Selective Attachments

[Guest]

I have (what I believe is) a very common issue /
annoyance with Outlook and how attachments are - or I
guess I should say are not handled. I'm still using
Outlook 2000, and I know that the more recent versions of
Outlook have much more features and user functionality,
but despite all my research I have not been able to
locate any answer, program setting or add-in that
addresses this issue. I've even suggested it directly to
Microsoft and maybe's it's something that's being
considered for the future, but for now it remains a
question in my mind.

Here's the issue...

Our company - like many others - is on a network with a
common server where documents, images, etc. are stored
and accessed by everyone. When e-mails are sent, file
attachments frequently come from the common server, so
when other internal staff members are copied, they
receive the attached files unnecessarily - since they
already have access to them on the server. Over time this
duplication of files will build-up on the exchange server
(in everyone's inbox) requiring more and more hard disk
space and causing headaches for our IT person - having to
remind everyone to purge their mail boxes.

There are also times where our outside / field sales
staff members send in files (such as photos) along with
their messages, but when copying all the internal
personnel on the original message, everyone will receive
the same attachments - again perhaps unnecessarily. The
only work-around that I know of is to send a message with
attachments to the primary intended recipient(s), then
forward it afterwards to others without the attachment.

Here's the solution...

It would be very helpful if there was some ability to
specify which e-mail recipients actually get the
attachment files and which could simply receive just a
reference to the file name (or maybe even an option for a
hot link to where the attachment was obtained / located
the server). I have seen some add-ins that provide
expanded 'rules' but this particular option would need to
be available / flexible for each message, as there will
be different circumstances for who gets a copy of the
attachment each time.

Has anyone heard of this before? Does it make sense?
Maybe I'm missing something or it's technically not
possible? Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]]

For one thing when using Exchange server the overall mailstore size
doesn't increase significantly when sending emails with attachments to
multiple recipients within your Exchange organization. Exchange uses
what is called single instance storage so only 1 copy of that message
is stored.

Second, if you are sending references to resources that are located at
a shared place in your network you can insert a link to the item
instead of attaching it. A file link would look something like this:
file://FilePathAndName

Third, there are 3rd party addins that do all sorts of manipulations
on attachments and can automatically strip attachments and replace
them with links to the attachments saved in the Windows file system.
See http://www.slipstick.com/addins/housekeeping.htm for some options.