Tonya's Major Project Web Site

Microsoft Outlook Tutorial

Microsoft Outlook Tutorial



Purpose of this Tutorial

The school district I work in created its first intranet last year.  We were encouraged to use Microsoft Outlook for our email communications.  The problem was that employees did not receive formal training on its uses.  Many employees use it strictly for email, if they ever logged in to the system at all.  A common problem was that employees did not seem to understand how to configure their accounts and that they would need to do this at every computer they may want to check email and/or calendar features on.  I wanted to create a web site that shows the teachers how to configure their accounts, basic email usage, advanced email usage, basic calendar usage, advanced calendar usage, and resources for more information.  My tutorial offers screen shots along with the directions about the various processes involved in performing various tasks.  Several existing tutorials that I looked at were heavily text-based or, if they contained pictures they were not specific to the district I work in or they were for a different version of Outlook.  In creating this web site I surveyed staff members to find what they would like to find in a tutorial; several suggestions have been offered and I have tried to incorporate as many as possible.  I have sent my site to several staff members for them to evaluate it; I plan to use Jim's advice in that you should wait for two similar suggestions before making any major changes, unless of course it is something that I have already questioned heavily.
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Intended Audience

I am creating this site specifically for employees of the Chenoa CUSD #9.  The "Account Setup" page is made for our setup but if another employer has a similar setup it may be adapted to suit their purposes.  Also, if another employer uses Microsoft Office 2000 Professional  version, the following pages could also be used: email use, advanced email use, calendar use, and advanced calendar use.  The "Resources" page could be used by anybody, anytime since it contains links to other sites that have training information about Microsoft Outlook.

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Progress of My Major Project

As of week 2,  I have surveyed several staff members to find out what they expect from the Outlook tutorial--assessing their needs. I have started to create the website and have outlined the six areas I want to address: Setting up an Account, Basic Email Use, Advanced Email Use, Basic Calendar Use, Advanced Calendar Use, and Other Resources. The Account Setup page will deal specifically with setting up an Account on our districts network. Last year we had a sheet of paper, listing step by step how to set it up--I viewed that as ineffective since I ended up helping almost all of the teachers set up their accounts, (our tech coordinator spent very little time in our building). I found that pictures through the process helped tremendously and I relayed this to our coordinator. He created a pdf file using the pictures but he only distributed it in the building that he is housed in--not effective for us at all. The resources page will contain some of the pages that I looked at for ideas to implement and build upon in my website. In the next few days I plan to map out the elements that the remaining four pages will contain. Always ongoing...

As of week 3, I have rough drafts of the Home page, the "Account Setup" and "Resources" pages.  I used screen shots from Outlook in Word to add callout bubbles that show where the action for that step is taking place.  I could not get the graphics to come together in FrontPage, which is why I used Word to create the graphics.  I will be at my school this week, where I will create more screen shots for this site, since the version of Outlook on my home computer looks slightly different from the screens at school.  I have sent the link via email to some of my co-workers to have them evaluate the tutorial thus far.  I plan to finish the remaining four pages at the end of week 3 so that I can use week 4 to "tweak" the site.

It is now week 4 and I am in the final stretch.  I have posted what I hope is close to a complete website, (though they are never really done.)  I have finished all of the remaining pages and made some changes based on suggestions made by people I trust.  Over the few remaining days I will continue to refine the site for presentation on Saturday.  I have received a lot of good advice and I look forward to collecting more on July 6th.


Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Outlook Tutorial

While this isn't exactly a scientific way to judge its usefulness, if I can experience fewer interruptions each day with questions about, "How do I do this in Outlook...?" -- that will be my first determining factor.  Also, if more staff are using their email because they have been able to configure their accounts without calling me to walk them through it, I will feel that this tutorial has had an effect.  I have sent the link to several of my colleagues to test drive and I have had very positive responses.  Now that they know some of the basics from this tutorial they are asking for more advanced information, (maybe I have opened a new reason for interruption!).  Another way I will be able to judge the effectiveness of this tutorial will occur after school starts and committees start scheduling meetings.  I am hoping with the implementation of the Free/Busy skills, scheduling amongst the staff will become easier.  A few people have already stated that they did not realize how easy it is to add contacts to the list in Outlook.  When I was trying to fine-tune the information I would include in this tutorial I reflected upon comments and questions made in our buildings last year and so far everyone has found something new to learn.  Another method for evaluating the effectiveness of this tutorial will be the number of emails I receive with comments/questions about the information I have included-whether it be suggested additions or clarifications of current material-I will be able to judge the completeness and clarity of the site.  I feel I am already on the right track since it has been suggested by an employee at CHS that I create a site for each of the Microsoft products we use--all in good time!  

 

 

  Microsoft Outlook Tutorial

The Microsoft Outlook Tutorial is in its final stages.  All of the pages are "complete" and subject to some fine-tuning.  You can click here to view the site as it currently looks.  Please check back every couple days as I hope to have ongoing changes.  If you have any suggestions or comments please click here to send an email.


 
Site last updated on July 02, 2002