Technically speaking…

Assigning delegate access to your mailbox or parts of your mailbox can be a great way to make sure your email is watched or meetings managed while you are out of the office.  It can also be useful to those with assistants and very busy schedules allowing the assistant to manage incoming mail and meeting requests.

It is important to note that while delegation within Outlook is useful in many situations, the access should not be taken lightly.  Sending email on behalf of another user can be a very powerful thing, use it very carefully and be sure that you are considering both your own and the other user’s best interests.

How do I delegate access?

To delegate access to your mailbox to other users complete the following steps:

1.   In Outlook select Options from the Tools menu

2.   In the Options Dialog box click the Delegates tab (shown below)

Figure A

Adding delegates

3.   Click the Add button to select the users who will receive access to your mailbox

4.   Enter the name(s) or select users from the list

a.   Ctrl+Click will select multiple users

5.   Click the Add ->button to include the selected users

Once all of the accounts have been added, click the OK button on the add users dialog box

This will display the Delegate Permissions dialog for your mailbox.  On this dialog you can specify access for the user or group of users you selected previously.

Note: When selecting multiple users to provide delegate access, all of the users you select at once will receive the same access rights to your mailbox.  To assign different access to users you will need to complete the steps presented here for each user or group of users.

6.    On the Delegate Permissions dialog (shown in figure B below) you can specify the degree of access the selected user(s) will have for each section of your mailbox.  The access types are available:

• Editor - users with this permission can read, create, and modify items in the selected mailbox folder
• Reviewer - users with this permission can read items in the selected mailbox folder
• Author - users with this permission can read and create items in the selected mailbox folder

Each folder listed on the delegate permissions dialog can have different permission and these are configured separately by choosing a permission level for each in the dialog box for the folder.

Figure B

Configure delegate permissions by choosing the access level for each folder listed

For the calendar folder, you can also check a box to send meeting requests to your delegate as well as to yourself.  This will speed up the response process by delegates because a copy of the item will arrive in their mailbox as well.

For the delegate user or group as a whole, you can select one or both of the following checkboxes at the bottom of the permissions dialog:

• Automatically send a message to delegate summarizing these permissions - emails the delegates you selected to let them know that they have been assigned access to your mailbox. The email will summarize the level of access the user(s) have as well.
• Delegate can see my private items - this allows delegates to view calendar and other items marked as private

7.   Click OK on the Delegate Permissions dialog box to save the permissions

8.   Click OK on the Options dialog box to alert the chosen delegates of their access rights

Note: Some folders may not appear as soon as access is assigned for the delegates, there may be a need for them to logon again to see these items.  Also it may be a requirement to have the delegates open calendar items as a shared resource if they do not appear.  This should not affect their delegate access.

Assigning delegates is a great way for managers and supervisors or departments with multiple staff members to get help managing their email and meetings.  It can also help keep things flowing during periods of extended time away from the office.

Managing outlook delegation effectively can make everyone’s day a bit easier and remove some of the burden from your organizations IT staff when others need access to your resources.

Remember the Milk allows users to share tasks with other users. To get this working, you will need to add contacts within RTM. If these individuals are not Remember the Milk users, you can invite them to sign up when adding them as a contact by entering their email address.

To get started with contacts, click the contacts link at the top of the page.

On the contacts page, you will see a list of the contacts you have added to your RTM account.  If there aren’t any yet, don’t worry you can add them by following the steps below:

1. Click the Add Contact link at the top right of the page
2. Enter the RTM user name of the person you wish to add or their e-mail address if they aren’t an RTM user yet.
3. Tab off of the entry field

This will add the individual if they are already a Remember the Milk user.  If not, you will be asked if you would like to add them at the top of the page.  The message looks similar to the one shown below:

Clicking the lined would you like to invite then? will display the invite tab (which can also be clicked from the Contacts page).

To invite a new user/contact to Remember the Milk simply complete the form displayed on the Invite tab and click send.  This will email the person you entered and provide them an easy way to join Remember the Milk.  Once they do, they will be added as a contact and you can begin sharing tasks with them.

You probably noticed that the above image displays a groups tab as well.  This is for organizing your contacts, making it easier to share a task with multiple contacts.

To create a group select the groups tab from the contacts page and click the add group link and enter a name for your group.

Now that you have created a group, you will need to add contacts to the group to make it useful.  Select the Contacts tab to see the list of available contacts.  Once you have selected all of the contacts you wish to add to a group click the More Actions drop down and select Add to “Group Name” group.

Removing contacts from a group uses a similar method, selecting the contacts to be removed and choosing Remove from “Group name” Group.

To share a task with a contact or group, complete the following:

1. select the tasks link at the top of the page to return to your task list.

2. Select the list containing the task you wish to share

3. Select the task to share by checking the box to the left of the task (you can select multiple tasks)

4. Click the More Actions drop down box

5. Select Share with…

Once you select Share with, you will be taken to your contacts list.  At the top of the page a message will be displayed asking you to confirm sharing of the task.

The share button on the message will appear dim until you check one or more contacts or groups to select them.  Once this is done, the button will become clickable and turn blue.  Click the share button to share the task with the selected contacts or groups.

Contacts provide an easy way to share tasks with single users or groups of users.  Sharing tasks can ensure that all parties involved can see the same information about the task.  This also saves time when entering a task because it only needs to be entered once.

After a task is shared, the options tab for the task will display the users or groups that the selected task is shared with.

Hopefully you will invite friends and co-workers to give Remember the Milk a try.

Next up a quick look back at task notes.

Last time I posted about Remember the Milk and some of the features the online task machine has to offer. Today I want to look a little further into some of the other things that RTM can do, properties of a task and maybe some of the services that Remember the Milk can interact with.

Location Location Location

Sometimes a task needs to happen at a specific location, other times the location might be used to denote tasks in your home town but not at home. You can create locations for tasks in Remember the Milk using Google Maps functionality that is built into the application.

Note: Locations must be created before they can be assigned to tasks

To create a location Click the locations link at the top of the page (shown below)

Once the locations view is displayed a Google Map is displayed. If locations have been added, the map will be centered around those locations. To add a new location complete the following steps:

Simply enter the address into the text field above the map and click Go

This will place the desired location on the map and center it in the view.

Click on the flag displayed on the map. This will pop up a save location box. In the box enter the name of the location and click Save. You will then be able to assign this location to the tasks you create.

To assign the location to a task select the check box next to the task you wish to edit. This will pull up the properties for the task on the right of the page:

In the selected tasks properties pane, click the globe next to the heading Location. Then you can begin typing the name of the location you want to assign to this task. Locations you have stored in RTM will be available for assignment. Also, when a task with a location is selected, the user can click on the link for the location to pull up a map showing the selected location.

Next up - Contacts.