How to Setup a Contacts Followups-To-Go Report

In these busy times, it’s sometimes very difficult to followup with prospects and clients. Here is a way that can definitely help you use your time more effectively. Make your calls while you are travelling…say from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. Here we will create a custom view to show only your open followups and then print it and take it with you. The problem with standard views is that they mostly contain too much information to print neatly on one page and don’t have the right information. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just create a view of your followups in the order priority…and then just print it out with you while you’re on the road. (Careful with that cell phone out there, I definitely recommend a headset)…and this is NOT intended for rush-hour traffic–Pay attention out there! For this exercise, start by clicking the Outlook’s Contacts from the Navigation Pane. Ensure you have the Advanced Toolbar on. Right click in the toolbar area and turn on the Advanced toolbar. Create the Followups-To-Go View

• Click on the Drop-down Current View text box and click on Define Views… (at the bottom of the list)
• Click on Phone List View Name and click Copy… command button.
• Name this Followups To-Go and click OK
• You will now see the Customize view: Followup To-Go wizard
  • Click on Fields… Remove all fields on the right and then add the following:
    • Icon
    • Full Name
    • Business Phone
    • Mobile Phone
    • Followup Flag
    • Reminder Time (click on the Frequently-used fields drop-down box and choose Miscellaneous fields then Reminder Time
    • Click OK
  • Click on Sort…
    • You will have to select Miscellaneous fields set in the lower left-hand corner again.
    • In the first Sort items by drop-down box, select Reminder Time and check Descending.
    • Click OK. This will give you those persons you need to call first
  • Click on Filter
    • Click on the Advanced tab
    • Click on the Field command button and select Frequently Used Fields, Follow up Flag
    • Click on the Condition drop-down box and select is not empty.
    • Click Add to List. This will then filter only those contacts who have a Follow up Flag.
    • Click OK
  • Click OK to close the Customize View
  • Click OK and then Apply View. You now see the completed View

Notice that you can spread the headings by dragging them horizontally or even double-clicking on the separator bar between them.Notice too that if you don’t like the Reminders on the right side and want to move the column to the left, you can do that by simply dragging the heading Reminder Time to another heading position. Way cool huh.Finally, you will see that this View is now permanent. Print your Followups-To-Go report.Click on the Printer icon in the Standard toolbar and simply click OK or Preview. If you are exceeding the page width you can simply adjust the heading widths until they fit on your paper.

Now you can print your view anytime you want. And it will ALWAYS be current…Remeber to keep your followup flags going.

Outlook 2007: The New Item icon may surprise you.

If you are used to creating new items in Outlook 2003 using the New Icon, be prepared for a twist in your thinking.

If you expand the new To-Do Bar along the right-edge and any item is highlighted within it, be aware that when you click on New in the Menu bar that you will in fact be creating a new Task not a new Email just because your inbox is showing.

Personally, I never use the New icon because I have to grab the mouse, position it over the icon, drop-down on the list if I’m not in the current items list, etc.–too much work!

I’ve always said you should learn your shortcuts:

Ctrl-Shift-M New Message
Ctrl-Shift-C New Contact
Ctrl-Shift-A New Appointments
Ctrl-Shift-K New Task

Assign Flag Meanings on Custom Toolbar

Outlook 2003’s Quick flags help you to categorize your messages, but Outlook does not allow you to rename the flags and remembering that a red flag means Very Important, blue means Project A and green is Project B is sometimes hard.

To make it easier, create a new custom toolbar called Flags and add each flag color (and Clear flag) to it. Edit the properties of each button to display the flag color and description.

Not sure where to begin?
1. Go to Tools, Customize.
2. Add a new toolbar from the Toolbar tab.
3. Drag the flags from the Commands tab, Actions category to the new toolbar.
4. Right click on each button on the new toolbar and change the color name.
5. Select Image and Text from the menu.

Note that the & precedes the Alt+ keyboard shortcut and if two or more visible tools are assigned the same shortcut, you’ll need to press Alt+ the key to cycle through all tools and press enter to activate the selected tool.

(This comes to us from Dianne Poremsky’s website Outlook-Tips.com, a great place fabulously full of tips)

Setting 2008 Holidays for Outlook (OL2003)

Your Holidays starting in January 2008 are GONE. Don’t even try to regenerate them.

There is a solution however. Microsoft put out a file that contains the new Holiday dates.

But before you simply jump in and create a whole new batch of holidays, you’ll want to delete the existing holidays, then add in the new ones. Here’s the steps:

1) Remove all calendar Holiday items (You will be recreating them).

2) While in Calendars and from the Advanced toolbar, use the drop-down window to select the By Category View

3) Right-click on any column heading and select Arrange By, Categories.

4) Scroll down to Holiday Category

5) Click on first Holiday row, shift-click on last Holiday Row, to highlight all Holidays. Shift-Delete to permanently delete all Holiday items.

Close Outlook.

6) Download the new Holidays file from Microsoft Download it here.

Click on Continue

Click “Run” at the File Download Wizard. Complete the Installation.

If the Check for Updates wizard requests you to validate your Office with their Windows Advantage Genuine Validation Tool, go ahead and let it do so.

(If you think your MS Office is not bona fide, here’s a good time to check, and no, they won’t send the Pirates Security team after you or send you any nasty emails if its not…you just won’t be able to stay up-to-date and proceed any further.)

Once the Validation tool has completed its verification it will say “The software upgrade is complete”. Click on continue (again) to proceed to the other updates.

And by the way, a great plus in doing this is you’ll get the latest other Office security patches and SPAM Outlook filters. I highly recommend that.

7) Restart Outlook

8. Install the new Holiday file using Tools, Options, Calendar options, Holidays.

Setting 2008 Holidays for Outlook (OL2003)

Your Holidays starting in January 2008 are GONE. Don’t even try to regenerate them. There is a solution however. Microsoft put out a file that contains the new Holiday dates. But before you simply jump in and create a whole new batch of holidays, you’ll want to delete the existing holidays, then add in the new ones. Here’s the steps: 1) Remove all calendar Holiday items (You will be recreating them). 2) While in Calendars and from the Advanced toolbar, use the drop-down window to select the By Category View 3) Right-click on any column heading and select Arrange By, Categories. 4) Scroll down to Holiday Category 5) Click on first Holiday row, shift-click on last Holiday Row, to highlight all Holidays. Shift-Delete to permanently delete all Holiday items. Close Outlook. 6) Download the new Holidays file from Microsoft Download it here. Click on Continue Click “Run” at the File Download Wizard. Complete the Installation. If the Check for Updates wizard requests you to validate your Office with their Windows Advantage Genuine Validation Tool, go ahead and let it do so. (If you think your MS Office is not bona fide, here’s a good time to check, and no, they won’t send the Pirates Security team after you or send you any nasty emails if its not…you just won’t be able to stay up-to-date and proceed any further.) Once the Validation tool has completed its verification it will say “The software upgrade is complete”. Click on continue (again) to proceed to the other updates. And by the way, a great plus in doing this is you’ll get the latest other Office security patches and SPAM Outlook filters. I highly recommend that. 7) Restart Outlook 8. Install the new Holiday file using Tools, Options, Calendar options, Holidays.