Module Two - Email Tasks

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?

• the sender's email address, domain name
• the receiver's email address, who it's copied towho it's blind copied to, the subject line - if not relevant to the message, perhaps it comes from an inexperienced user or spam
• may have an attachment which contains the body/content of the message, at the end of the message the signature conveys the identity of the sender, friend, foe, business, advertisement, work related, promotion etc...
• we can also find out at what address the email started and its route
  

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

• cc: when copying the message to others cc: to self, when keeping a copy of the message, bcc: is sending a blind copy (not seen by the addressee). It may not be a good practice as it shows that you are hiding something, bcc: to the boss, the opposition etc...
• bcc: may be a way of copying to many and the email addresses would not be available to all
• the reply all functions of email is necessary when actually replying to all addressees, to keep everyone in the loop of what is happeninga, so I would reply to the sender and cc: the others, not just send it to all

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

• unless known, always assume that the recepients do not have the latest OS, software or systems. If it is a Word document save it as a text file or an earlier version.

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

• I tend to manage my inbox manually and only have a filter for my Junk mail. Old habits are hard to break. There are lots of rules available in Outlook but I have never taken the time to find out how useful they could be, but hope to do so soon.

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

• below is an example of how I manage my folders: I have a folder for Technical Support, sub folder for the year, within that I record the date, customer name, the progress of the queries if still open or closed.