a few Quick Parts that contain holiday messages and images that I like to reuse. So let’s get started!

Creating a Quick Part

1. Select the Content You Want to Save

The first step involves selecting the content that you have created and want to reuse. In this example I have selected a table that I fill out and send repeatedly.

2. Add the Selection to Quick Parts

Now that the content is selected click on the Insert tab in the Ribbon, choose Quick Parts and then click Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery….

3. Choose a Name for Your New Quick Part

Choose a name that you want for the Quick Part and press OK.

You’ve just created a Quick Part!

4. Use Your New Quick Part

Now that you have seen how easy it is to create Quick Parts, let’s look at how it’s even easier to use them. Whenever you want to insert your Quick Part click on the Insert tab in the Ribbon, choose Quick Parts and you will see a gallery with all your saved Quick Parts!

Clicking on the Quick Part will insert it at the current cursor position.

You can find more advanced options by right-clicking the desired Quick Part.

Well, my fellow MOONies (MicrosOft OneNote), John Guin, of OneNote Testing fame, has some great posts about his OneNote configuration and powertoys, that I thought I’d bring to your attention.

He states he uses multiple laptops and desktops daily to test programs, OS’s like Vista, XP and win 7, Servers, Office and, of course, OneNote. He uses a Sharepoint server on a few.

The powertoys he lists that he’s fond of are, in no particular order:
OneNote Favorites addin, Sudoku!, Object Model, A Calendar/Planner Agenda Maker (that I blogged about recently), Embedded File Finder, Double hyperlinking powertoy, and the OneNote Karaoke Machine (raised eyebrow).

Since I’ve had an almost overwhelming amount of no comments, questions and statements, I thought I’d share what I have on my system. My main (and only) computer is a TC1100 Slate Tablet PC, with XP. The pgms I have are Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007, which has ten programs, of which I use mostly Outlook with Business Contact manager and Outlook connector and Microsoft Word 2007. Tomorrow or Saturday, I’m receiving a 1G RAM module so my poor little tablet can run the programs without crashing. The powertoys I have used are tablet calculator and tablet search tool. I’ve tried the meeting with the Virtual Earth mapping powertoy with outlook, but it’s never worked properly.

What is your favorite Microsoft program and what, if any, powertoys do you use?

Learn what Microsoft Office can do to make your everyday life easier.

Microsoft Presspass has a great interview with Michael Schultz, Microsoft Office Live Director of Marketing.

There are millions and millions of people around the world using Microsoft Office to help manage their lives. They use the Office products to help schedule carpools, grocery shopping, design party invitations, write reports, just to name a few of the many helpful ideas Microsoft Office helps.

This week, Presspass (of the Microsoft network) spoke to Michael Shultz at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Schultz talked about how using traditional desktop software in conjunction with services such as the upcoming Office Web applications (lightweight, Web-based versions of Office applications expected to be released as part of the next version of Office) could change how consumers work and play, as well as about how parents, students, and home-based businesses can use Office 2007 to make life easier.

In part, here’s what Shultz and Presspass had to say:

Office 2007 can synchronize with Office Web Online to help search for ideas, products and reports. This can help students with school products, businesses with employees online and many other applications. Office Web applications, such as one being developed for Microsoft Office OneNote (becomea MOONie–MicrosOft OneNote!).

Office 2007 can help with tracking your exercise. Says Schulz: “After each daily run, you can post your time to a personal fitness workspace in Office Live Workspace and compare it to previous times. If you share that workspace with your teammates, they’ll get an e-mail every time you update the workspace and will be able to see how you’re doing, and whether they need to step it up.”

Use one of the many online options to share your information: from Office Online, Web based applications, Groove, Infopath, Outlook, for starters. The options are limitless on how you choose to share your information.

Families, businesses, schools and friends can keep in touch instantly with all the available technology Microsoft Office has to offer.

After 2 betas I’m glad to announce the release of the Microsoft Outlook Connector 12.1 – the add-in that puts your Windows Live Hotmail data in Outlook. Outlook Connector 12.1 provides a great synchronization experience with e-mail, contacts, and the free Windows Live Calendar service. Download it now!

As part of the 12.1 release, we have also made improvements to the e-mail and contacts synchronization that make this version of the connector faster and more robust. Thank you to everyone who contacted us and gave us feedback and suggestions during the beta period of the release.

What is Windows Live Calendar and how does it interface with Outlook?

For those who are new to the Windows Live Calendar, it features a fast and functional Ajax user interface that provides a rich experience on the web (visit http://calendar.live.com and check it out for yourself). It also supports some great new features that make the experience in Outlook even better. For example, you can have multiple calendars on Windows Live Calendar and each of them will synchronize to Outlook with the Outlook Connector 12.1. Windows Live Calendar supports calendar sharing as well. Shared calendars to which you have access will also synchronize with Outlook.

If you are a user of the Outlook Connector 12.0 it is worth noting that the Outlook Connector 12.0 and the Outlook Connector 12.1 synchronize calendar data against two separate calendaring services.

Outlook Connector 12.0 synchronizes with the MSN Calendaring service (a MSN Premium service only).

Outlook Connector 12.1 synchronizes with the free Windows Live Calendar service.

After installing Outlook Connector 12.1, it will upload your appointments and meetings to your new Windows Live Calendar. At that point the Outlook Connector will no longer synchronize with the MSN Calendar service.

In order to make sure that all of your calendar items on the MSN Calendar service are correctly migrated to the Windows Live Calendar, you should follow these steps:

With Outlook Connector 12.0 installed, synchronize your calendar with the MSN Calendar service one last time.

After synchronization is complete, do not create new items on the MSN Calendar site. If you do, you will have to synchronize again using Outlook Connector 12.0 before migrating to 12.1.

Install Outlook Connector 12.1.

Boot Outlook. At this point, the Outlook Connector 12.1 will upload all of your appointments and meetings to your new Windows Live Calendar.

You should choose the correct version of the Outlook Connector depending on the Calendar you are using.

If you plan to continue using the MSN Calendar service you need to keep using the Outlook Connector 12.0.
If plan to use the Windows Live Calendar service you need to install the Outlook Connector 12.1.
How do I get the Outlook Connector 12.1?

There are two easy ways you can install the Outlook Connector 12.1.

If you are currently using the Outlook Connector 12.1 Beta you will be notified that you need to upgrade to the latest version of Outlook Connector the next time you boot Outlook.

You can download and install the Outlook Connector 12.1 here.

Outlook Connector 12.1 brings a new level of reliability and stability when viewing and using your Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Calendar in Microsoft Outlook. Download it and start using it today!

If “out of sight, out of mind” ever causes you to miss messages or assignments, Favorite Folders may have a solution. Located at the top of the Navigation Pane, this folder list provides a place to keep your most important e-mail folders, right where they can catch your attention. Find out how you can customize, minimize, or even remove Favorite Folders.

From Office Hours: Consider Favorite Folders a desktop “real estate” bargain
If you consider your desktop real estate highly valuable and tend to clear away all “clutter,” you may be pleasantly surprised by the way that Favorite Folders are displayed in the minimized Navigation Pane … less ends up being more.

Besides the main Navigation Pane button, only the folders in Favorite Folders appear as vertical folder buttons in the minimized Navigation Pane. (A click of one of these vertical buttons opens up that folder’s messages in your main Outlook window. Click the Sent Items button, for example, and you’ll see a list of the messages you’ve sent recently.) When you click a folder button in the minimized Navigation Pane, you see a list of the mail items in that folder. So if you put your most important folders in Favorite Folders, you can quickly open them from the vertical buttons in the minimized Navigation Pane anytime you are working in Mail view, while still maximizing your desktop real estate.

Customize the minimized Navigation Pane to display your most important folders
The number of Favorite Folders that you can display in the minimized Navigation Pane is mainly limited by size:

The size of the vertical space in the minimized Navigation Pane
The size of the text in the folder names in Favorite Folders

Generally, you can customize the minimized Navigation Pane to display two to four folder buttons. This means you may need to prioritize and rearrange the folders in Favorite Folders according to which ones you want to see. (You might need to shorten their folder names, too.) Check out the instructions below so that you can experiment for yourself.

(more…)

From the Office Outlook Blog: The Living in Outlook series is about sharing tips and workflows around real-world scenarios.

Because I am usually juggling several projects at once, my Inbox tends to become cluttered with e-mail and meeting requests related to the different things I’m working on.

The Color Categories feature has been incredibly useful for organizing and triaging my incoming mail. I have Color Categories defined for each project that I am working on, this way I can quickly tag meetings or mail.

Not only is the color of the item now a visual cue, but the categories are another layer of context that can be used to group items and search over them. Check out this post on time management for more details about using Color Categories.

My trick to optimize this process is to use rules to automatically categorize my incoming mail. This way, it is already tagged with the appropriate category when I get it and I can easily know the context of the mail without having to open it!

It only takes a few steps to set this up.

1. Define Your Categories.

The first step is to customize the categories that you want to assign. Right click on any mail item and click All Categories under the Categorize menu.
From the Color Categories dialog you can create custom categories for every project or topic relating to your mail.

2. Set Your Rules.

From the Rules wizard (Tools | Rules and Alerts | New Rule) select “Check messages when they arrive” under the “Start from a blank rule” heading, and click Next.

Here’s where you get to be creative! The criteria you use to categorize your mail are up to you, and they really depend on the format and types of mail that you receive. I set my rules based on three major criteria:

Specific words and phrases in the subject of the message
Specific words and phrases in the body of the message
Any message from a distribution list

Setting Up Your First Rule

1. Define the Conditions

Select the checkbox next to with specific words in the subject.

Click on the specific words link, and type in the words or phrases that are of interest to you.

I would recommend using multi-word phrases in order to minimize the number of false positives captured by the rule. Make sure you include quotations to match the entire phrase only. Click Add to commit each phrase you enter to the rule.

2. Set the Category

Once the list is created return to the Rules wizard and click Next. Select assign it to the category from the actions list. Click the Category link to choose the category you wish to assign.

Once the rule is complete you can retroactively run it on your entire inbox. Now all of your incoming mail is automatically tagged for easy organization. If you define multiple rules, the Color Categories will be applied in the order they are listed in the Rules Wizard.

This is by no means a perfect science so you may have to adjust your rules and criteria until you find the right combination for the e-mail you receive. With the right set of categories and rules you can demystify your inbox and have a customized and automatic organizational system.

You can set up Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to send an automatic response to some or all of the people who send you e-mail messages.

Without an Exchange Server account, you can combine an Outlook e-mail template with Outlook rules to reproduce the functionality of the Out of Office Assistant available only to Exchange Server account users. By using this combination, you can use your e-mail account to send automated replies to incoming messages.

Important You must leave your computer turned on and Outlook running for the automated replies to be sent.

Step 1: Create a message template
Tip Download a formal or informal out of office message template from Microsoft Office Online.

On the File menu, point to New, and then click Mail Message.
On the Options tab, in the Format group, click Plain Text.
In the message body, type the message that you want to send as your automated reply.
In the message window, click the Microsoft Office Button and then click Save As.
In the Save As dialog box, in the Save as type list, click Outlook Template (*.oft).
In the File name box, type a name for your message template, and then click Save.
Step 2: Create a rule to automatically reply to new e-mail messages
Do one of the following:

On the Tools menu, click Rules and Alerts.
In the Rules and Alerts dialog box, click New Rule.
Under Start from a blank rule, click Check messages when they arrive, and then click Next.
Under Which condition(s) do you want to check?, select the sent only to me check box and any other criteria that you want, and then click Next.
When you see a dialog box informing you that this rule will be applied to every message that you receive, click Yes.
Under What do you want to do with the message?, select the reply using a specific template check box.
Under Step 2: Edit the rule description (click an underlined value), click a specific template.
In the Select a Reply Template dialog box, in the Look In box, click User Templates in File System.
Select the template that you created in the previous section, and then click Open.
Click Next.
Optionally, select the check boxes for any exceptions to the auto-reply rule.
Click Next.
Under Step 1: Specify a name for this rule, type a name for the auto-reply rule, and then click Finish.

Tip Consider creating an Outlook task or to-do reminder to help you remember to turn off this rule when you want to stop sending automatic replies.

The reply using a specific template rule in the Rules Wizard sends your automated reply only once to each sender during a single session. This rule prevents Outlook from sending repetitive replies to a single sender from whom you receive multiple messages. During a session, Outlook keeps track of the list of users to whom it has responded. If you exit Outlook and then restart it, however, the list of the senders who have received automated replies is reset.

Important For the Rules Wizard to send a reply automatically, Outlook must be running and configured to check periodically for new messages.