About tracking work and finding files with Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook is a messaging and collaboration client you can use to send mail; schedule meetings, events, and appointments; store a list of contacts; maintain a task list for yourself and assign tasks to others; and track your activities. If you've installed Outlook, you can use some of its features from within your other Microsoft Office programs.

If Outlook isn't available, click Programs on the Start menu, and then click Microsoft Outlook to install it.

• With the Outlook Journal, you can automatically track all the files you create in any Office program. For example, if you need to track databases based on when they're created and revised instead of where they're located, you can have Outlook create a journal entry each time you work on a database.
• If you want to track only one file in an Office program or track files in programs other than Office, you can manually record each activity you perform on the file or files in the Outlook Journal.
• You can link tasks, journal entries, spreadsheets, documents, databases, and presentations to a person or business in your contact list. For example, if you want to track contacts responsible for working on a particular database, you can link contact information to the database and other related items, such as spreadsheets, e-mail messages, and appointments.
• If you have installed the Microsoft Outlook Integrated File Management system, you can use Outlook to find files for any Office program, files on the network, and Outlook items. You can sort, group, and change the view for your search results, and these results can be used to easily access relevant files. Search results can also be saved as a file you can share with others.