Outlook Macro to handle consecutive tasks

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xoff

Registered
I have just posted in the netcentrics GTD Add-in support forum (suggestions/comments) a macro, which modifies GTD Police and automatically creates the next task after marking the previous one complete.

Though developed for the GTD Add-in, with slight modification it would work with a plain outlook setup as well.

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trishacupra

Guest
I'm inexperienced with macros and Visual Basic, but I love the whole concept and want to learn much more about how to program macros.

I'm having trouble with this macro and the Police macro.

I followed the instructions for the Police Macro except I put the modified This Outlook Session in first, then skip that in the Police instructions and pasted in the other modules (which are still called Module 2 etc as I don't know how to rename them, as indicated).

It's simply not working for me. There were some 'bugs' that Outlook didn't like when I pasted in the modified police code, and they were identified in red, I assume. I think it may have been a line break problem, because when I removed the line breaks, the red disappeared and it looked normal.

I've tested it and tested it, but it doesn't work.

I'd like to modify This Outlook Session to the normal police one to see if that works, but I can't figure out how to edit it now - it won't let me delete it or copy and paste over it. It was blank when I began.

Could someone please help me out, or point me in the direction of some good VB online help?

Thanks,

Trisha
 
V

vegheadjones

Guest
Looks cool. If anyone with more VBA experience than me can modify this for use with out the GTD Outlook Add-In, please let me know!
 
X

xoff

Registered
vegheadjones said:
Looks cool. If anyone with more VBA experience than me can modify this for use with out the GTD Outlook Add-In, please let me know!
Click to expand...

I am not too familiar with all the intricacies of GTD Police, however try removing line 130.

Let me know if this works out.

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X

xoff

Registered
trishacupra said:
I followed the instructions for the Police Macro except I put the modified This Outlook Session in first, then skip that in the Police instructions and pasted in the other modules (which are still called Module 2 etc as I don't know how to rename them, as indicated).
Click to expand...

Trish, Would suggest you start from scratch paste all the GTD Police code and then replace the THIS OUTLOOK SESSION text. No need to rename the modules.

trishacupra said:
There were some 'bugs' that Outlook didn't like when I pasted in the modified police code, and they were identified in red, I assume. I think it may have been a line break problem, because when I removed the line breaks, the red disappeared and it looked normal.
Click to expand...

You are right , the posting broke off the lines. I will try to repost.

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trishacupra

Guest
YIPPEE! It's working for me now!!! :D

This is so exciting - it's exactly what I've been wanting. This solves so many problems and saves so much time!

These macros are so great.

I've got the one which enables you to click the macro button to get a set of tasks you like to do on a daily basis - they're called 'Daily Disciplines'. It's a very neat, tidy way to handle routine tasks like that.

I'm also going to use the one that enables you to set a task to appear then disappear a set number of days. That's cool.

This modified Police macro is the king of GTD macros! David Allen ought to buy it off you to include in the GTD toolbar, it's so great!

I'm so excited, I'm off to do some project organizing!

Trisha :D
 
X

xoff

Registered
trishacupra said:
This modified Police macro is the king of GTD macros! David Allen ought to buy it off you to include in the GTD toolbar, it's so great!

Trisha :D
Click to expand...

Glad to hear that it is working for you and that you find it useful. The macro is a very simple change to GTD police. Bill Kratz deserves the credit for creating GTD Police.

Regards,

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AH

Guest
Help on GTD Police

Hi tried using this, wasn't working and deleted. But there is some code that will not delete in an Application-Sent Items window with the result that Intellisync won't work between Outlook and my Blackberry! Tried clearing BB and restarting but all my tasks are gone on the handheld! I'll try the macro again at some point but for now would just like to be able to synch Outlook to the blackberry. Can anyone please advise how I remove the code, sort this out! Many thanks Andrew
 
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morberg

Guest
How to get rid of e-mail warning?

Very nice. I couldn't get it to run without signing the project, which was quite easy following the instrucions here:

http://www.danevans.co.uk/vba/

However, I get a pop-up saying "A program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this?" each time I run the script. Is there a way to either:

a) Always allow the script to access e-mail addresses (the drop-down has 10 minutes as max, which is way too low)
b) Have the script not access e-mail addresses?

I guess the pop-up is a feature to help disarm virii that use your address book to spread.
 
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lilmagnus

Registered
Re: How to get rid of e-mail warning?

morberg said:
...
However, I get a pop-up saying "A program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this?" each time I run the script. Is there a way to either:

a) Always allow the script to access e-mail addresses (the drop-down has 10 minutes as max, which is way too low)
b) Have the script not access e-mail addresses?

I guess the pop-up is a feature to help disarm virii that use your address book to spread.
Click to expand...

I believe that is controlled through the Tools|Macros|Security settings. You may have to set it Low.

HTH
 
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morberg

Guest
Re: How to get rid of e-mail warning?

lilmagnus said:
morberg said:
...
However, I get a pop-up saying "A program is trying to access e-mail addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this?" each time I run the script.
Click to expand...

I believe that is controlled through the Tools|Macros|Security settings. You may have to set it Low.
Click to expand...

Sorry, that didn't help with the pop-up. (Your fix takes care of the part I already addressed by signing the program myself.)
 
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jhundley

Registered
If any one is interested I modified GTD Police some time back to work with NAtara's Bonsai Basically following the Bonsai link from outlook back to the project in Bonsai and allowing the user to select another next action for the project
 
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professor

Guest
Amendment to push Next Actions into Inbox

Hey, GTD Police and this mod are both fantastic (and essential) additions to the GTD add-in. Many thanks to all involved!!

But I was still bothered by the fact that the automatically created Next Actions are turned straight into tasks, and therefore bypass the InBox, and don't find their way into @Actions, @Deferred, which is where I tend to spend my time.

So, without in any way understanding VBA macros, I made one trivial change to your GTD Police mod - I change the new object to a MailObj (ie, a message) instead of a TaskObj. The result is that I automatically get a new message opening up, and I simply send it to myself to drop it in my InBox. This then gives me full control over what happens next, ie I can Action it, Defer it, Delegate it, Snooze it, File it or Delete it, and I now get the full use of the @Action, @Defered, etc views.

This is much better suited to the way I have got used to using GTD.

Now, if I knew what I was doing in VBA a little better, I'm sure I could figure out how to *automatically* get the created message into my InBox (with the proper Project value already set, instead of having to do the extra manual step of addressing and sending the message to myself.

What do you think? Is that a useful mod, or have I got the whole thing arse-up? If it's a worthwhile change, then can any VBA whiz figure out how to *automatically* drop the new message straight into my InBox?

Thanks HEAPS,
Lee (Sydney Australia)
 
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professor

Guest
Okay, sorted out the automatic Creation of messages in InBox

Hi, I have done a bit more fiddling, and now have amended the GTD Police Macro (already amended as described in this thread), so that all automatically created items are saved as messages in the InBox, instead of as Tasks, so that the user can then make the determination of what to do with them (Action, Delegate, Defer, Delete, Snooze).

In the event that there is no automatically defined task (using the "- next task" convention), the macro now creates a blank message addressed to the user, so that the newly filled in task info again becomes a message in the InBox for appropriate treatment.

In short, I think that this slight change makes the entire GTD/Outlook process consistent, ie *everything* comes in via your InBox.

If anyone's interested, they are free to have my hacked code.

Thanks,
Lee.
 
G

gunns256

Registered
Netcentrics requires registration now

Xoff:

I'd be glad if you would post your code here. I've seen it before on the Netcentrics forum, but they seem to have changed their policies in the last week, and now they only allow registered users to access the forums. The only way to register is to purchase the GTD addin. I'm not doing that yet. I'm implementing WHKratz's Projects-as-Contacts concept, and I have GTD police running in a way that Contacts access avoids the security call. If you're interested, I'll post my code.

Gunns256
 
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