Module 2 - Email Tasks

Email Tasks - Looking at this heading it seems like you know exactly what you're in for don't you? Well there is much more to it then emails being sent back and fourth, little did i know the back end was much larger. Also out of the 150 billion electronic emails that get sent everyday i think i would contribute to 5% of that. Ok a bit of an exaggeration i know but i am truly on the email 24 hours a day. I would probably email in my sleep if i could. Although during these Christmas holidays i have had time of from the email, i can just imagine how many i will have when i go back to work..
Anyway, back to the topic at hand.. EMAIL..
I began my research by divulging into the Email Tutorial & went through each section at a time.
YAY, i got the first quiz right .. See



With my email i tend to use free emails provided by hotmail, gmail yahoo etc. This is for pure convenience, that way i can access my mail from around the world. At work i use outlook and do use the directory & functional tools.

Next i checked out the Span Scam Slam Game here
Note bad for a first timer to learn about spam.. This was fun! I got most of them right.. Here's the proof



Checking out the emoticons link ... I have never seen :-{} User wears lipstick or -I User is asleep or most of them actually, I'm going to keep this site... I love adding emoticons and animation to my emails, it creates more of what i'm feeling i reckon.. I like it :)
Ok so i completed all quiz's and activities and actually got most of them right, YAY!!! Now what i have learnt thus far in this task:

1. What information about a user's email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message?

From an email message you can see the recipient's name, there sender domain, what time/date it was sent, the subject of what the email is relating to & if there are any attachments. Good way to keep out spam is to add domains to your safe list. Something new i learnt.

2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the 'cc', 'bcc' and 'reply all functions of email?

Well the CC, BCC & reply all functions are very important & are extremely efficient to use in your busy day. BCC is most important as you can send this to multiple people but none of them can see who you are sending it to. For eg. if you want to send a promotional deal to say 50 customers, you would use the bcc function. CC is great because you may be sending the email directly to a person but using CC can copy other people in if they should also be informed of what's going on. Reply all is a quick & easy method to ensure everyone that is on the email can get your reply. It's great for when i'm emailing my girlfriends where to go out for dinner, between us we'd send many and replying to all saves time & everyone gets all information forwarding on instead of sending it multiple times & wasting our time.

3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver?

When sending attachment files you need to ensure that you send it in a format able software program to ensure the recipient has no problems opening it.Most acceptable is PDF, plain txt files and RTF's. Problems with attachments has actually stopped my recipients from reading my emails so i looked further into MIME as Peter suggested & found a really informative site called LANDTech. You can view it here

4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose?

I use lots of rules in my outlook at work to make things efficient & easy to organise my mail. At the moment i have set up a rule at work to say "i'm out of the office & wont return till blah blah" to ensure that if messages are being sent to me people know i will not respond until i return and it actually alerts the recipient that i'm not around instead of just sending me the email & no reply, now that's not informative is it! I also have another rule set up that when a BIG client of mine sends me messages as i get hundreds a week, these emails automatically go to another INBOX to ensure my filing system is organised & clean, it also separates these emails from the rest of my other clients. A filter that we use at work is a SPAM filter, most of the time the spam gets caught on the server and i barely get any spam, i also get our computer guys to filter through the emails and anything that comes from, usq.edu.au or csu.edu.au are safe listed to ensure nothing gets stuck in the filter.

5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?

My email outlook is a complete organised filing system with a detailed structure, i would have it no other way. It is set up by client, by financial year that way i can access historical emails with ease. I also need to be able to find historical emails to alert myself what advice i have given, when you have so many jobs to work on you definitely need a record of what has been said, and the online folder structure is a great way to ensure i have not missed anything as it all goes in writing. For my big client i have another filing system set up with folders per Employee of that client & financial sub-sections such as payroll, creditors, admin, bank etc to ensure i can locate anything that i may need to refer to in the future. I suggest that everyone create a folder structure, i would be lost without mine :)