Link Your Information: Use MS Outlook and MS OneNote as a Team

OneNote makes a perfect team with the other components of the Microsoft Office system. For example, you can create a diagram of your current quarter’s results in Excel and copy this page to the meeting preparation page in OneNote where, during the past few weeks, you have been gathering ideas that you want to discuss with your colleagues. Or somebody sends you a Word document containing a report summary that you insert as a picture. You use a text marker to highlight specific sections and comment with handwritten keywords (see the “How to add documents as pictures” procedure earlier in this chapter). During the meeting, you write down the results and all resulting tasks, and then make the page available to your colleagues in the meeting workspace of a SharePoint site as the meeting minutes. Afterward, you copy the tasks you are responsible for into your own personal task list in Outlook with just one click per task.

 

How to transfer tasks to Outlook

1. Right-click the paragraph in OneNote you want to transfer—it’s especially helpful to assign a tag to certain entries (such as tasks) as you write them by using shortcut keys so that you can recognize them immediately by their tags (or automatically jump to them or gather them from multiple pages, as explained earlier).

2. In the shortcut menu, click Outlook Tasks and then the option you want (or press Ctrl+Shift+1 to create a task that is due today (Ctrl+Shift+2 for tomorrow, and so on). The task has now been inserted into Outlook with the due date you specified.

 

3. If you select Outlook Tasks/Custom, an Outlook task form is displayed where you can enter the due date manually.

 

Changes to the state of completion and the due date are automatically synchronized between OneNote and Outlook. (Depending on the performance and settings of your system, it may take a few seconds or up to several minutes until the changes arrive in the other program.)

If you open the Outlook task in Outlook in its own window (for example, by doubleclicking it), you will see a link to OneNote in the note field. If you double-click that link, it’ll open in OneNote. In OneNote, you can right-click the small red flag in front of the task text to change the due date in the shortcut menu, mark the task as completed, delete the Outlook task, or open it directly in Outlook.

 

Important tip:

In Office 2010, later changes to the subject are not synchronized: If you change the task subject in Outlook, OneNote keeps the old text. In future edits, changes to the text in OneNote will also be ignored in an Outlook task that has already been created. Still, both entries remain securely linked: Changes to the due date and state of completion are still synchronized with the other program, and the link to the other program also works reliably (to open the task in Outlook/OneNote).

 

Outlook and OneNote also communicate the other way around:

■ In OneNote, on the Home tab, in the Outlook group, click Meeting Details and select one of the entries from today's calendar in the expanded menu or Choose a Meeting from Another Day to insert the location, participants, date, time, subject, and notes of a meeting request or an appointment.

 

 

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