Outlook - The program. Why it's better than Outlook Web Access

You’ve probably heard the (insert your favorite co-ed) joke about an ambitious young person who went to the hardware store to buy a chain saw. There’s some variation in the details, but the punch line is when the co-ed returns the saw to the store to complain about it’s lack of cutting capacity, only to be startled by the noise of the chainsaw when it was started for the first time.

If you are using Outlook Web Access to read your email, you might just be the butt of a similar joke about your email prowess.

Now before you get all offended, there are some very good reasons, on occasion, to use Outlook Web Access. If you are borrowing a computer, using an internet Kiosk, checking an email on your run through the airport, or attending an offsite training;  then of course Outlook Web Access is a great tool and it is surprisingly similar to Oultook on the desktop.

In fact Microsoft went great lengths to create a Web enabled interface that even looks and behaves as much like Outlook as possible. Which begs the question – why spend so much energy on creating a Web interface that behaves so much like the real product? The answer is not because it works as well as the desktop program, it doesn’t!

If you are sitting at one place most of your working day, then you really ought to consider the advantages of a real Outlook experience.
 
Here are 10 reasons why you should be using Microsoft Outlook, the desktop version:

1. It’s Faster – This should be reason enough, but I continue to be surprised at the number of users at our schools who log onto Outlook Web Access instead of using the program sitting right on their desktop.
2. It’s Always On – Even when your internet access is down, Outlook keeps on going. It remembers everything you do while offline and synchronizes your work when you reconnect.
3. It works Automatically – Outlook checks your email even when you are not working in it. And it does so every 15 minutes, unless you change the default send and receive settings.
4. It checks your work better – The Outlook on your desktop is much like Microsoft Word, and has better spelling, grammar, and word/phrase checking.
5. It does profiles – Need to work with two different email accounts? And not just on the receiving end. Outlook maintains separate profiles for separate email addresses, allowing you to work in two organizations with that organization's domain based email.
6. It has add-ins - there are a number of very useful add-in programs, or utilities that enhance the features in Microsoft Outlook. One of our favorites is the email connector that integrates Microsoft Dynamics CRM (see our education resource management solution) and Outlook. This one reason alone makes the case for desktop Outlook.
7. It is much more customizable – Wallpaper, themes, fonts, colors, and design elements are all much more robust in the desktop version of Outlook. But be careful, sometimes your artistic interpretation makes for very difficult reading .
8. It has a much better search function – although you can search in both versions, the desktop version is much more efficient. And try deleting 500 messages in an overflowing OWA inbox. It takes forever!
9. It works with dial up – Okay, this is kind of cheating on the speed front. But you can actually have a reasonably robust email experience with only dial-up internet service. That’s because Outlook decides on what to download and does so in the background.
10. It has a Ribbon – The ribbon contains an amazing number of formatting commands  and features that are not available in OWA. And if you are doing any kind of serious email composition, you will find those features very handy.

Once you begin using the real version of Outlook, you may find features not mentioned above that you really like. In fact you may begin to like these features so much that you actually look forward to greeting your inbox each morning.

OK, so that is probably a stretch.

But, by using the real Outlook you may have more free time to do something other than email. And I can do something other than writing about it.

What’s that noise?