This article attempt to explain the settings and functions of the Work time settings within the Windows Outlook client.
To find this customizable setting within your Windows Outlook client, choose File / Options / Calendar and look for the Work time section of the settings ....
Within this section, you will find settings that allow you to perform custom settings to your work environment - including such things as:
- Choosing a preferred start time to your work day/week
- Choosing a preferred end time to your work day/week
- Choosing which days of the week you normally work
- etc.
By default, Outlook populates these settings to show that work hours are Mon-Fri from 8am to 5pm but as shown above, they can be adjusted to your work schedule. Here are a few examples .....
For someone who wants to show that they are never "off the clock", they might change their settings to be as follows:
For someone who only works in the mornings on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, their settings might look like this:
It is important to note two items about these adjustments ...........
- They are fully customizable and can be changed at any time (or set once and never changed)
- The sole purpose of these settings are to provide a notification of when you're normal business hours are. Think of it as a "long term version" of the out of the office messages that you may set before going on vacation or taking a holiday away from the office.
Now, let's expand a bit on point #2 above. The key word here is "notification". The settings alone that you select have absolutely no control on your receipt or delayed receipt of an e-mail - even during out of the office hours. Your settings may, however, notify (and possibly influence) the sender of the e-mail or calendar request you are receiving as to when or how they send it to you.
Let's use the following Work time setting as an example to cover this topic ...
Based on the schedule above, the user (Henry Brill) has stated that he works from 7am to 7pm, Mon thru Fri each work week. Now, let's say someone in the office (Emily Braun) is working on a Saturday and wants to send an e-mail to several people - including Henry. When Emily composes the new e-mail, she may see a notation similar to that shown below showing that the message she is about to send Henry is being done so outside his normal work hours ....
Under what are known as the "Inline Suggestions" that Emily has turned on within her own version of Outlook, she will receive some notifications and have some acknowledgements/choices to make ...
1. She is sending Henry a message during a time he is not in the office (yellow clock icon next to his name)
2. She can dismiss the notification and send it anyway. In this scenario, the message will be sent to Henry during his off hours. Again, his calendar settings do NOT stop the message from being sent. Provided the recipient has a functional e-mailbox, messages will be received at any time whether a person is working or not working - (usually moments after it was sent). In short, the delivery of messages is totally dependent upon the sender - not the recipient.
3. Emily can choose to schedule the send. Why would she do this? Let's say she follows option 2 above and dismisses the message and it is sent right away. Depending upon how many other messages Henry receives in his Inbox over the weekend, he may come in on Monday and Emily's message may be 'buried' by other messages - listed near the bottom of all of his new messages. In order to avoid this from happening and have her message 'top of mind' when Henry comes in Monday, Emily has the option to choose Schedule send so that the delivery will be delayed until say 7:05am Monday morning and it will show near the 'top' of his inbox.
Now, if Emily knows that Henry reads his e-mails during off hours, she'll most likely Dismiss the message and simply send it after it has been composed. However, if the message is important and she knows that Henry never checks his messages while out of the office, she may choose to schedule when it is sent.
Though the "Work time" settings have been a part of Outlook for some time now, the notification function that the sender is presented with is fairly new. Helpful in many ways, it may become more of a nuisance to the sender and he/she may want to have it turned off. If so, here are the steps required for doing so ...
The main takeaway should be ........
- The receipt of e-mails happen day or night, 7 days a week provided there are no technical issues at play. The "Work time" schedule has nothing to do with the flow of messages and/or calendar event requests.
- Depending upon their own Outlook settings, senders of messages and calendar invites may or may be notified about the recipients work schedule. If they are notified, they have the ability to manipulate the delivery schedule of the outgoing message/invite. If senders choose not to modify the delivery schedule of a message (or are not presented with the option to do so), the recipient's mailbox will receive the message within minutes of it being sent whether they are at work, at home for the day, on vacation, whatever. If their mailbox is functioning properly, it's "open for business".
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