Tasks in Outlook 2010

Intro• Outlook has four key components: Mail,

Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks• Tasks are as simple as you make them

Personal Use• Tasks can be a to-do list• Can also be used to measure progress

and meet goals• Make great reminders

Email Follow-up• Follow-up is the most basic way to

creating a task• When sending an email, go to the

Messages tab and (in the Tags section) select the Follow up drop down menu– Default creates a task for you, in Custom you

can designate who the task is for

Creating and Managing Folders• In Outlook you have the option

to create folders to divide your tasks

• To add a new folder, right-click on a task folder (in left-hand panel) and select “New Folder…”

• It is possible to give permission to others for creating, editing, and viewing your shared task folder(s)

• To adjust permissions of a folder, right-click on the folder and select “Share” > “Folder Permissions” to change how the folder is accessed

Sharing Folder Permissions

Creating Tasks• To create a task either click

“Click here to add a new Task” or right click the Task area and select “New Task” or select “New Task” from the Home navigation bar (at the top)

• Note: To make adjustments in the first method requires you to double-click the task after creation

Task Specifics• Start/Due dates• Set task status as:

• Not Started• In Progress• Completed• Waiting on someone else• Deferred

• Priority can be: • Low• Normal• High

• Percent complete• Set alarms as reminders to due

the ask

Task Due, Overdue, or Complete• Tasks that are due or overdue

show up in red along the right-side panel and in the middle

• Complete tasks are crossed-out in the tasks list (shown in middle) and do not show up on the right-side panel

Share Tasks• Choose a Tasks folder• Select the Folder tab then click

on “Share Tasks”• In the pop-up window you can

designate who you wish to share your Tasks folder with

• You can also request to view the recipient’s Tasks folder

Viewing the Tasks Folder• Like with other folder systems,

there are many ways to change the view of task folders

• “Change View” adjusts the layout of the middle task folder panel

• The Arrangement section along with clicking the headings in the middle panel allows for rearrange of tasks by specific fields

• In any section of Outlook, clicking the “View” tab and the “To-Do Bar” dropdown menu allows you to customize the right-side panel or remove it

Relation to mobile devices• BlackBerry’s

• The BB mail app can assign tasks to yourself

• Handles the general fields such as priority and status

• Other task apps are available in the App World, such as SlickTasks

• Androids• Default mail app cannot use

tasks• uWaterloo’s Outlook Web App

(Connect) does not support tasks on android devices

• iDevices• Tasks can be synced to/from

Outlook using the Reminders app

BlackBerry SlickTasks app

Apple Reminders app

Questions?