Nelson E-mail Organizer

Nelson E-mail Organizer

E-mail is a fantastic communication medium, but managing it can sometimes be a nightmare. I always thought it would be great to find some easy, intuitive program that could help me deal with the numerous e-mail messages I get everyday. I also wanted a little help searching and sorting my messages.

The Nelson E-Mail Organizer from Caelo Software Inc., appeared to fit the bill. It’s called an “intelligent e-mail sorter,” and works on top of Microsoft Outlook 97 and above (Outlook Express isn’t supported). While Outlook is great for storing and retrieving e-mail, NEO helps you more effectively search, sort and keep track of e-mails that easily get lost in the shuffle.

NEO isn’t an e-mail application in itself. Your e-mail is brought into Outlook and then NEO works as a sort of interface, synching up with Outlook.

You can access your Outlook Inbox and sub-folders from within NEO and the messages in Outlook are left undisturbed.

NEO uses tabs to present your e-mail messages in several forms. First is the “Hot” tab where I spent most of my time. The key feature here is the “Active Mail” folder, which is roughly the equivalent of Outlook’s Inbox. Every new message comes through the “Active Mail” folder and I forced myself to deal with each one there.

My Inbox in Outlook can get embarrassingly bloated with archived or ignored messages. With “Active Mail,” I had a nice clean sense of accomplishment when it was emptied. Removing a message from “Active Mail” doesn’t delete it unless you specifically do so. The message can be moved to a sub-folder or anywhere else you want the message to reside.

A great feature of NEO is it differentiates between “correspondents” and “bulk mail.” Correspondents are messages that come directly from an actual address or person. Bulk mail includes messages sent to a mailing list, e-zine and so forth. However, don’t confuse bulk mail with spam. I hoped NEO would have some kind of internal spam solution, but no such luck.

In the “Hot” tab, you can tell NEO you just want to see messages from correspondents as opposed to all messages. This might sound a little unnecessary, but I found it helpful when I wanted to just deal with my “real” mail.

There is a tab specifically devoted to correspondents, which comes in handy when you want to follow a cyber-conversation you had with a person. When you click on a correspondent’s name or e-mail address listed on the left side, NEO will provide you with every message that has been sent to and received from that person.

Another favorite tab of mine is the “Attachment” tab. You will find a list of file types on the left side. When you click on a particular file type, every message that contains an attachment with that file type will appear. This came in handy when I simply needed a Portable Document Format file I knew was attached to an e-mail, but had forgotten who sent it to me.

The last tab is for NEO’s “Search” function. When NEO synchs with Outlook and retrieves your e-mail messages, it also indexes every word in each message. When you go to search for a word or phrase, NEO can spit back a search result faster than you can say “don’t touch my Outlook.” NEO’s “Search” feature is clean and fast, and in my estimation, works much better than Outlook’s “Find” function.

I wish NEO gave you the ability to customize the toolbar slightly. As a longtime Outlook user, I have added and removed several icons from my toolbar area, customizing it to my needs, and I wish I could do some of the same within NEO. Also, I could not find an “Undo” option under the “Edit” menu. There are times when I delete a message a little too hastily and “Undo” gets me back on track quickly.

You also should be aware that NEO can only handle one “.pst” file at a time. This basically means you can only work on one mailbox at a time and you can’t search across multiple “.pst” archives.

For those of you who are being forced to use Outlook as your e-mail client against your will, then NEO might be a fantastic alternative. I personally have twisted and molded Outlook to behave the way I want it to, but I found myself drooling over the search function in NEO and the way it handled mail from correspondents.

NEO is simply an alternative to help you cope with e-mail overload if you are not happy with Outlook. It will take you some time to learn how to work with NEO since it’s different from Outlook. But with a free 30-day trial download, you will not go wrong trying it out and seeing if it helps you find e-mail organization nirvana.

Caelo Software Inc.
(604) 269-4641

www.emailorganizer.com

Price: $39.95 for single license; $34.95 for two to nine licenses. Contact company for more pricing options.

Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP; Microsoft Outlook 97/98/2000/XP

Reviewed by Brett Burney, a legal practice support coordinator at Thompson Hine (www.thompsonhine.com) in Cleveland. You can e-mail him at Brett.Burney@
ThompsonHine.com.

Aug/Sep '03 Issue

PROS
The “Correspondents” tab allows you to view messages sent and received to a particular correspondent. The search function is very fast and effective.

CONS
It can’t handle more than one “.pst” file at a time. There is no “Undo” command.

VERDICT
NEO is an excellent add-on to Outlook, but I recommend this product only for individuals who are not happy with the way Outlook manages and organizes their e-mail.