• 2 OL windows (2002)

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    WSshlomos
    AskWoody Lounger
    January 11, 2003 at 12:55 am #381676

    I have 2 Personal Folders and I would like to open each in a separate window. I could open one at a time, but could not figure out how to open them in separate windows at the same time. Once I open one Personal Folder, when I click on Outlook, it immediately goes to the opened window and does not start a new instance. Is it possible to run 2 instances of Outlook with different Personal Folders? Thank you.

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    • WSjscher2000
      AskWoody Lounger
      January 11, 2003 at 1:56 am #644428

      Do you have both open in the “folder list”? If so, you can right-click the relevant folder in the second PST and choose Open in New Window (see attached). The new window may appear different than the original window (for example, no folder list display). If this is annoying, you could use a macro to open a “duplicate” Outlook Explorer window of your main inbox:

      Sub ShowInboxAgain()
Application.Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Display
End Sub

      To navigate to a specific PST, you need to hardcode the name into the macro, so the resulting code could be more fragile:

      Sub ShowMyPST()
Dim myPST As MAPIFolder, strMyPST As String
'identify PST by the friendly name in folder list, not the filename
strMyPST = "Personal Folders - Second PST"
'the subfolder (in this example Inbox), must exist or you get an error
Set myPST = Application.Session.Folders(strMyPST).Folders("Inbox")
'pop open an Explorer object for this folder
myPST.Display
'clean up
Set myPST = Nothing
End Sub

      There’s much more you could do, but do these three options get you far enough?

      P.S. All of this was tested in Outlook 2000. Your mileage may vary with Outlook XP.

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      • WSshlomos
        AskWoody Lounger
        January 11, 2003 at 5:30 am #644450

        Dear Jefferson,

        Thank you for your reply. Since you seem to be able to go deeper, I should give you the whole story.

        I am doing this for one of my client organizations. They were using Eudora, and I urged (and successfully persuaded) them to switch to Outlook. Then, I was confronted with this problem: with Eudora you can create as many mail folders (similar to .pst files) as you like and make a Eudora shortcut pointing to each mail folder. You can run Eudora opening any or all mailboxes as different jobs simultaneously. The advantage is that you don’t mix messages and you can check messages for each box by clicking one button. Since they are all open simultaneously, each one receives messages independently and constantly. I thought I could do the same thing with Outlook without difficulty. Well, I would be very embarrassed if I have to tell my client that that feature is not available with Outlook after my rather intense promotion. This feature is important for this client and if I cannot come up with some reasonably simple solution, I will have to go back to Eudora even though this program has a number of other limitations.

        Now, as for your first suggestion, I tried something like that, but one major problem was that only one personal folder is active (can send/receive messages) and other folders are viewable but not active. Outlook lets you choose the sender account, but my client users are not power users and cannot deal with any procedures that require more than 2 clicks.

        Your second and third suggestions look rather complicated and may invite maintenance problems. Even so, if you can come up with a macro such that a user can just click separate icons on the desktop and open each .pst file as a separate window, I would be infinitely grateful.

        Thank you.

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        • WSjscher2000
          AskWoody Lounger
          January 11, 2003 at 7:19 am #644452

          I don’t think Outlook can do that “out of the box,” but maybe there is an add-on that can do it. FYI, I use the “Corporate/Workgroup” mode, and it is possible that the “Internet Mail Only” mode has more flexibility (or should I say, fewer limitations).

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        • WSTimOz
          AskWoody Lounger
          January 11, 2003 at 8:23 am #644454

          I think I understand the functionality you have with Eudora. I’m not so sure about why it’s important for your client, apart from keeping mail from different sources separate. That is, why is it needed (or what user function does it serve)? Maybe there’s an opportunity to review the user processes for any hint of “that’s the way it’s always been done”?

          Anyway, is there a chance you could “fake” the source separation functionality, with rules? That is, create a folder for each mail source, and a corresponding rule to direct mail from each source to its associated folder. If needed, you could create shortcuts to use each of these folders as a start up folder for Outlook (I think there’s a command line switch for this).

          This won’t function exactly way Eudora does. However, you could try to sell any differences as improvements.

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    • WSshlomos
      AskWoody Lounger
      January 11, 2003 at 6:18 pm #644517

      jscher200 and TimOz,

      Thanks for your replies. Yes, I am using Corporate Mode and yes it is more flexible. Yet, it is still short of the needed function. About why the functionality of 2 windows is important, I can give you two examples and this is not particularly a special situation. In this organization, someone is responsible for fielding all the emails that come to the general info account. She also has her own mail account, and she likes to keep them completely separate. When she is away, someone else can simply open the info mailbox and take over the work easily. Another person is in charge of entering contribution data that come as encrypted emails to the contribution mailbox, and he (and the administration as well) does not want to mix any of these messages with his own personal/business messages. If you have a multiple-account setup in Outlook, all the incoming messages will come to the default Inbox, and distributing them into the correct folder by rules is not always easy or accurate. On the other hand, all your outgoing messages will assume the default account’s address as the sender unless you specifically choose different senders–a cumbersome, error-prone step for most users.

      I made Outlook pop up the dialog at the outset asking which personal folder to use. This way, you can ensure that mailboxes don’t get mixed. I thought I could simply start another instance of Outlook using another folder. What happens is that once Outlook is open with any personal folder, the second instance automatically goes to the already opened folder and doesn’t give me a chance to specify the personal folder to use. To open another personal folder, you must quit Outlook and then come back to open the other one.

      Personally, I never needed this kind of functionality, but when I think of it, Eudora’s way makes a lot of sense. I wonder why Outlook team didn’t think of that (maybe not many people requested it).

      Anyway, I am still looking for a way-out. I would appreciate any thoughts. Thank you.

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      • WSTimOz
        AskWoody Lounger
        January 12, 2003 at 1:25 am #644574

        Ahhh

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        • WSshlomos
          AskWoody Lounger
          January 12, 2003 at 6:40 pm #644654

          Thanks for further suggestions. Unfortunately, they are using Windows 2000 and so your idea of switching users is not an option. But even with XP I am not sure if I want to go so far as creating another user account just for this problem. I think I will ask those who need two separate email windows to use both Outlook and Eudora. Luckily, some of the users already liked Outlook’s calendar functionality, so I am spared total humiliation.

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          • WSOldDog
            AskWoody Lounger
            January 13, 2003 at 2:47 pm #644790

            Ah yes, the “but that’s the way we’ve always done it” syndrom. I confess an IT bias, but I find that breaking the requirements apart from the procedures is a constant and irksome problem.

            Since you’re in Corporate mode, you can do this the “MS” way. We have a similar need (process-wise) for our folks in corporate services who monitor about 30 conference rooms. This design isn’t the exact same functionality as your user now have, but it will get the job done with a couple of mouse clicks.

            1) Add each person who needs this functionality as an exchange user of the “role” mailbox(s).
            2) Have each user add the role mailboxes they need to their folder list.
            3) Create an Outlook bar shortcut to the folders in question. If they need access to multiple folder in each mailbox you may want to create a group for each mailbox.

            If users want a separate window they can right click on a shortcut and choose to open in a new window. If they need to send/reply as the other mailbox they can add the From field – they just have to remember to fill it in.

            Hope this helps!

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