Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003

Not All of My Rules Fire

I've created three rules in my Rules and Alerts dialog box. The first rule moves all messages from my boss to the Work folder. The second rule assigns a Work category to all incoming messages from three different people, one of whom is my boss. The third rule moves messages from my wife into the Family folder. When I get a message from my boss, it should be moved to the Work folder and assigned a Work category, but the category is never assigned. Why not?

Well, the answer is in your question. Your first rule takes an incoming message from your boss and moves it to the Work folder. After the message is moved to the Work folder, you cannot process any additional rules on that message.

You have two options to remedy the problem. You can edit the rule for your boss to perform two separate actions, and assign the message to the Work category and move the message to the Work folder. Or you can change the order of your rules. To change the order of your rules, select Tools, Rules and Alerts to display the Rules and Alerts dialog box. Select the rule that changes the message's category, and move that rule to the top of the list. That way, an incoming message from your boss will first be assigned the work category and will then be moved to the Work folder.