IT blogs are ablaze lately about whether the iPhone has graduated from dawdling device to legitimate business tool. One camp says the iPhone is just too pretty and trendy to use for work; the other side says it’s much more conducive to productivity than any buggy smartphone. Even venerated researchers are weighing in. According to a Forrester report released in April, workers who use iPhones are “happier and more productive.”

Who knew a gadget could have such power? Read more…

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It’s the unofficial start to summer! It’s time to turn on your away message and get lost. But before you do, make sure you are covered. Here are some tips to keep your e-mail house in order while you enjoy the season: Read more…

admin BlackBerry, How To, Outlook, Time-Saving Tips BlackBerry, Fourth of July, Office 2007, Out of Office Assistant, Outlook

“If it’s 4:30 pm in Phoenix…”

Have you ever had to plan a meeting for participants across multiple time zones? Outlook can help you out in many cases by allowing you to see more than one time zone or automatically adjusting for different time zones. In this post, we offer tips for time zones and many other issues related to scheduling meetings in Outlook.

Part One: Planning, Changing, Canceling

And, if it’s 4:30 pm in Phoenix, it’s 10:30 am in Sydney — but what day?

Planning a Meeting in Outlook

(Outlook 2002, 2003, 2007)

By Matt Mahoney

The core feature of Outlook is the calendar. This invaluable tool helps you keep track of your appointments and enables you to schedule meetings with colleagues. Here’s how to invite attendees to a meeting.

Outlook 2007:

1. Click the File menu, choose New, and then choose Meeting Request.

2. On the Meeting tab of the Ribbon, click the “Scheduling” button (depending on your mail server configuration, this button may also be called “Scheduling Assistant”), located in the Show group. Then click the “Add Others” button at the Read more…

admin Outlook, Time-Saving Tips How To, meetings, Outlook, time zones

It’s a new year. The economy’s rebounding and, according to a recent survey, employee confidence is on the rise. Here are three software tips that will help you to become more productive and ride the momentum.

How to Create an AutoText Entry (Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007)

By David McQueary

Retyping long strings of text over and over can become tedious.

Say you are creating a Word document for your company, and you have to use the firm’s 30-character name countless times throughout. Retyping long strings of text over and over can become tedious. Use AutoText instead; it makes document creation much faster and much less repetitive.

Word 2000, 2002, 2003

1. Click on the Insert menu and select AutoText.
2. In AutoText you can create your own entry. Once you enter the company name click the Add button on the right.
3. Click OK. Read more…

admin Time-Saving Tips, Worker Productivity autotext, BlackBerry, recession, Windows Mobile

Although the weather and the traffic are enough to make some swear off the winter holidays all together, two short work weeks in a row is what makes it worth enduring. The business world in general moves at a slower pace during this pleasant period — and it’s even more relaxing if you remember to set your away messages before you leave the office on Dec. 24. We’ve compiled a list of tips to get you ready for your yuletide break.

Outlook: Activating the Out of Office Assistant (versions 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007)

By Mary Hazel McDermott

Top tips to get you ready for your yuletide break.

Before you leave on vacation or even a long weekend, it is a good idea to set up an Out of Office message. This allows Outlook to reply automatically to each person that sends you a message when you are not there. Outlook replies only once to each person to avoid creating a large volume of messages.

Turning on the out of office message:

1. Click on the Tools menu and click on Out of Office Assistant. (If you do not see Out of Office Assistant, the option may be disabled; call the help desk for assistance.)
2. Select “I Am Currently Out Of The Office.”
3. Set up your AutoReply message.
4. Click OK.

Turning off the out of office message: Read more…

admin Time-Saving Tips BlackBerry, happy holidays, Lotus Notes, out of office, Outlook

Keeping track of what you have to do can be a big task at times, especially around the holidays when everyone is rushing to get nowhere. Don’t waste time looking for new ways to stay organized and caught up; take advantage of the features available in software you are already using, like Outlook. We have gathered some Outlook tips that will help you make it there on time, wherever you are going.

Scraps of paper, to-do lists and strings wrapped around fingers just don’t work anymore.

Set Your Work Hours (Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007)

By PC Helps staff

When you view your calendar in Outlook, it displays your work days and time slots in a lighter shade of yellow (or the color you choose) than the rest of the hours in the day. The default start time is 8 a.m.; end time, 5 p.m. If your work hours differ, you can easily change Outlook to reflect it.

1. Click the Tools menu and choose Options.
2. Click on the “Calendar Options” button.
3. In the “Calendar work week” section, change any of the following:
   • Checkboxes for the days of the work week (default: Monday-Friday)
   • Set the first day of the week (default: Sunday)
   • Set the first week of the year (default: Starts on Jan. 1)
   • Start time (default: 8 a.m.)
   • End time (default: 5 p.m.)

Note: These settings will affect what others see in regard to your availability when they schedule meetings. Read more…

admin Outlook, Time-Saving Tips

There’s no doubt mobile devices have altered the way we work. According to Pew Internet and Research, almost half of American workers report doing at least some work at home, and about 20 percent say they do job-related tasks at home every day.

Accessing your e-mail using keyboard shortcuts takes productivity one step further.

In preparation for the holiday, here are some tips to help you keep your mobile work time to a minimum while you’re enjoying the family feast:

For the BlackBerry

Filter Incoming Mail

Say, for example, you receive a daily report that you will not read or deal with on your phone and would prefer to just handle it back at the office. Can you create a filter for that?

Of course you can. Here’s how:

1. Click on the Messages icon to open your messages, then click the trackwheel or Menu button and select Options.

2. Select E-mail Filters.

3. Click your trackwheel or Menu button, select New and then type a filter name. Read more…

admin Mobile Devices, Time-Saving Tips BlackBerry, holiday, iPhone, Outlook, productivity, Thanksgiving, tips and tricks, Windows Mobile

Our consultants rarely come across a question that hasn’t been asked before. Experience and stats prove that most users have problems with the same general areas of an application. And although modifying font and line spacing in a document isn’t excessively time-consuming, when you add up the minutes it takes to make those type of changes to every document created, and scale that across a company with 3,500 PC users, the productivity loss becomes a lot more substantial. Read more…

admin Computer Literacy, How To, Time-Saving Tips, Worker Productivity Help Desk, Microsoft Word, productivity, ROI, spellcheck

Cue the Benny Hill music: CIO.com reports that in a recent study, researchers found that employees at large companies (10,000+ workers) spend an average of 38 minutes searching for one document, whether it’s on company networks, databases, intranets or local drives.

What a frightening, unnecessary drain on productivity.

Below are five more snags that can tie up employees for hours. Read more…

admin Computer Literacy, Excel, How To, Outlook, ROI, Time-Saving Tips, Word, Worker Productivity CIO, Computer Literacy, Help Desk, ROI

Getting more money allocated to your IT budget is already a Sisyphean effort, even more so in a lean economy. Using a sloppy PowerPoint presentation to argue your case makes your quest even more ineffective. You can’t do anything about the economy, but you can use these tips to make a more effective, polished pitch.

Trick No. 1: Add Narration To Your Show

Adding narration can be helpful if you plan on e-mailing your show or posting it to the web. Follow these steps, Read more…

admin How To, Office 2007, PowerPoint, Time-Saving Tips How To, Office 2007, PowerPoint