It’s great to declutter your office for example you could get a filing cabinet for each office desk, but when it comes to software it’s a different matter. Instead of using filing cabinets to store their files, some offices have decided to turn their attentions towards a document management software from somewhere like FileCenter, (FilecenterDMS.com) which can make filing and finding documents a lot easier. It also means that you can free up space in your office by getting rid of your filing cabinet, as you will no longer need to have a place to store all of your paper documents. However, it all depends on what your employer prefers, as some software can come with problems of its own. In case you haven’t noticed, Microsoft’s Office 365 service, which hosts MTSU’s email accounts, has an awful feature that is most likely making you miss out on a ton of important messages. If you have office 365 reporting, this feature may already be disabled, check your settings to be sure of its deactivation.
If you are planning on using Office 365 though, then it’s important that you make sure that you know what you are doing. This way you can get the most out of it, and you will find that your working day becomes a lot easier. If you are brand new to Office 365, then it might be worthwhile looking at this guide here (this is a useful guide to getting the most out of office 365)!
The Clutter folder is a new feature to the email service, and it is slowly becoming my mortal enemy. You see, as a member of several campus organizations and a senior on track to graduate in December, I get an above-average amount of emails to my MTmail account. Due to this new feature, which randomly sorts messages into a separate inbox that isn’t a part of the main inbox of Apple’s iPhone Mail app, I’ve been missing out on a multitude of important emails from professors, advisors and peers.
Microsoft says it’s a program designed to flag the messages “you’re most likely to ignore” and may take “a few days to fully adapt to your preferences.” Well, I’m here to tell you that it does a sucky job at sorting messages, and it still hasn’t straightened itself out in the several months it’s been active.
Upon browsing through my Clutter folder, here are some types of messages I’ve missed this semester: advising reminders, final project instructions, scholarship notifications, FAFSA reminders, messages from professors and student organization advisors and university employee notices.
Now these are just the vital emails I’ve missed. I’ve also missed messages about: department surveys, parking lot closures, Sidelines writer inquiries, emails from classmates, information about the It’s On Us anti-sexual assault campaign, community service opportunities, baseball game information, messages from the Fraternity & Sorority Life Office and many communications from student organizations.
This is an irritating problem on multiple levels. These vital notifications could have potentially harmed my GPA, made me miss out on scholarships and financial aid or held up my registration process for the fall. The other messages potentially caused me to miss numerous campus involvement opportunities, and, as an editor of this publication, important events I could send our reporters to cover.
Luckily, I knew about this folder and was able to find these messages. However, a less vigilant student’s GPA, finances and/or campus involvement could be put in jeopardy all because of a useless email feature. With MTSU officials’ struggle to get students involved on campus and their unquenchable thirst for blood money, I feel as if this small feature is potentially doing more harm to the university than good.
As a campus org leader, I think this feature is dampening the university’s and students’ communication with the campus community. You never know when you’ll decide to head over and watch a baseball game. Maybe you’ll wanna sit in on the latest Cinema Club screening. Tonight, you might wanna get a little a little crazy and fill out that FAFSA thing (When is that due again?). Or who knows, you could just neglect all responsibilities and watch Netflix all night. However, you won’t get to choose your weekly involvement if your campus email service is preventing you from seeing those messages.
So if you’re a student, I’d recommend you head here to learn how to turn off the Clutter feature. If you’re a faculty member, I’d suggest you let university officials know your department’s messages to student are being cockblocked by Bill Gates, or, you know, something along those lines.
For more unnecessary ramblings like this, follow John Connor Coulston on Twitter at @JCCoulston.
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To contact News Editor Amanda Freuler, email [email protected]