12 things you should know about Monash E-mail

While this may be obvious to some people, you would be suprised how many people do not follow this advice! If your inbox has hundreds of e-mail messages sitting in it, or you never seem to be able to find the e-mails that you want without looking for 10 minutes, then you may not be using folders effectively.

1. When defining folder names, try to think in broad terms. Don't base folder names on people, try to focus on committees, groups, and projects.
2. If you have trouble prioritising your work then create a high priority folder
3. If you receive e-mail that requires a lot of phone follow-up then have a phone folder
4. Don't be afraid to use subfolders, for example a committee folder could have the following subfolders : Agendas, Minutes, Resolutions, Tasks, RSVP, etc.
5. Don't be afraid to delete e-mail - if you can't sort it and it's not useful then delete it!

Click here for an example

While folders are important, you'll find that you have to spent a lot of time moving messages from your Inbox to other folders. The best way to combat this is to set up message filters. Message filtering is a quick and convenient way to organise your e-mail messages. Filtering moves your e-mail to the correct folder based on a set of rules which you specify.

For instance, you may wish to filter all Admin Global E-mails to a specific folder so that you can read them at a later date, or you may receive weekly e-mail reports that always have similar subject lines. These types of messages can be easily filtered.

Click here for an example

On occasion, e-mail attachments can be difficult to deal with, especially when you don't seem to be able to view the contents!

1. If you are unsure what a sent attachment actually is or you don't know the sender of the attachment, or is the attachment looks suspicious (look out for .EXE, .VBS in the filenames), do NOT open the attachment. Attachments can contain viruses which can be dangerous to your machine.
2. If you can't open an attachment by clicking on it - try saving it to your hard drive
3. Try to download all attachments to your Hard drive and then delete the e-mail which they came with. Deleting e-mails with attachments is the fastest way to reduce the amount of space you e-mail uses up.
4. Don't send e-mails with excessively large attachments! In particular try not to send large Word, Excel, or Powerpoint files. Also beware of sending large graphic files. A good rule of thumb is to attempt to keep attachments under 2 Megabytes in size. Remember that when you send an e-mail attachment you are contributing to your quota (a copy of every e-mail is kept in your sent folder) as well as the recipients. Also note that if your attachments are too large the e-mail servers may reject them or split them up making them almost impossible to put back together.
5. If you are sending lots of files then split them up into separate e-mails.
6. Don't bulk post attachments, i.e. Don't send a Word document to 50 people at once via e-mail, an alternative is to get it put on a web page (Contact the Web Team for more details)

SPAM (Unsolicited Bulk E-mail) is a constant annoyance to most users and unfortunately there is no sure fire way to get rid of it completely. If you want to keep the SPAM that you get down to a minimum, consider trying the following -

1. Check out the ITS page regarding SPAM at http://www.its.monash.edu.au/messaging/spam/ - it provides information on what to do about SPAM and what can be done to alleviate it.
2. Setup message filters to deal with regular SPAM that you recieve
3. Protect your e-mail address! Don't subscribe to mailing lists that you feel may send you SPAM. Also, try to be aware of privacy policies that websites display, ensure that your personal details are not going to be passed on to any 3rd party companies.
4. Never reply to SPAM - replying to SPAM may show the spammer that your e-mail account is active and being read and therefore they may continue to target your address.
5. Avoid falling for gullible e-mails, chain letters, and fake virus warnings. By passing these messages on all you end up doing is propagating SPAM further.
6. If you receive SPAM on a regular basis and the messages are unable to be filtered easily, consider installing SpamAssissin which can help to filter SPAM e-mail

Archiving your e-mail is a good way to reduce your e-mail quota. It's also a good way to remove clutter from your inbox and various folders. To archive your e-mail, use the following procedure:

1. Open up Netscape Communcator or any other web browser and navigate to http://mail.monash.edu.au
2. Click on the "Folder Achival Tool"
3. Enter in your Authcate username and password in the dialog boxes provided. If necessary set a time limit for the e-mail to be archived.
4. Click the "Request Archive Button"
5. You will receive an e-mail telling you how to collect and save your archive
6. Burn the archive to a CD-ROM

Address Books and Mailing lists are excellent ways of making your life easier when composing messages. You can add individual addresses or you can create lists. If you want other people do be able to send to a list you can request an MDS mail team to be setup

With HTML e-mail you can send e-mail with proper formatting, graphics, and colours - it takes longer to download than plain text e-mail but it looks nicer on the screen (if created properly). Plain text e-mail is exactly that, e-mail send in plain text with no formatting. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages

As a general rule you should compose all mail in plain text unless you have a specific reason for formatting, color and graphics in your e-mail (note that you can still send graphics in an e-mail attachment)

Creating e-mail signatures is fairly straight forward and can save you the hassle of putting in your name, address, phone number, and position title each time you send an e-mail.

Vcards are similar to signatures but they provide a graphical formatted version. Whether you use a signature or a Vcard is generally just a personal preference.

Return receipts can be a useful way to check that your e-mail actually arrived - use them sparingly though as they can be annoying for the recipient!

Managing your e-mail quota is extremely important as each member of staff only has a limited amount of space on the mail server to store their e-mail. For information on managing your quota check out the following link - http://www.med.monash.edu.au/itm/itss/training/email-quota.html

You can access your e-mail from any computer anywhere in the workld that is connected to the internet by using the web based e-mail client. There are two methods - via the Web Based Mail Client, or via the my.monash portal

Digital Signatures are a way to prove to a recipient that you are the actual sender of an e-mail messages. Monash's implementation of Digital Certificates currently allows you to sign an e-mail message with the certificate. In the future you will also be able to encrypt e-mail. For more information on Digital Certificates visit http://www.its.monash.edu.au/security/certs/