The rules explained

Outlook Rules Creator

Have you ever had to deal with far too many emails, all unsorted? Is your inbox filled will all sorts of important messages, but they are so disorganized you will never catch up? Have you ever wished there was a quick and easy way to programmatically create Outlook rules and folders in one fell swoop? If you now find yourself looking for a way to run a single script that will create your rules and folders on the Exchange server—which will then continue filtering your emails everyday as it would if you had manually added each individual rule—you have stumbled upon the right website, my friend. Please read on.

Why did I create this script?

The reason I created these rules is that in my current job, I have noticed my co-workers experience issues with mail rules. The end result was always missing emails due to the wrong rule catching them and moving them to the wrong folder. Email rules are no easy task; they are a pseudo programming language which processes the rules sequentially from top to bottom. Outlook does have a Rule Wizard, but it is cumbersome when it comes to sharing the rules with someone else. The biggest issue I found with the Wizard is that it does not create the folders needed, and the rules are not very easy to maintain. 

In what situation would this script be most useful?

The current revision of the rules (v1.24b) is designed for use in an environment in which a pre-determined set of keywords is already established and widely used.  For example, take any new employee with no programming experience in a company with multiple product lines specialized to the client. The new employees usually are overwhelmed with hundreds of emails that flow in unsorted; once rules are in place, the process is simplified. Creating each rule manually, as I have explained, takes time to build and even longer to perfect. Using the script I wrote, an experienced employee within the department who knows the keywords to use in the filters can fill in the columns on the spreadsheet and immediately create the filters and folders for the new employee to use.

How fast are the rules created?

Using this method, creating about 60 folders and 120 rules on the Exchange server took between three and 15 minutes, depending on the computer and its location. I am not sure of the factors at play when it comes to speed. The fastest time I measured was on a “cloud” remote desktop computer, and the longest (15 minutes), was on a not very powerful desktop computer. Compared to the traditional method of adding rules and folders as you go, which in my experience takes the employee several months, I would call this method a success.

How do the rules work?

It would be best that an experienced employee, in the same department, who knows most of the keywords one would need, fill in the Excel spreadsheet. The Excel file contains columns for: the name of the rule, key word or words to seek out, domain from which emails are sent, and words excluded from the subject line filter. In my company, we find it necessary to sort our emails into folders based on which client the email pertains to. Thus, we benefit from rules that filter email messages that mention the client in the subject line, and from rules that filter emails coming from the client’s domain (e.g., if one of the clients is XYZ Industries, emails coming from [email protected]).  If rules must be created to filter by anything other than subject key words or sender domain, the basic concept here can be expanded, but these are the filters needed at my company.

There are two rules that are created when the Outlook script is run: one is seeking words in the subject line and the other, in the domain of the email’s sender. In other words, the program creates a “subject” rule and a “people” rule for each line that is entered onto the spreadsheet in Excel. Note that there must be two rules created per line because if we combined them into a single rule, both conditions would have to be true in order for a message to be filtered. Outlook does not allow for rules that sort based on a match in the subject OR a match in the sender.

A few examples are listed as they would appear in the columns of the Excel spreadsheet.

Name of Rule	Words in Subject	Domain From	Exclude the following words
Intel	pentium xeon intel	intel.com
Mercedes Benz	mercedes benz	mbusa.com	Benzene

 

 

The above view displays the final product of the example rule mentioned previously. The script adds an underscore plus a “p” or an “s” for people or subject, respectively.

What if the rules do not sort as intended?

Once created, the same file can be modified and tweaked as needed and shared again and again as new employees are set up with email access. Each new employee is thus receiving the up-to-date version of a department-wide or company-wide email filtering system. If a new set of rules was to be implemented then the current rules could be deleted and the script re-run. The folders will not be re-created, only the rules.

Limitations and final comments

By design, the rules run in the order listed on the Excel spreadsheet. I elected to sort them alphabetically for readability and ease of troubleshooting. There is a known size limitation on rules in Outlook* of 32kB, but this can be increased to 256kB in Exchange 2007 and higher. One way to minimize the size of rules is number rather than name the rules.

When running these rules for the first time, I would recommend setting up an alternate profile in Outlook on which you set up a “test” pop account. The benefits of this are clear: rules are created in a separate environment and there is no lag time associated with updating the exchange server. Once your rules are confirmed successful, run them on your regular account. I have used this script to create folders and filters successfully in Exchange 2007 using Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 clients. I hope it serves you well.

 *Per Microsoft KB886616