Many of us use Outlook’s appointments and tasks to manage our daily lives and projects… and yet Outlook does not give us an easy way to manage projects inside Outlook. Outlook users frequently ask us how they can see all appointments and tasks that make up a project in one place.
Why is this important? As we finish a step, it is important to know what the next steps are to get the project completed. Things also don’t always go according to plan… and we need to see what else gets affected when things change.
Our research showed that there is no simple way to organize and view tasks and appointments under projects… so we added this functionality to our Outlook Project Management addin Smart Schedules for Outlook.
With Smart Schedules for Outlook you can:
- Assign existing (or new) tasks and appointments to projects
- Quickly see all tasks and appointments for a project at the click of a button.
Here are step by step instructions showing you just how easy this can be:
Assign existing (or new) tasks and appointments to projects
- Open Outlook and go to the Calendar/Task folder that the existing appointment/task is located in
- Select the appointment/task
- Click on Assign Project button on the Smart Schedules toolbar/ribbon. This will display the following screen:
- Select an existing project from the Project list.
Note: You can also type in a new project name if you would like to create a new project and add this selected appointment/task to that project. - Click OK.
Quickly see all tasks and appointments for a project at the click of a button.
Smart Schedules Project Centre makes it easy to see all appointments and tasks that you have associated with a project.
- On the Smart Schedules toolbar, click Project Centre
- From the Project drop-down, select the Project to which you assigned the appointment or task
- You will now be able to view the appointment or task assigned to the project and all other related appointments and tasks for the project as shown below:
Next Steps…
Smart Schedules for Outlook was designed with the help of almost 20,000 Outlook users. Try it for yourself today and tell us what you think.
Download a fully functional version of Smart Schedules for Outlook.
Watch a short video of our Outlook based Project Manager (Smart Schedules)
Does Smart Schedules for Outlook lend itself easily to manage bookings as projects e.g we rent holiday villas – normally for one week or two week bookings. Could the individual villa be treated as a project and the individual bookings as sub-projects to which individual dates and deadlines could be added e.g. first payment date, second payment date and others?
Thank you
Hello Eamonn,
Here’s how you can use Smart Schedules in your situation:
* You can create a pre-set template based on the intervals at which the payments are due.
* Use the Smart Schedule wizard to create a new project and name it as such
* Now in the Project drop-down, you can select the project you created above and view when the payments are due.
You will also be able to know which villa it is and who is renting it because it will be visible in the Project Name.
I hope this works for you.