9.2 Actions a Rule Can Perform

You can use rules to send, reply to, and forward items, to perform various actions on items in your Mailbox, and much more.

Table 9-1 Actions a Rule Can Perform

Action

Result

Send Mail

Sends a prepared mail message to the recipients you specify when the rule conditions are met. For example, if you need to inform your manager each time you receive a monthly report from another group of people, you can have a rule send a message as soon as you receive the report.

Forward

Forwards items to one or more users when the rule conditions are met. For example, if you are on a core team, you can have a rule forward meeting minutes to extended team members.

Delegate

Delegates an appointment, reminder note, or task to another user when the rule conditions are met. For example, if someone is covering for you while you’re away from the office, your rule can delegate appointments, tasks, or reminder notes to that person.

Reply

Sends a prepared reply to the sender when the rule conditions are met. For example, if you need to be out of the office for several days, your rule could send a reply to incoming items indicating when you’ll be back.

You can also use Define Conditions to prevent replies going to mail list servers and other large groups.

Accept

Accepts an appointment, reminder note, or task when the rule conditions are met. For example, your rule could accept all appointments from a specific individual.

Category

Assigns a category to any item meeting the specified conditions. Categories include Low Priority, Urgent, Follow-up, Personal, and any other user-defined category.

Delete/Decline

Deletes or declines any item when the rule conditions are met. For example, your rule could decline any appointment scheduled for a certain day of the week if you are always unavailable for meetings on that day.

Empty Item

Deletes items from the Trash when the rule conditions are met. For example, your rule could empty items received from a company that routinely sends you junk mail.

Move to Folder

Moves items to a folder when the rule conditions are met. For example, you might want all items with certain words in the Subject box moved to a common folder.

Link to Folder

Links items to one or more folders when the rule conditions are met. Linking an item to a folder lets you view the item from more than one folder. For example, if you have an item that relates to Marketing and Personnel, you can place it in the Marketing folder, then link it to the Personnel folder. You can then open the item from either folder.

Mark as Private

Marks all items matching the rule conditions as Private. When an item is marked Private, you can restrict your proxies from accessing the item. For example, your rule could mark all items from your family members to be Private.

Mark as Read

Marks all items matching the rule conditions as if they have been read. For example, if you are skimming a reply thread in a shared folder and don’t want to follow the thread anymore, your rule could mark all the items in the thread as if they had been read so they wouldn’t sort at the top of the Item List.

Mark as Unread

Marks all items matching the rule conditions as if they have not been read. For example, you could create a user-activated rule to mark as unread all items you have opened from your manager to remind yourself to re-read or act on them.

Stop Rule Processing

Stops other rules from acting on items that meet the rule conditions. Rules are executed in the order they are listed in the Rules dialog box. If there are other rules that would normally affect these items, this rule action prevents the other rules from executing.