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yet another Microsoft blogger

# Monday, October 02, 2006

Outlook Tip: Show tasks completed today with strikeout

One of my favorite Outlook hacks is to show tasks that you completed today in whatever view you are accustomed to using.

By default when you mark a task as completed, Outlook will remove it from any view that only shows active tasks. However, if you mark a task as completed by mistake it's a bit of work to correct this. I really like to have a sense of what was done today in my task view and the good news is that it's pretty easy to enable this due to Outlook's seemingly infinite customizability.

Step 1: You must enable the Query Builder tab to appear

Open Notepad and enter the following text:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\QueryBuilder]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\QueryBuilder]

Save the file as Enable Query Builder.reg and then open that file.

Step 2: Set The Filter Options for the Current Task View

Go to any task view in Outlook, and select View -> Current View -> Customize Current View and click Filter.

Step 3: Configure the view like this:

Viola.

Mad props to Tim Marman for the suggestion.

 

Tuesday, October 03, 2006 12:37:50 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Very cool! I was able to get the To-Do Bar in Outlook 2007 to do this as well but I didn't need to enable the query tab. I just added Date Completed = today and Flag Completed = today to the existing criteria (Date Completed = null and Flag Completed = null) and it seemed to add the appropriate AND's and OR's where they belong. I'm not quite sure how it did that, but cool!

(("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/810f0040" IS NULL OR %today("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/id/{00062003-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}/810f0040")%) AND ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x10910040" IS NULL OR %today("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x10910040")%))
Thursday, October 05, 2006 5:30:35 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
This is definitely a good one, as it actually gives you a sense of accomplishment. That's why I suggested it back in March :)

http://slashstar.com/blogs/tim/archive/2006/03/15/Outlook-Tip-Show-incomplete-tasks-and-tasks-completed-today.aspx
Thursday, October 05, 2006 5:38:42 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
I wrote this up earlier this year. It's one of my favorite tips with Outlook because 1) it actually gives you a sense of accomplishment, and 2) keeps "recently closed" tasks handy because sometimes they have to be reopened.

The QueryBuilder in general is a great thing - I use it for my "old and unflagged" folder, which is all RSS items which are 1) older than 1 week and 2) not flagged for follow up. Helps me maintain the "river of news" approach.
Friday, October 06, 2006 11:31:47 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Thanks Tim, I forgot where I got the tip from. I updated the post giving you the proper credit.
Omar Shahine
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