Checking for a Specific Message at a Set Interval

I put this post together for a Twitter user going by the name DerroldJess (DJ for short). DJ tweeted me asking if I could create a script that would check a mailbox every 15 minutes for a message with a specific subject, and display an alert if it did not find one. You can view the entire conversation here. The good news is that this is possible, although not from within Outlook. In order to make a check every 15 minutes, the solution needs a timer to trigger it. The only timer-like capability in Outlook is a reminder on a task or appointment, and for this that’s impractical. If the script only needed to run once a day, then I’d have gone that route and written this as an Outlook macro. Instead, I opted to write this using VBScript. VBScript runs outside of Outlook, so DJ can use Windows’ built-in task scheduler to run the task every 15 minutes.

Advertisement

Automatic “In Meeting” Response

 

Imagine this scenario. You’ve sent an email to someone and are waiting for their response. It’s been awhile, an hour or two, since you sent the message, and they haven’t replied. You start to wonder if they got the message, if they are too busy to respond, or if they are just ignoring you. Finally, you pick up your phone and call them. The person answers and tells you they’ve been in a meeting and just got back to their office. Or maybe that situation is reversed and you were the one in the meeting while a co-worker or client was waiting for you to respond. Sound familiar? Wouldn’t it be great if Outlook could respond for you, telling the sender that you’re in a meeting and that you will read and reply to their message as soon as you can?

New Mail Notification for an Additional Mailbox – Part Deux

As the title suggests this post is a continuation of an entry I made in December of last year. A couple of folks have requested modifications to the original version and I decided to handle those as new posts rather than edit the original.

This post then is for Marcin who requested a couple of changes in a comment he posted a few days ago on the original post. The changes Marcin asked for are

1. A version that can handle two mailboxes
2. Box 1 to be on all time
3. Box 2 to be monitored from 10:00 PM until 6:00 AM only

Meeting Marcin’s requirements is actually quite simple.