Lawyers e-Journal
Thursday, Mar. 15, 2012
Law Practice Management Tip
Signature Authority: Using footer tools to create template e-mails
As an attorney, you likely create numbers of template documents
for use in your practice. Perhaps you've even established nifty methods for advancing your document
library. Only, these days, the vast majority of business
communications are through e-mail. So, do you utilize email
templates? If not, there's a fairly easy way to begin to do so,
that may make your practice life a little bit easier. If you love
document templates, you're really going to love e-mail
templates.
Most people use e-mail signatures to apply standard footers to their messages; but, you need not
stop there. You can use the signature feature to create entire
template e-mails; and, it's literally just as easy as typing your
template in, saving it as a signature and applying it when you need
it. (For the limited information that will change within the
template, use highlighted language to reflect where specific
information will need to be included before sending.)
Here are some instructions on how to set up signatures within the
two most popular business e-mail platforms:
- Outlook; and
-
GMail (use 'Canned Responses' from GMail Labs, since GMail's basic signature tool
only allows you to create one, traditional footer; though, full
disclosure: I've had a great deal of trouble getting 'Canned
Responses' to work at all -- the Outlook option is vastly superior,
in my opinion).
Keep in mind, however, that you can't append more than one
footer (your standard footer) to a single e-mail in Outlook,
because the second footer (your template e-mail) will entirely
overwrite the first -- though, this does not appear to be the case
with GMail Canned Responses. There is, however, an easy solution to
this Outlook issue: Just add your standard footer to the end of
each of your template e-mail signatures, and the whole thing
(template e-mail signature and standard footer) will show up.
If your e-mail system does not offer the capability to create
multiple signatures, or if the functionality is far too wonky to be
useful (as it has been for me, in GMail), WiseStamp can
add the functionality, for a number of e-mail platforms.
Tip courtesy of Jared Correia, Law Office
Management Assistance Program.
Published March 15, 2012
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