Microsoft Outlook training

[Bellend Sebastian]

I could have posted this in the computers and gaming section, but I thought I was probably more likely to stumble across someone that knows about this in here.

If you worked for a company where basically no-one had a f***ing clue how to use their computers properly, and you were by far the most IT literate person in the business but not actually an IT specialist, where the blazes would you go to get some proper training on Microsoft Outlook, by which I mean, how does a business actually use it properly, to its full potential and how it was intended to work.

We've basically been muddling through, but a new senior colleague has just come in from somewhere where they clearly knew a lot more about it than we do, wants to use it in the same way but doesn't know how to make it work in that way and neither do any of us.

We get offered funded IT training by colleges all the time but I'm not eligible for it because apparently I'm too clever, which clearly isn't the case. I therefore will have to get the company to actually pay for some - but what?

[fleckneymike]

That's quite a vague post. What precisely do you want to do with outlook?

[Trav Le Bleu]

Is buying an "Idiots" guide not going to answer this?

PS, I'm not calling you an idiot, I'm merely referring to the famous series of books

PPS, which were written for idiots

[Captain...]

Just be glad you are not stuck with Lotus notes, an absolute bag of crap compared to Outlook, it depends what you really want, whenever I want to know how to do something I just google it and some clever dick will have written a guide or stuck a video on Youtube, it is possibly a bit more time consuming but more cost effective than getting someone in. Outlook is a fairly intuitive program and is widely used. Another option is find an IT forum, or a microsoft help forum and ask your questions on there.

[Jon the Hat]

Google is your friend. You can look very smart by using google.

[Captain...]

Is buying an "Idiots" guide not going to answer this?

PS, I'm not calling you an idiot, I'm merely referring to the famous series of books

PPS, which were written for idiots

Good thinking batman, much cheaper than £500 a day it would cost to get someone in. Or just use the inbuilt help files. I know someone who was so bored one day they just went through all of the hints on Excel, she learnt a lot, and she was hot so nobody called her a geek over it.

[Daggers]

Google is your friend. You can look very smart by using google.

Hasn't worked out well for the bulk of this forum.

[Trav Le Bleu]

Just be glad you are not stuck with Lotus notes, an absolute bag of crap compared to Outlook, it depends what you really want, whenever I want to know how to do something I just google it and some clever dick will have written a guide or stuck a video on Youtube, it is possibly a bit more time consuming but more cost effective than getting someone in. Outlook is a fairly intuitive program and is widely used. The option is find an IT forum, or a microsoft help forum and ask your questions on there.

This. I really can't be told how to do anything - no, it really doesn't work. I have to see it being done, know why it's being done and then try it myself, time and again if necessary, until I can do it right.

You can "teach" me until the cows come home and I'll be none the smarter.

[Smudge]

There's a whole bunch of Powerpoint training presentations available here

[Bellend Sebastian]

It's really the calendar-y stuff we're interested in, but there are other bits as well. Currently everyone shares a calendar (and don't use their own), with all meetings in the same place (helpfully colour coded so we know where they are, and to stop rooms getting double booked etc) simply so we can tell at a glance what everyone's doing. I know full well that this is a bit simplistic, but it works for us and most of our luddites can cope with it. The new fella is used to using it properly, i.e. inviting people to meetings which then appear in everyone's individual calendars, and this is the bit I'm not sure about. Can you, for example, still see a calendar view that has everyone's stuff superimposed on it, or do you have to rely on everyone copying stuff from their own calendars into a shared one, like that's going to happen.

I am being a bit vague, I know, but from my minimal experience of proper training in these packages (about 13 years ago) if you have a package or a trainer that goes through the whole blooming thing from the ground up, you end up using the applications much more effectively. Folk are right that Microsoft applications are pretty intuitive, but I think that just increases the temptation to muddle through and then you end up not using them to anything like their full potential. I had some training in Word back in the day and I wish I could remember some of it (even though it was Word 97 or something) because it was painfully apparent that no-one in our company (and I worked for a big firm at the time) was using more than about 20 per cent of its functionality at best

[Bellend Sebastian]

There's a whole bunch of Powerpoint training presentations available here

I thank you. I did actually stumble across these, but naturally the video parts don't work on our latest version of Powerpoint on our fully up to date, fully Microsoft certified terminal server. I'll have a look at home!

[Jon the Hat]

Hasn't worked out well for the bulk of this forum.

True, however this forum is generally not asking for MS Office help, which leaves much less scope for fvckwittery.

[Captain...]

It's really the calendar-y stuff we're interested in, but there are other bits as well. Currently everyone shares a calendar (and don't use their own), with all meetings in the same place (helpfully colour coded so we know where they are, and to stop rooms getting double booked etc) simply so we can tell at a glance what everyone's doing. I know full well that this is a bit simplistic, but it works for us and most of our luddites can cope with it. The new fella is used to using it properly, i.e. inviting people to meetings which then appear in everyone's individual calendars, and this is the bit I'm not sure about. Can you, for example, still see a calendar view that has everyone's stuff superimposed on it, or do you have to rely on everyone copying stuff from their own calendars into a shared one, like that's going to happen.

I am being a bit vague, I know, but from my minimal experience of proper training in these packages (about 13 years ago) if you have a package or a trainer that goes through the whole blooming thing from the ground up, you end up using the applications much more effectively. Folk are right that Microsoft applications are pretty intuitive, but I think that just increases the temptation to muddle through and then you end up not using them to anything like their full potential. I had some training in Word back in the day and I wish I could remember some of it (even though it was Word 97 or something) because it was painfully apparent that no-one in our company (and I worked for a big firm at the time) was using more than about 20 per cent of its functionality at best

That all sounds possible, shared calendars are fairly straightforward, I would like to help more but I am stuck with lotus notes and I hate it.

In the last place we had all the meeting rooms set up in the system so when you set up a meeting you just picked a meeting room and time, and invited everyone and it would automatically appear in everyone's calendar as unconfirmed and would disappear if it was rejected and appear as confirmed if accepted, but there would also be a calendar for the meeting room (I think they needed to be set-up as a mail account too).

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=setting+up+meeting+rooms+in+outlook+2010&num=10&hl=en&source=lnms&sa=X&ei=VSApUJOKAe_Y4QTi1ICoBg&sqi=2&ved=0CAwQ_AUoAA&biw=1160&bih=523

I wouldn't fight against the changes, but if you have something that works then I wouldn't change it unless necessary, it is very easy to over complicate simple things, it sounds like you work in a fairly small company so it is all about finding what works best, and believe sometimes all the bells and whistles just makes a simple thing so much harder.

[Monk]

Outlook is a crock of shite. Persuade your company to use google apps for business and everyone lives happily ever after. Or, even better, get a mac.

There's not a huge amount TO Outlook really. Calendar, Mail and Lists. Colouring in stuff perhaps.... other than that it's a pretty basic application.

[Bellend Sebastian]

That all sounds possible, shared calendars are fairly straightforward, I would like to help more but I am stuck with lotus notes and I hate it.

In the last place we had all the meeting rooms set up in the system so when you set up a meeting you just picked a meeting room and time, and invited everyone and it would automatically appear in everyone's calendar as unconfirmed and would disappear if it was rejected and appear as confirmed if accepted, but there would also be a calendar for the meeting room (I think they needed to be set-up as a mail account too).

https://www.google.c...iw=1160&bih=523

I wouldn't fight against the changes, but if you have something that works then I wouldn't change it unless necessary, it is very easy to over complicate simple things, it sounds like you work in a fairly small company so it is all about finding what works best, and believe sometimes all the bells and whistles just makes a simple thing so much harder.

By crikey that looks like it might actually be useful. I thank you, most kindly.

Colouring in stuff perhaps....

This is one of the few areas that I've truly got on top of

[Trav Le Bleu]

Bellend.

Just walk away.

Open that record store.