Copy/pasting UNC paths to direct files into Outlook to attach the document to a mail message. How to speed it up...
This may be tough to explain in a way that makes sense, but I figured I would try.
In our business system, which we access by way of a Citrix connection to the Citrix server it runs on, we have a linked files section on a customer order screen that is basically a library of links to different documents pertaining to a customer order.
From that order screen you can click the link and the document will open in it's native program on the CItrix server( if that native program exists on the Citrix Server, of course.)
The document links are UNC paths and can go out to different servers. So for example they could look like
\\BIZSERVERNAME\BIZSYSTEMN
\\BIZSERVERNAME\BIZSYSTEMN
Quite often our finance folks need to email a copy of, say, the invoice. Because we use Office365, we do not have Office apps on the Citrix servers anymore...so they need to attach this lnked file to Outlook 2016 running on their local machine, typically a laptop.
So what they do is COPY the link above and then inside of Outlook:
Create a new mail message
Click 'Attach File'
Click 'Browse this PC'
Then, in the 'Insert File' dialog box, they paste the copied link in the 'File Name' field and press 'open'
Then, after 20-30 seconds, the attachment will finally appear in Outlook. Yes, the perfect storm of bad design but it is what we are stuck with.... so I am looking for any tips at all that would drop that that 20-30 sec wait time down by any amount.
In our business system, which we access by way of a Citrix connection to the Citrix server it runs on, we have a linked files section on a customer order screen that is basically a library of links to different documents pertaining to a customer order.
From that order screen you can click the link and the document will open in it's native program on the CItrix server( if that native program exists on the Citrix Server, of course.)
The document links are UNC paths and can go out to different servers. So for example they could look like
\\BIZSERVERNAME\BIZSYSTEMN
\\BIZSERVERNAME\BIZSYSTEMN
Quite often our finance folks need to email a copy of, say, the invoice. Because we use Office365, we do not have Office apps on the Citrix servers anymore...so they need to attach this lnked file to Outlook 2016 running on their local machine, typically a laptop.
So what they do is COPY the link above and then inside of Outlook:
Create a new mail message
Click 'Attach File'
Click 'Browse this PC'
Then, in the 'Insert File' dialog box, they paste the copied link in the 'File Name' field and press 'open'
Then, after 20-30 seconds, the attachment will finally appear in Outlook. Yes, the perfect storm of bad design but it is what we are stuck with.... so I am looking for any tips at all that would drop that that 20-30 sec wait time down by any amount.
Dave Baldwin
You are probably seeing that because attached files are not included in their original format but need to be converted to MIME format. It takes time to do that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_attachment
ASKER
I also notice that just copying the file down to the local computer takes what seems like a long time (30 secs). These are small 1 or 2 page .pdf files sometimes only 100kb in size. I am sure this is related, but not sure how to fix.
That's odd. Try turning off your anti-virus for a test.
ASKER
Nothing seems to have any impact.
What is also interesting is that I have another laptop, an older laptop, an elitebook 8460p that has no hesitation doing this same insert into Outlook with the same user account.
hmmm... don't know where to look at the two machines for differences that would cause this?
The newer machine is a HP EliteBook 840 G5 14" Core i7-8550U 8GB RAM 256GB SSD... so it is a stronger machine...
Where as the older 8460p is an i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a smaller SSD.
What is also interesting is that I have another laptop, an older laptop, an elitebook 8460p that has no hesitation doing this same insert into Outlook with the same user account.
hmmm... don't know where to look at the two machines for differences that would cause this?
The newer machine is a HP EliteBook 840 G5 14" Core i7-8550U 8GB RAM 256GB SSD... so it is a stronger machine...
Where as the older 8460p is an i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a smaller SSD.
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