Outlook Integration Tip

[xja]

I duplicated the Task template, called it "Task (Outlook)", added a URL field to it, and changed the icon to Outlook Task icon. Then when I want to create a Task that is linked to an Outlook Task, I:

1) add an InfoItem using the "Task (Outlook)" template instead of the regular Task template
2) create/find the corresponding Task in Outook (you can drag from UR into Outlook Tasks and then move the body text to the title) and copy the Outlook GUID (can use Outlook Linker, or the macro below) (IMPORTANT: You must save the Task in Outlook before copying the link because Outlook doesn't create the GUID until it is saved for the first time)
3) paste the Outook GUID into the URL attribute of the corresponding Task (Outlook) InfoItem in UR

For such an item, I use Ctrl-J (Open Document) to open the linked Task in Outlook and I keep all my details in the Task note field in Outlook. As Tom mentioned, you can't keep any info in the RTF Item Details because then you can't open the linked document (it will open the Item Details RTF in your external RTF editor).

I also created similar Template items for Outlook Contact, Mail, and Notes. I primarily create linked Outook items just for items that I want to be able to have on my Palm.

I wanted to be able to copy the Outlook URL by clicking a button on the Outlook toolbar and/or by using a key combination in Outlook, so I wrote a simple Outlook macro. The attached file contains the macro module (Linker.bas file) and some Outlook icons that you can import into UR.

You can import the macro module into Outlook (Tools | Macro | Visual Basic Editor then in Visual Basic window, File | Import) and create a toolbar button for the GetItemIDs macro (in the Outook folder view and in the item detail view... the toolbars are separate). I name the toolbar button "&Link" so I can then hit Alt-L to copy the URL to the clipboard when viewing the item in a folder list or in a detail view.

Note: the GetItemIDs macro will copy multiple links at once if multiple Outlook items are selected but obviously you can only paste one link at a time into a UR InfoItem.

If you don't know how to use macros and customize toolbars in Outlook, you should probably just use Outlook Linker.

WARNING: Use at your own risk. This was made for Outlook XP/2002, so I don't know if it works with other versions.

-Andrew