Using The Journal: Advanced Outlook Document Tracking Ever forget what the name of that document you were working on last month was called or where you put it? The Journal tracks all the work you do in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Project and PowerPoint, but is that good?) and can help you find it. To track your document usage, choose Tools/Options to get the Options Dialog Box, then click the Journal Options button, which lists the document types it can track (Microsoft products) Aside from the document tracking, you can also track email activity from certain people meeting requests, cancellation, tasks, etc. Finally, there is a setting to open the referenced item directly when you click on it in the Journal. 1
Locating a document in the Journal In the example below, entries are grouped by application, and you can scroll backwards and forward in time using the scroll bar at the bottom: To expand/contract the list of documents, click on the + or - next to the document types on the grey bars at the top. To open an item listed in the journal, double click on it. The first time you double click, it opens the Journal Entry (above), which contains a shortcut to the actual document. Double click on the attachment again to open the item (the attachment is actually a shortcut to the item). This works with any registered Microsoft application in your system. 2
The Contact List: The contact list is a list of names, addresses, phone # s, Fax # s and e-mail addresses for your contacts. These can be displayed as Business Cards or in a variety of other formats. To change the display format, use the window at the top of the menu bar. The active contact is highlighted in blue. You can use the letters down the right side of the screen to jump to that letter s listing, just like a phone book. Double click on a contact to open it. The contact screen has room for all the address information, and can also contain notes or attachments. 3
If you drag a piece of email to the Contacts icon on your Outlook Shortcut bar Outlook will create a new contact for the sender. However, as shown below, that will only populate the name and email address fields, and the entire email goes into the body of the contact. You would then have to add their phone/fax and other contact info. Vcards Vcards are Virtual Business Cards that are often attached to email or included as part of the sender s signature. If you receive an email from someone that includes a Vcard you can drag that to the Contacts folder and it automatically populates all the fields that the sender has filled out, making this a one-step operation. 4
When you Drag Mr. Abromowitz s vcard to the Contacts icon on the Outlook shortcut bar, an new contact appears fully populated with his contact information. The other tabs have additional information (nickname, birthday, etc), activities for this contacts (meetings, email, etc), and Public Keys used for encryption schemes like PGP. Each of the contact fields can be adjusted to show an almost endless variety of cell phone numbers, pagers, multiple email addresses, etc. To change the heading for any of the fields, press the arrow next to the field name and choose the appropriate title form the list: 5
The Calendar: Choosing the calendar Icon will take you to a screen showing today s appointments: You can point at the Months listed on the right side and hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse across multiple days to show a view of the calendar with more than one day s appointments visible. 6
You can eliminate the Folder List Window so that you have more room to view your mailbox, tasks, etc by pressing the Folder List Window icon at the top of the main menu bar. Pressing it once turns it off, making the entire screen window available to the selected function. Pressing it again brings it back so you can change to a different function: To open a new appointment, you can either click on the New Appointment icon at the top left corner of the screen, or you can point to an available slot on the appropriate day/time and double click. A new appointment window opens, and you can fill in the particulars: The Show Time As filed color-codes the appointments. Dark Blue indicates you are Busy (committed to a meeting), Light Blue indicates a tentative appointment, and red indicates you are out of the office. Once you press Save and Close the subject and location (in parenthesis) appear in the calendar. You can double click on that meeting to add information, change the time, location, date, or any other information. 7
Meeting Planner How many times have you wanted to hold a meeting at a certain time, made 7 phone calls to arrange it, and then found out that person 8 on the list can t make it, so you have to start all over? If that sounds familiar, Meeting Planner is a tool for you. Meeting planner will check the personal calendars for all attendees and show you what time slots they are available, and then it will E-mail them all and tally their responses to your meeting request automatically. Click the meeting planner tab next to the Appointment tab at the top of the window and the Meeting Planner window appears. Type the names of the people you want to attend the meeting, and their availability is shown on the sliding calendar to the right: 2) Choose a meeting time when all are available using Slider 3) E-mail Attendees 1) enter the Attendee List 2.5) Adjust chosen time buy pulling here OR find a new date using scroll bar Enter the names of the people you want to attend in the Attendee list, pressing enter after each name. The names are underlined as they are located in the personal/global address book, and their availability is shown by colored blocks in the calendar. If someone critical is not available at the time you chose, you can adjust the chosen meeting time by holding the cursor over the vertical green and red lines that outline the meeting slot and push/pull them to a different time. You can also use the scroll bar at the bottom center to look for another date when all are available. 8
Notice that when you add attendees, the Save and Close button at the top is changed to a Send button. When you press send, each invitee will receive an E-mail message asking them to Accept or Decline the meeting invitation: When the invitee presses Accept/Decline, Outlook will automatically respond to the person who sent the invitation You can tell that others have been invited to a meeting from the calendar at a glance because there are two heads shown next to the subject of the meeting: 9
The invitees responses are tallied the next time you open the appointment: If necessary, you can add other people later, or change the date/time and send an update to the invitee list. If you do have to reschedule the meeting, you can click the Show Attendee Availability radio button above the attendee s names and search for a different time slot. If you use meeting planner and you update anything (add people, move the date/time, etc) you will automatically be prompted to send an update to all of the people on the attendee list when you press the Save and Close button. You can also press the Send an Update button to do this. 10
Recurring Appointments If you have a recurring meeting a committee that meets every Friday at 11:00, you can create a recurring appointment. Press the Recurrence button to get the recurring options: In the Appointment Recurrence dialog box you can set options for a daily/weekly/monthly meeting, a bi-weekly meeting, or a beginning/ending date range for the recurring appointment. Reminders You can have outlook remind you that you have an appointment coming up a few minutes time by checking the reminder box below the picture of the clock. You can tell there s a reminder set by the picture of a bell to the left of the subject. You can set the reminder interval to be any number of minutes, hours or days. When the specified interval before the meeting arrives, Outlook displays a reminder on your screen with a friendly little cha-ching sound: 11
Delegating Access to Your Calendar You can allow any other Exchange user to access your calendar, and allow them read-only access or full read-write access or anything in between. You can allow them to create appointments for you, but not to delete appointments you have made. This is useful for an administrative assistant who maintains your calendar and appointments. To delegate access to another exchange user, choose Tools/Options from the menu bar, and select the Delegates tab on the right, then choose Add and select their name form the Global Address List. Once you ve added the delegates name, you can specify which of your folders they have access to, and you can select the appropriate Role from the list. Note the checkbox at the bottom that permits access to items marked private. 12
Another method of granting access to another Exchange user is to right-click on your Calendar (or any other folder) in the Folder List window, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu that appears: The Calendar Properties dialog box appears. Choose the Permissions tab. Choose Add, and then choose the name form the Global Address List. The calendar properties dialog box contains a number of pre-defined roles, or you can customize their access rights using the radio buttons at the bottom. The delegate will then see your calendar in their Outlook Folder List window. 13
Public Folders: To use shared public folders you need to have permission to view the folder on the exchange server (call Computer Services x6465). Public Folders are listed at the bottom of the Folder List Window. Expand the list by clicking on the plus sign to the left of the words Public Folder. Click on any of the folders showing to go to that service. Public folders are shared with other users. Public folders calendar can be used to share information for an entire department, so that everyone can see important information tasks, document folders, and contact lists are the most useful types of shared information. 14
Using Public Calendars: Public calendars in Outlook/Exchange are appropriate for certain types of uses. For instance, Computing and Information Services maintains a variety of public calendars showing departmental appointments, a calendar showing Lab Reservations, and a calendar for ResNet installations. The reason for three different calendars is usability we could have put all the entries into a single calendar but it becomes difficult to read if there s too much stuff listed. Public calendars can be shared with everyone on the Exchange Server, OR with selected individuals. The actions that can be performed on calendar entries can also be set by group and/or individual. For example, Managers can be allowed to create edit and delete entries in a departmental calendar, while staff members have view only privileges. Note that Reminders do not work in Public calendars, only from your private calendar. To transfer an item from a Public Calendar to your private Outlook calendar you can press the Copy to Personal Calendar button) 15
To copy an item from a Private Calendar to a Public Calendar, open the folder list window, Hold down the Right mouse button over the source appointment you want to copy, drag it over to the target calendar in the Folder List and release the right mouse button a pop-up menu will appear asking if you want to Copy, Move or Cancel: 16