GTD Outlook Plugin

apastuszak

Registered
As I come back from just one day off, and have 300+ emails to sort through, I would love a plugin that would allow me to sort through all this email and clear it out.

Any recommended tools that:

1. Work with Outlook 2016/Offcie365
2. DOES NOT require a subscription. One time purchase and you're done.
3. DOES NOT phone home to make periodic license checks.

Any help greatly appreciated.
 

PlunkRock

Registered
Wow - that's a lot of emails!

What is it you want the plugin to do, in order to help you out? Playing with some of the view settings in Outlook might be useful (and free), for example, if you go to 'View' and select 'Show as Conversations' it will collect any long threads into one entry, which can hopefully just be deleted ;)

Good luck!
 

apastuszak

Registered
I want to be able to have a toolbar that has some options to delete, convert to task, move to folder, flag for followup, so I can just rip through them all.

And that's not a lot of email. That's the usual daily blast. If I take a week off, I have to block out a day in my calendar to go through them all.
 

apastuszak

Registered
Or you could find a freelance that prepare the plugin as you like

If only you knew the sheer amount of paperwork and time that would take, you'd be amazed. It's impossible to get anything done around here in anything less than 2 months.
 

John Ismyname

Registered
As I come back from just one day off, and have 300+ emails to sort through, I would love a plugin that would allow me to sort through all this email and clear it out.

Any recommended tools that:

1. Work with Outlook 2016/Offcie365
2. DOES NOT require a subscription. One time purchase and you're done.
3. DOES NOT phone home to make periodic license checks.

Any help greatly appreciated.
There WAS a great ap for this called GTDOA that went off the market. I tried to buy the rights and source code but the company who owns it was not interested in selling it to me. You can find links to download it. I do not recommend it because it is abandonware - I had to struggle a lot with it switching from fully functional software to an expired trialware (even though I purchased a license copy.)

Diane at SlipStick systems created a great Outlook macro here https://forums.slipstick.com/threads/95521-gtd-netcentrics-add-in-for-2016/

I could not get this stock code to work and I made some modifications to it. Again, I tried to buy the rights to this from Diane but she refused as much of the code she found online. The way we left it was, for my modification, I can distribute it but not sell it.

What this code does - Every time you send an email, you get the option of creating a task or a calendar appointment or neither. If you choose to create a task or appointment, the script makes a copy of your sent email and pastes it in the task or appointment body and put in an HTML hyperlink to this sent message.

This code will not invoke unless you send an email. Thus, if you want a task from an incoming email that you did not reply to, you have to copy and paste the email manually.

Despite the shortcomings, this script along with some operating procedures work better than any of the plug-ins I have seen...and its free :)

Option Explicit
Dim strID As String, strLink As String, strLinkText As String
Private WithEvents olSentItems As Items
Private Sub Application_Startup()
Dim objNS As NameSpace
Set objNS = Application.Session
' instantiate objects declared WithEvents
Set olSentItems = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderSentMail).Items
Set objNS = Nothing
End Sub

Private Sub olSentItems_ItemAdd(ByVal Item As Object)
On Error Resume Next
Dim prompt As String
Dim oForward As MailItem
prompt$ = "Do you want to create a Task or Appointment for this message?"
If MsgBox(prompt$, vbYesNo + vbQuestion + vbMsgBoxSetForeground, "Create Task or Appointment?") = vbYes Then

strID = Item.EntryID
strLink = "outlook:" & strID
strLinkText = Item.Subject

CreateTaskForMessage Item
End If
End Sub

Sub CreateTaskForMessage(Item As MailItem)
Dim prompt As String
Dim objNewItem As Object
Dim objInsp As Outlook.Inspector
Dim oForward As MailItem
' Add reference to Word library
' in VBA Editor, Tools, References
Dim objDoc As Word.Document
Dim objWord As Word.Application
Dim objSel As Word.Selection
Dim oBookmark As Word.Bookmark
Dim Response

prompt$ = "Do you want to create a Task for this message?" & vbCrLf & "Choose Yes to create a Task." & vbCrLf & "Choose No to create an Appointment."
Response = MsgBox(prompt$, vbYesNoCancel + vbQuestion + vbMsgBoxSetForeground, "Create Task or Appointment?")
If Response = vbCancel Then Exit Sub

Set oForward = Item.Forward
oForward.Display

Set objInsp = oForward.GetInspector
If objInsp.EditorType = olEditorWord Then
Set objDoc = objInsp.WordEditor
Set objWord = objDoc.Application

'removes your signature from the top of the Forward
If objDoc.Bookmarks.Exists("_MailAutoSig") Then
Set oBookmark = objDoc.Bookmarks("_MailAutoSig")
oBookmark.Select
objDoc.Windows(1).Selection.Delete
End If

Set objSel = objWord.Selection
With objSel
.WholeStory
.Copy
End With

End If

oForward.Close olDiscard
If Response = vbYes Then

Set objNewItem = Application.CreateItem(olTaskItem)
' set task-only fields here
With objNewItem
.ReminderSet = False
.ReminderTime = DateSerial(Year(Now), Month(Now), Day(Now)) + #12:00:00 AM#
End With

Else

Set objNewItem = Application.CreateItem(olAppointmentItem)
'set appointment-only fields here
With objNewItem
.BodyFormat = olFormatHTML

.Start = DateSerial(Year(Now), Month(Now), Day(Now)) + #8:00:00 AM#
End With

End If

Set objInsp = objNewItem.GetInspector
Set objDoc = objInsp.WordEditor
Set objSel = objDoc.Windows(1).Selection

With objNewItem
.Subject = strLinkText
objSel.PasteAndFormat (wdFormatOriginalFormatting)
objSel.GoTo What:=wdGoToSection, Which:=wdGoToFirst
objDoc.Hyperlinks.Add objSel.Range, strLink, "", "", strLinkText, ""
objSel.Range.InsertBefore "Link to "
.Display
.Save
End With

End Sub
 
Last edited:

TesTeq

Registered
There WAS a great ap for this called GTDOA that went off the market. I tried to buy the rights and source code but the company who owns it was not interested in selling it to me. You can find links to download it. I do not recommend it because it is abandonware - I had to struggle a lot with it switching from fully functional software to an expired trialware (even though I purchased a license copy.
People are strange, aren't they? In Poland we call such attitude "the gardener's dog". The gardener's dog doesn't eat the fruits himself but doesn't allow anybody to eat them.
 

John Ismyname

Registered
People are strange, aren't they? In Poland we call such attitude "the gardener's dog". The gardener's dog doesn't eat the fruits himself but doesn't allow anybody to eat them.

LOL Thanks, TT, I am going to use that expression in my repertoire!

GTDOA was developed as a side-line by a firm called NetCentrics. When HayStax bought NetCentrics, they neither had interest in continuing to make revenue off a downloadable product sold on line nor selling this golden goose to me. Apathy? To small to bother with?

I am glad it's gone as with GTDOA (and many GTD aps), the designers are looking at the lowest common denominator - if they make it too complicated, they'll loose out on to many purchasers. If one is configuring Outlook (or any robust GTD software platform), there is a latitude to modify the process for one's preferences.
 
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