Outlook's rules engine can handle a wide range of conditions, shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A

Outlook can handle a wide range of conditions. Click picture for a larger image.

When you create a rule, you're going to create it in such a way that it'll evaluate each message according to the set of conditions you specify. For example, you might want to automatically put all messages containing an attachment into a specific folder. So, you'd create a rule specifying the condition as "which has an attachment".

You might want to create a different rule which puts all messages that come from your boss into a special priority folder. In this case, you'd want to set the condition as "from people or distribution list" and then specify the "people" as your boss.

Notice that I've mentioned two separate rules in my two examples. You can, in practice, have a large number of rules in Outlook, each of which responds to different criteria and takes different actions. Right now, for example, in my Outlook client, I have 15 rules, each of which does a different thing.

Understanding actions
Once a message comes into Outlook, has passed through the rules engine, and has triggered a condition, one or more actions can be taken against the message.

By far, the most likely action is going to be the "Move it to a specified folder" action. Nearly all of my rules do just that. But there are actually quite a few possible actions that Outlook can perform automatically, as you can see in Figure B.

FIGURE B

Outlook can automatically perform many actions. Click picture for a larger image.

Once you combine conditions with actions, you get into the realm of IF/THEN processing. IF a message comes from the boss, THEN file it in the priority folder. IF a message contains an attachment, THEN file it in the attachments folder. IF a message comes from the ex-girlfriend, THEN delete it.

Rules are can be very powerful, especially since any one can have a bunch of conditions and a bunch of actions. If you noticed, there's also an action called "Run a script". This is a hugely open-ended (and potentially dangerous) action. That's because this action actually will run a chunk of Visual Basic code, which means, essentially, anything is possible.

Exceptions
There's one more key element of a rule, and that's what Outlook calls exceptions. Let's assume your boss is a heck of a guy, but he's an avid bowler and for some reason, each week, he sends you a copy of his bowling league's newsletter. I know, it's a somewhat specious example, but we all get some kind of crap from our friends, so use your imagination!

The fact is, you want to send all your boss's email into your priority folder, except for the bowling league newsletters, which are clearly not priority email.

IF a message is from your boss, THEN file it in the priority folder, EXCEPT if it's the bowling league newsletter. See how this is working? The rule will run and fire off its action, unless the exception is true. Exceptions, when they evaluate as true, prevent the rule from running.