Outlook replacement options - contact journal activities lost

[JBG]

As most people are learning now, Outlook has basically eliminated the JOURNAL function and the Contact activities features in Outlook 2010 and now in the new Outlook 2013. Some of us live and die by these features and I have downgraded back to Outlook 2007 since I cannot bear to be without it.

For my work it is critical to be able to open a Contact and view ALL activities I have had with that contact including emails/tasks/appts AND the Journal. I use the journal daily to record notes on enarly every telephone conversation I have with a contact and I keep literally thousands of these notes. Having this capabilitt to view call notes right alongside email exchanges in a contact is an absolute need.

I have started testing out possible alternative contact management programs and have yet to find anything that seems to be a viable option. There are no "ADD-INS" that I can find for recording Phone Call Notes and adding to Outlook contacts and I cannot believe I am the only person who would value that.

Anyway, I want to start a thread for people who have tried options to replace or work around this issue.

Who has tried options like SAGE ACT, GOLDMINE, LOTUS NOTES, MAXIMIZER or other CRM programs?? Any Add-ins like PROPHET?

HAS ANYONE FOUND OPTIONS THAT WORK????

LET'S FIND A SOLUTION!!

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Although not a replacement solution, Outlook 2010 & Contact Activities - Slipstick Systems has potential to replace activities. ( I need to look at accessing Advanced Find using VBA so we can pass a contact name to the search field. )

I haven't looked hard at what all is missing in Outlook 2013 in regards to journal, other than activities and Journal from the New Items menu. They've done a good job at removing the New Journal command - it's not in customize ribbon or qat so you need to ether go to the journal folder or use Choose Form menu. (or create a custom shortcut)

 

[themenz]

As most people are learning now, Outlook has basically eliminated the JOURNAL function and the Contact activities features in Outlook 2010 and now in the new Outlook 2013. Some of us live and die by these features and I have downgraded back to Outlook 2007 since I cannot bear to be without it.

For my work it is critical to be able to open a Contact and view ALL activities I have had with that contact including emails/tasks/appts AND the Journal. I use the journal daily to record notes on enarly every telephone conversation I have with a contact and I keep literally thousands of these notes. Having this capabilitt to view call notes right alongside email exchanges in a contact is an absolute need.

I have started testing out possible alternative contact management programs and have yet to find anything that seems to be a viable option. There are no "ADD-INS" that I can find for recording Phone Call Notes and adding to Outlook contacts and I cannot believe I am the only person who would value that.

Anyway, I want to start a thread for people who have tried options to replace or work around this issue.

Who has tried options like SAGE ACT, GOLDMINE, LOTUS NOTES, MAXIMIZER or other CRM programs?? Any Add-ins like PROPHET?

HAS ANYONE FOUND OPTIONS THAT WORK????

LET'S FIND A SOLUTION!!

I am in the same boat. I don't understand how MS could do away with this functionality. The Social Connector shows the emails that the contact sent me. But I can't get my emails to them without doing a search on my SENT file with their email. Very slow. Also, I can't find where I can add notes on conversations I have had or just random thoughts for the next contact. What a PITA.

There is supposed to be a VBA code solution, but I have not been able to make it work.

I am waiting for the author to get back to me to see why it won't work.

If you get it working please give me a shout. Would like to see the result.

One question. I have Windows 8 and Outlook 2013. Can I downgrade to Outlook 2010 and keep my stuff?

 

[Diane Poremsky]

As long as you own a copy of Outlook 2010, you can downgrade and not lose anything. You'll need to make a new profile but will be able to use the old data files.

On searching sent items, would an automated Instant search work? The macro here - http://www.slipstick.com/developer/instant-search-messages-selected-contact/ - could be tweaked to work with a message sender. Or use a search folder - http://www.slipstick.com/developer/create-an-outlook-search-folder-using-vba/

 

[Diane Poremsky]

As an FYI, i added an updated macro that searches for messages to or from a sender's email address to the page - Search for messages to or from a sender

 

[themenz]

As an FYI, i added an updated macro that searches for messages to or from a sender's email address to the page - Search for messages to or from a sender

Diane, thank you for the quick replies. Really appreciated. I think an instant search that would find messages I sent and received from a contact would definitely help.

But is there a way to add notes (call record for example) that would allow me to record multiple notes what we talked about on the phone or about new ideas for this contact?

So if your macro could pull up emails from and to AND bring up any notes that would work perfectly. I would be willing to pay you to install this as I am ignorant about installing addin VBA macros. I would like a button on the contact to run the macro.

If the notes functionality can't be added, I am seriously thinking about going back to Office 2010 but at some point MS will stop supporting it. Are you sure it will run on Windows 8?

 

[Diane Poremsky]

If you want notes in Contacts, you can use the Notes field.

If you mean you have yellow sticky notes, a macro can find them too, as long as they were linked to the contact. If you are using sticky notes for this, I think I'd start using the Notes field - notes are losing functionality too.

There is a notes addin that adds a note to a message. Emailnotes - plus a few others here: http://www.slipstick.com/addins/productivity-addins/outlook-productivity-tools/ (I really need to put the note apps on their own page).

 

[Diane Poremsky]

As an FYI, the sticky notes addins are now on their own page at add notes to email

 

[James44888]

As an FYI, the sticky notes is the most important thing that you can use essaly.

 

[lissajean]

Hii......

If you lost your contacts and want contact journal activity back then use "PST Recovery" to recover not only emails as well as contact journal activity back. Saves in three file format EML, MSG and PST.

For More Info Visit: [link removed - spam]

 

[Forum Admin]

Dear Lissajean (and the other spammer whose message I deleted), this thread is not about corrupt pst files, its about a feature that was removed from Outlook 2013. Your products will not help the problem one bit.

 

[Kay C]

The show activities feature for a contract showed all activities including emails sent to and emails received from any one of the 1-3 email addresses on record in the contact. Could you create a macro to recreate this feature. I'd be happy if it just showed the emails without the notes, appointments etc.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

The macro at Search for messages from contact macro should do it - you'll need to add the other two addresses to the search string.

This should do it:

strfilter = chr(34) & oContact.Email1Address & chr(34) & " OR " & chr(34) & ocontact.email2address & chr(34) & " OR " & chr(34) & ocontact.email3address & chr(34)

txtSearch = "from:(" & strFilter & ")"

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Oh, wait, that only searches from. The To or From filter is more complicated. I'll see if i can get one put together.

Sheesh I'm not with it today - the to or from is easy - I was thinking of another macro that needs to use SQL properties to work. That one is more complicated.

use the same strFilter with this

txtSearch = "from:(" & strFilter & ") OR to:(" & strFilter & ")"

 

[Kay C]

I'll give this a try as soon as I get a chance.
Thanks,
Kay

 

[Kay C]

Ok..I had a chance to try the macro. when I run it I get a type mismatch error for the line
Set oContact = ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)

By the way, I ran teh macro via DEveloper -> Macros -> Macros -> then select the macro from the list and hit the run button. I suspect that the problem relates to the macro not knowing what contact to use for the search?? But the result was the same when I ran it from an opened email (versus just the main outlook window as my first attempt). Same error when I run the macro from the contact 's info window.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer with this.

 

[Michael Bauer]

Since oContact is declared as ContactItem, this line

Set oContact = ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)

requires that the first selected item in the folder is a contact. For any other item types, like email, it will raise the type mismatch error.

 

[Kay C]

Hmmm...I get this error when I run the macro (using a ribbon button) from the contact info window for a single contact. What do you mean when you say "the first selected item in the folder is a contact"? What folder are you referring to.
Thanks,
Kay

 

[Diane Poremsky]

"the first selected item in the folder is a contact"?

If the selected item is a contact group, it won't work. If you select an email and run it, it will fail - it only works with contacts. (If you want to see all recent messages from a contact, use the People Pane - recent messages will be listed in a pane at the bottom of the message.)

You need to select a contact, then run the macro.

 

[Michael Bauer]

Usually you select an item from any folder, then double click to open the item. The line of code refers to the item that you have selected in the current folder, not to the one you have opened.