Office 365 Outlook Online Rant
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I have been using MS Office products since v2000. I was always quick to move to the newest version, usually running my small business on the Beta versions and my favorite product was Outlook.
Since our business provides email hosting, it took me over a year to consider Office 365 and MS exchange hosted email services. However with an Android phone and tablet it seemed the right time to extend my cloudy + mobile horizons especially since clients were asking questions.
I don't know why there was a Lync app for Android but no MS apps. I used the stock email app on the Android devices.
I use folders in Outlook 2013 and rules. However on my Android devices it seemed the emails in the folders are "hidden" from view. In fact, to find if you have mail in a folder, you have to check every folder. NOT very user friendly.
6 months later the SSD drive dies in my main PC. I have to access email via a "testing" PC without an Office installation, so I login via the Office 365 website. What crap awaits me? I still can only see emails in the inbox, not my folders! I do the Google and I find the "unread emails" selection you can use in Favorites on the desktop app doesn't exist on the web/browser app. Basically my hard work of creating rules for folders has been undone by MS with Office 365. To get any work done while using this testing PC, I had to delete all rules so I can see emails in the inbox and I get to MANUALLY move them. This is NOT a step forward.
Yes yes, I Google some more and found some "magic" words to enter into search every time to "find" the emails in my folders, but i would have to do that every time i went from folder to inbox. And i wasn't about to do that.
Office 365 should get 5 stars but only gets 3 for screwing the end users and for the posts I found that said I should have the desktop version installed or I should have used powershell.
most of this was posted on SW as a review
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@technobabble said:
I use folders in Outlook 2013 and rules. However on my Android devices it seemed the emails in the folders are "hidden" from view. In fact, to find if you have mail in a folder, you have to check every folder. NOT very user friendly.
This sounds like a rant about Android. Android hands email horribly. What application are you using to read your emails on the Android? It's not part of the Office 365 suite, is it? Last I knew, there wasn't such a thing making this purely an Android email client issue. This works fine on other platforms like iOS.
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@technobabble said:
6 months later the SSD drive dies in my main PC. I have to access email via a "testing" PC without an Office installation, so I login via the Office 365 website. What crap awaits me? I still can only see emails in the inbox, not my folders! I do the Google and I find the "unread emails" selection you can use in Favorites on the desktop app doesn't exist on the web/browser app. Basically my hard work of creating rules for folders has been undone by MS with Office 365. To get any work done while using this testing PC, I had to delete all rules so I can see emails in the inbox and I get to MANUALLY move them. This is NOT a step forward.
This is nothing like what my OWA looks like. All of my folders are identical whether on OWA or Outlook. Literally the same, I sometimes forget which I am in. And now with 2013, for the first time, my Outlook rules go to the server and apply to OWA, not just locally to the client like you would expect. Not sure what is breaking for you, but this isn't intrinsic to Office 365.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@technobabble said:
I use folders in Outlook 2013 and rules. However on my Android devices it seemed the emails in the folders are "hidden" from view. In fact, to find if you have mail in a folder, you have to check every folder. NOT very user friendly.
This sounds like a rant about Android. Android hands email horribly. What application are you using to read your emails on the Android? It's not part of the Office 365 suite, is it? Last I knew, there wasn't such a thing making this purely an Android email client issue. This works fine on other platforms like iOS.
My test PC using Windows 7 using Chrome or IE to access Office 365 via the Outlook link which opens the Outlook Web App. That is where I find out that my Android email app is not the problem, I had the same issue using the browser online.
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@technobabble said:
Office 365 should get 5 stars but only gets 3 for screwing the end users and for the posts I found that said I should have the desktop version installed or I should have used powershell.
Who posted this where in reference to what? One of the really important things about Office 365 is that you should get it exclusively through Premier partners and like all products of this nature, never get it direct, or you give up important support channels. Not just the reseller support channel but in the case of Office 365 you opt out of the Microsoft's own main support line and only get the lesser one which is awful.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@technobabble said:
6 months later the SSD drive dies in my main PC. I have to access email via a "testing" PC without an Office installation, so I login via the Office 365 website. What crap awaits me? I still can only see emails in the inbox, not my folders! I do the Google and I find the "unread emails" selection you can use in Favorites on the desktop app doesn't exist on the web/browser app. Basically my hard work of creating rules for folders has been undone by MS with Office 365. To get any work done while using this testing PC, I had to delete all rules so I can see emails in the inbox and I get to MANUALLY move them. This is NOT a step forward.
This is nothing like what my OWA looks like. All of my folders are identical whether on OWA or Outlook. Literally the same, I sometimes forget which I am in. And now with 2013, for the first time, my Outlook rules go to the server and apply to OWA, not just locally to the client like you would expect. Not sure what is breaking for you, but this isn't intrinsic to Office 365.
SAM, the folders are there, but if mail is in those folders, it didn't show up unless you clicked on the folders. To check my email online I had to click on each of the the 50 folders and subfolders to see if there were any new emails in them.
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@technobabble said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@technobabble said:
I use folders in Outlook 2013 and rules. However on my Android devices it seemed the emails in the folders are "hidden" from view. In fact, to find if you have mail in a folder, you have to check every folder. NOT very user friendly.
This sounds like a rant about Android. Android hands email horribly. What application are you using to read your emails on the Android? It's not part of the Office 365 suite, is it? Last I knew, there wasn't such a thing making this purely an Android email client issue. This works fine on other platforms like iOS.
My test PC using Windows 7 using Chrome or IE to access Office 365 via the Outlook link which opens the Outlook Web App. That is where I find out that my Android email app is not the problem, I had the same issue using the browser online.
I'm a little confused. Are you saying that the mail just goes into folders? That's what folders are for. Are you just saying that Outlook works normally? How does it work differently in Outlook vs. OWA/Android? If I send email to a folder, I have to go into a folder to read it. This is how all email has been in every system I know since the beginning of email. That's the purpose of folders. If you send something to a folder, the idea is to keep it from being in your Inbox. So I'm a little lost on what you are trying to achieve or are saying is happening. Maybe I'm just not following. Maybe a screenshot?
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@technobabble said:
SAM, the folders are there, but if mail is in those folders, it didn't show up unless you clicked on the folders. To check my email online I had to click on each of the the 50 folders and subfolders to see if there were any new emails in them.
Oh! Are you saying that the mail goes into the folder but the little thing next to the folder doesn't update to tell you that there is new mail? That works on my OWA and on iOS for me. Android doesn't work at all for me, won't even check emails. But it is a known Android email client bug.
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Here is mine. The numbers that show that new mail has gone into the folders update automatically for me.
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i have a feeling he's talking about email that is routed to folders in the inbox via rules. I may be wrong. I dont actually use folders, the search feature works great for me.
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@Hubtech said:
i have a feeling he's talking about email that is routed to folders in the inbox via rules. I may be wrong. I dont actually use folders, the search feature works great for me.
I think that I agree. That's what I'm showing here. Those folders are all populated via mailbox rules. Or most of them at least. I have tons of rules.
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I would love to give you a screen shot, but since I deleted all server rules, all email dumps into inbox.
However your screenshot is what my desktop outlook used to look like, but never did my office 365 outlook look like that. It showed the amount of emails in the inbox only. No numbers on my folders at all.
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@technobabble said:
I would love to give you a screen shot, but since I deleted all server rules, all email dumps into inbox.
However your screenshot is what my desktop outlook used to look like, but never did my office 365 outlook look like that. It showed the amount of emails in the inbox only. No numbers on my folders at all.
Very strange. Mine definitely act exactly the same. I wonder if you make the rules in OWA what happens. Worth a try.
Were you using Outlook 2013 on Windows?
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Most of the rules were from 2010 and when I got 2013 update I created more. I wonder if since 95% of my rules were client based and not server based...
Can't hurt to try the rules in OWA.
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@technobabble said:
Most of the rules were from 2010 and when I got 2013 update I created more.
That's the same as me, I think. But I am not one hundred percent sure that I did not start on 2013. I suppose the update might have been involved since the combination of rules between client and server are new to either 2010 or 2013.
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Well if the Outlook/Office 365 pros want to chime in, I would be appreciative.
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@technobabble said:
Well if the Outlook/Office 365 pros want to chime in, I would be appreciative.
I "pinged" one of our people who focus on that to see what she things.
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What about setting your rules so that they only work manually? That way everything goes to your inbox (so you can easily catch it on your phone etc.) until you want to move them? I do this a couple times a week.
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Hmm... I have rules that I made in Outlook 2013, and the unread mail numbers show next to all of my subfolders in OWA. I'm not sure what could have broken your folders. Have you tried making a new rule since you deleted all of the original ones?
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@Minion-Queen said:
What about setting your rules so that they only work manually? That way everything goes to your inbox (so you can easily catch it on your phone etc.) until you want to move them? I do this a couple times a week.
I didn't even know that that could be done.
