Lately, more and more colleagues have been asking me if it’s possible to turn off email on the weekends. Since we switched (almost) all school communication to e-mail (SJ 2016/17 !), the flood of e-mails for some colleagues is increasing every day.
That’s why many wish there was a way to stop checking emails at the weekend. However, since we only have a simple mail server ourselves, this function is not possible on the server side and, in my opinion, not practical either.
“Do not bother”
A few days ago I noticed that a new icon appeared in the accounts overview in my Outlook app (Android).
Behind this icon is the new “Do Not Disturb” feature. This option does not prevent new messages from being received, but disables notifications that they have arrived.
options
Various settings are available. The whole thing is divided into two sub-points — timed and Planned. Under timed you have the possibility to activate the “do not disturb” function until it is manually deactivated, for an hour or until tomorrow. Under Planned you have the following options to choose from: During appointments — During working hours — On weekends. Enabling one or more of these options will automatically enable or disable the Do Not Disturb feature.
You have the choice in the app whether you want to activate this for all accounts and only for a specific account.
Conclusion
This function does not prevent you from receiving e-mails. But it gives you the option to choose whether you want to be constantly notified of new emails. A step in the right direction. Unfortunately, this function is only available in the Android app so far.