Best way to identify/designate contacts in incoming emails?

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mikemcinnis

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Outlook version
Outlook 2010 32 bit
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POP3
Hi all,

I'm sure there's an easy answer I'm overlooking, but here is my situation:

1. My boss gets tons of emails every day. He flags these emails with different colors to let me know what should action should be taken regarding the sender, which primarily involves three tasks: A) add the sender to our Constant Contact list only, B) add the sender to his Outlook contacts only, or C) add to both Constant Contact and Outlook contacts.

So far so good. The problem is, a month later when he's going through new emails, he has no way of seeing AT-A-GLANCE (very important to him) which people have been added to which list, or even if any action has been taken at all. So instead of only flagging new senders for action, he's wasting a lot of time flagging people I've already handled.

I had a solution to this problem, which was to create small icon labels and upload them as each person's contact picture. That way, when a new incoming email arrives, he can quickly identify from the "business card" picture what actions have been taken. However, this process has proven extremely tedious and simply isn't viable for hundreds of new contacts.

To reduce this to simple questions:

1. Once I add someone as a contact, is there an at-a-glance way to know that they are a contact just by looking at their incoming emails?

2. Are there additional at-a-glance ways to indicate that an email sender is part of some particular group or subgroup?

I've done some homework before asking, so I'm aware that you can modify views and color code messages from certain contacts--but while these processes seem ideal for a handful of important contacts, they all seem unfit for hundreds or thousands of contacts. (Which leads me to think I'm probably overlooking something obvious...)

Any ideas? New to the forums so forgive me if I'm leaving out any key details...your collective genius is much appreciated!
 
1. No, not really. If you right click on their name in the preview pane or open message, it will say open contact if a contact exists.

The part you are overlooking is that you can categorize messages from people in contacts - using the same category for all. Use the 'sender is in specified address book' condition and select the contacts folder. if you have multiple contacts folders you'll need multiple rules, but it will apply to all addresses in the folder.
 
1. No, not really. If you right click on their name in the preview pane or open message, it will say open contact if a contact exists.




The part you are overlooking is that you can categorize messages from people in contacts - using the same category for all. Use the 'sender is in specified address book' condition and select the contacts folder. if you have multiple contacts folders you'll need multiple rules, but it will apply to all addresses in the folder.
 
There's a new version of Category Manager that can automatically categorize incoming emails by the category of its sender. If the contact is found in one of up to two contact folders, the contact's categories will be assigned to the email. Interesting for you is if the contact is not found, it can also assign a certain category. You can also manage a list of cateogries that will never be assigned.
 
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