Outlook as the hub of my business work and private communication

There is no doubt that Microsoft Office is the productivity suite I spend 90% of my time in. Whether I am writing emails, making presentations or doing strategic planning, Office is the key enabler for me. This may not come as a big surprise however recently I have had the opportunity to team up with several entrepreneurs in different business areas, and they have a mix of infrastructures that normally would make it close to impossible to stay in sync. This is where Outlook has saved the day!

  My main communication is through Outlook via Exchange (not much to say – they are made for each other). I do all my private communication via Hotmail and I have a second Hotmail account I use to sign up for different services that are likely to “spam” me with volume information. Outlook integrates really well with Hotmail via the Hotmail Connector and I am always up-to-date with emails and calendars. That Exchange and Hotmail can work next to each other is fantastic. But it doesn’t end there. I also have a Gmail account and most recently I have had the opportunity to set up a Google App account – all with seamless access from Outlook.

Well, with “seamless” I mean that email is managed 100% from Outlook without the need for sync programs or other bridges. The IMAP protocol ties Outlook and Gmail/Google Apps together very nicely. It doesn’t allow calendar synchronization (need the Google sync tool for that). All in all, I have 5 email accounts for different purposes, all operated from Outlook. But wait, there is more – with Outlook 2010 I can collect the inboxes in a Favorites folder which truly give me quick and easy access to all accounts.

Tip: It took me longest to set up the Google Apps account and I thought I should share the settings that worked really well for me. Note that these instructions are for connecting Outlook 2010 beta to Google Apps email:

1. Log in to your Google Apps account in the browser. Go to Settings >> Forwarding and POP/IMAP >> Set Status to Enable IMAP and save
2. In Outlook 2010, go to Account Settings >> E-mail >> New… >> Microsoft Exchange, POP3, or IMAP >> Next >> Manually configure server settings… >>
   >> Internet E-mail >> Fill in
   • Your name
   • “E-mail Address” as myname@mycustomgoogleappdomain.com (use your full Google Apps name with domain etc)
   • Set Account Type to IMAP ; Incoming mail server: imap.gmail.com ; Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com
   •  User name: myname@mycustomgoogleappdomain.com (use your full Google Apps name with domain etc)
   • Password: myverysecretpassword (your Google Apps password)
3. >> More Settings >> Advanced, set
   • Incoming server (IMAP): 993
   • Use the following type of encrypted connection: SSL
   • Outgoing server (SMTP): 465
   • Use the following type of encrypted connection: SSL  (note, this is different from Google’s help advice, that says to use TLS or STARTTLS; also note that the previous item is reset when you change this row, so double check you have the right info in place)
4. >> Outgoing Server, check My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication, and leave the Use same settings set. >> OK
5. Now you can click the button Test Account Settings… and it should confirm that Outlook is communicating with Google Apps mail server as expected.

This took some experimenting but it works for me. Let me know if it helps you!