About the Journal
Displaying Journal items
Creating Journal items automatically
Creating Journal items manually
Finding items in the Journal
Deciding what the Journal saves
Many people need to keep track of their time. You know that you spent eight hours at work today, but how much of that time was spent on which tasks? You may need this information for something specific such as client billing—or you may just want to know how you spend your time in order to work more efficiently. Outlook's Journal is designed for just this purpose.
Fundamentally, the Journal is a log of how you spend your time. An individual Journal entry contains, at a minimum, the following information:
A start date and time
A duration
An identification of the task: phone call, email, document, conversation, and so on
Information linking the entry to a project, contact, or client company
Journal entries can be created two ways: automatically and manually. Outlook can automatically create Journal entries for certain activities that you carry out in Outlook, such as working on email messages and meeting requests. Outlook can also automatically create entries for activities that you perform in other Microsoft Office programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Project).
Journal entries can also be created manually. This is useful for tracking tasks that Outlook cannot track automatically, such as working in non-Office programs or talking on the phone.
To view your Journal, select Journal from the Go menu or press Ctrl+8. The default Journal view lists entries by type—Word document, phone call, and so on. This is shown in Figure 14.1. You can see that:
An automatic entry for an email message is listed by the message subject.
An automatic entry for an Office document is listed by the document name.
A manual entry—the two phone call entries in the figure—is listed by the subject that you assigned to the Journal entry.
In the By Type view, Journal entries are displayed on a timeline. In the figure, for example, you can see that the Journal entries for a single day—Monday, December 11—are displayed with the hours of the day across the top of the display. You can scroll the display to bring earlier or later time periods into view using the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the Journal display. You can also display different time periods by clicking the Today, Day, Week, or Month button on the toolbar.
Outlook offers several other ways for you to view your Journal entries. To switch views, you can use the Current View list on the toolbar, shown in Figure 14.2, or the Current View options on the navigation pane.
When you select the By Contact view, Outlook organizes your Journal entries according to the contact that is associated with them. This is shown in Figure 14.3. Some entries may not have an associated contact, and they will be listed at the top.
Some Journal entries are associated with a contact automatically. For example, if you are tracking email messages in the Journal using the Automatic Tracking feature, each entry is associated with the recipient of the email message. You can also manually assign a contact to a Journal entry, as explained later in this chapter.
Entry List view provides a sortable list of all Journal entries, as shown in Figure 14.4. The type of each entry is indicated by the icon in the left column. You can sort the list on any column by clicking the column heading once (for ascending order) or twice (for descending order). The current sort column is marked by an arrow in the column heading (the Start column in the figure).
You can see that in Entry List view, some entries have an attachment icon (paper clip) displayed in the second column. This indicates that the entry has a document associated with it. For example, an automatic entry for a Word session will be associated with the document you worked on, and an entry for an email message will have the message linked to it. Other Journal entries, such as for a phone call, do not have an associated document.
There are several other Journal views you can select. They are explained briefly here:
By Category: Organizes entries by the category (if any) they are assigned to.
Last Seven Days: Displays only those entries for the past seven days.
Phone Calls: Displays only entries of type phone call.
Outlook Data File: Organizes entries by the Outlook data file they are in. This is relevant only if you have two or more Outlook data files.
To keep track of activities that Outlook cannot track automatically, you must create a Journal entry manually. To create a new Journal entry manually:
If you are currently in Journal view, click the New button or press Ctrl+N.
If you are not in Journal view, click the arrow next to the New button and select Journal Entry from the menu, or press Ctrl+Shift+J.
Outlook opens a new, blank Journal entry form as shown in Figure 14.5. The current date and time are filled in, and the timer is stopped. Then:
Select a type for the entry from the Entry Type pull-down list.
If desired, enter a company name in the Company field. If you have entered company names in previous Journal entries, you can click the adjacent arrow to select from a list of these names.
If desired, click the Contacts button to associate the entry with one or more contacts from your address book.
Optionally, click the Categorize button to assign a category to the entry.
Optionally, enter any notes in the large box in the middle of the form.
At this point, the Journal entry is almost complete. There are two ways you can use it. One is to time an event that you are about to start. For example, perhaps you are about to join a teleconference and want a Journal entry for your participation. Here's how to do this:
Click the Start Timer button. The stopwatch icon will become animated to show that the timer is running.
If there's a pause in your activity, click the Pause Timer button. When the activity resumes, click Start Timer again.
When the activity is completed, click Save & Close to stop the timer and save the entry.
The other way to create a Journal entry is for an activity that is already over. Perhaps Joe from Marketing came by your office and you talked about strategy for half an hour. Now you want to log that time in the Journal. Then:
Create the new Journal entry as described previously, but do not start the timer.
If necessary, change the start date by clicking the arrow next to the date field and selecting from the calendar that Outlook displays.
Click the arrow next to the time field and select a start time. They are listed in 30-minute increments. If you need a more precise time entry, for example 10:40, select a time that is close from the list and then edit the time in the field.
Click the arrow next to the Duration field and select the duration of the event. Again, if the precise duration is not listed you can edit the field directly.
Click Save & Close.
As you use the Journal, the number of entries will grow to the point where it's hard to find information by simply scrolling through it. You can use the Search feature to filter the Journal to show just the information you want. For example, you could filter to show only Journal entries where the Company field is "Acme Widgets" and the Start field is last month—enabling you to total the time spent on the Acme Widget project last month.
For a basic search, enter your search term in the Search Journal box at the top right of the Journal display (see Figure 14.6). You can also click the down arrow to select from previously used search terms. Outlook will automatically search as you enter the term and display only matching Journal entries (or a message if there are no matching entries). Click the X that is adjacent to the Search box to cancel the search and return to displaying all Journal items.
If you need more control over the search, click the double down arrow at the top-right corner of the Journal display. Outlook displays additional criterion fields as shown in Figure 14.7. Each field lets you enter a search term or select from a drop-down list. As you make entries, the Journal display is automatically filtered to show only matching entries. You can also take the following actions:
To change a displayed criterion field—for example, from Categories to Start—click the arrow adjacent to the field name and select from the list that is displayed.
To remove a criterion field, click the arrow adjacent to the field name and select Remove.
To add a new criterion field, click Add Criteria and select from the list.
To cancel the search and display all Journal entries, click the X to the right of the Search Journal box.
To hide the additional criterion fields, click the double up arrow at the top-right corner of the Journal display.
Outlook's automatic Journal entry feature can be useful, but you may not want it to save everything you do. You can customize Outlook to specify precisely which types of items are automatically saved as Journal entries. Here's how:
Select Options from the Tools menu to display the Options dialog box.
If necessary, click the Preferences tab.
In the Contacts and Notes section, click the Journal Options button to open the Journal Options dialog box (see Figure 14.8).
In the Automatically Record These Items list, place a checkmark next to the Outlook items for which you want automatic Journal entries created.
In the For These Contacts list, place a checkmark next to the contacts for which you want automatic Journal entries created.
In the Also Record Files From list, place a checkmark next to the Microsoft Office applications for which you want automatic Journal entries created.
Click OK twice to close all dialog boxes.
There are two other elements in the Journal Options dialog box. One option determines what happens when you double-click a Journal entry that has a file associated with it, such as an email message or a Word document. You can choose to open either the Journal entry itself or the linked document.
Finally, the AutoArchive Journal Entries button lets you set AutoArchive options. These options are covered in Chapter 18.
Outlook's Journal lets you keep track of the time you spend on various activities. Some activities, such as working on email messages and Microsoft Office documents, can be tracked automatically. Other activities can be tracked manually. You can choose between several Journal displays to view the information in the way you need. You can also use the powerful search tool to narrow the Journal display to show only the entries of interest. The Journal is a useful tool for keeping track of and managing your time.