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Do you use flags when you need a reminder to follow up on something…tomorrow? This week? Next week?
Well, perhaps you don’t have a “favorite,” but if you find yourself reaching for the flag menu frequently and choosing one flag more than others, then a Quick Click Flag can help you cut down on clicks and keep breezing through your messages, tasks, or whatever else you may be working with in Outlook. You click once in the Flag Status column and the flag of your choice is assigned to that message, task, or contact. (If you right-click in the Flag Status column, you get the regular flag menu with all the different flag choices.) If you don’t set one, the default Quick Click Flag is Today. (And by the way, we’ve introduced the same new feature for Color Categories too.)
I like to flag messages that I want to reply to quickly, rather than putting them off and forgetting. So I assign the Tomorrow flag as my Quick Click flag. Messages flagged this way appear red in my Inbox or other message lists for an added visual cue.
Set a Quick Click Flag
It’s that “quick.” With a Quick Click Flag, you can click just once next to an item and your “new” default flag is set. Click again to mark it complete. And don’t forget you can do the same when assigning Color Categories to items. You can set a Quick Click Category from the main Categorize menu on the toolbar.
Tip: Make the most of tracking with flags
You can attach a lot of information to one little flag to help you keep track of your correspondence and tasks. Not only can you record start and due dates, the Flag to list in the Reminder dialog offers you several choices of actions to associate with a flag. You can even fill in the Flag to field with your own text simply by typing. (To get to this dialog quickly, type CTRL-Shift-G.)
And whatever information you associate with the flag will be visible in the InfoBar at the top of each flagged item. You’ll see this information in tasks and messages. The InfoBar information remains with saved items, even after their due dates.
Happy flagging!
Laurie Hughes Outlook UA Writer
Comments: (26) Collapse
Hello Laurie,
Thanks for the tip.
In fact, my favorite flag doesn't exist : it would be "in two weeks". Of course, I can do it using the "Custom" but two weeks would be great... Regards,
Gwenael
Something that would be great to have is to add your own flags like "two weeks", "one month", etc.
I don't have a favorite flag because you won't let me flag IMAP messages. C'mon, let us flag/categorize IMAP messages! Please! I know IMAP servers only support flag on/off. I'm fine with that. I use Outlook because it ADDS features that my IMAP webmail doesn't have, such as colored flags (which were supported in Outlook 2003 but not in Outlook 2007). You can still say you're fully IMAP compliant if you support custom flags/categories on IMAP e-mails. Plus, think about it: a lot of power e-mail users use IMAP because it lets us always sync our e-mail locally and on the remote server. Those same power users are the ones who would be likely to take serious advantage over the flagging/categorization features of Outlook 2007. Please, please, PLEASE make an update to let me use flags/categories with my IMAP e-mail!!!
IMAP supports multiple flags/keywords on a message. This means you can assign keywords such as Action, Defer, Wait to messages or keywords for projects etc. These could easily be mapped to Outlook flags or categories. Without support for IMAP keywords, Outlook is a crippled IMAP client. Microsoft are making lots of fuss about making sure IE fully follows the W3C HTML/CSS standards but the Outlook team doesn't support a large part of the IMAP standard.
Is there anyway of adding items to the list (rather than just typing)? If there is a way of doing this for Outlook 2003 i would love to know. Thanks, Matthew
I find the flags facility promising in concept but exasperating in execution. The FIRST thing I want is to be able to give flags (not messages) different colors. My eyes can barely differentiate the current flag color variations (redish, pink, pale pink... give me a break). If I had them, I'd flag first by importance, and assign due dates next (the current system completely confounds these issues and I'm not saying the functionality distinct due dates and importance aren't buried in there but they are FAR to cumbersome for quick assignment and review). AND what's up with the competing "Flags" and "Tags" that are making a mockery of some nice OneNote integration. Don't get me started on categories (give me KEYWORDS-- colors are too limited to be functional across appointments, contacts, e-mails, etc.). Frustrated but hopeful!
Help!
Outlook does not let me flag a message for follow up or set anything other than a regular "flag" on a message
Hi, I agree with the previous posts regarding flag types for IMAP messages, and I would also love to see a feature where I can create my own custom flags, specifically the date part of it as I often want to say something like "in the next 3 days". Also, is there any way to make the due date set to take into account working days only? So if I say tomorrow on a Friday, it marks it as to be done by the end of Monday? Thanks,
Camilla
Hi - Please give me a way to change the color of flags or add new colors to flags like Outlook 2003. I really miss my colored flag scheme which I used so well. I hate the new Category stuff, its very overwhelming to use that. Can u pls provide a way for user to change flag colors and create custom flag colors in SP2 ?
I agree. Custom colored flags in Outlook 2003 were great. My whole color-based tracking scheme had to be changed after I upgraded to Outlook 2007.
Yes, I would also very much like to see the ability to add "custom" flags to the list. I need things like: In Two Days
In Two Weeks
Next Month Is there any way at all to do this with Outlook Programming?
Favorite flag was the colored flag in 2003. Why is the "No Date" flag the same color as the "Today" flag. This doesn't make any sense to me. If I have a task that I want to keep on my radar for when I have a little extra time I flag it as "no date" but then when I sort by due date that is the first group. And that is all I see in my to do bar. I have about 10 tasks that need to be done when ever I get to them. And I can't even see my today tasks. I don't want to put a custom date on them like two weeks from now, because I don't want them showing up on the bottom of my weekly calendar view on some random Wednesday when i have more important things that are actually due that Wednesday. I would think No date would be at the bottom. If it wasn't important enough to put a due date on, then it doesn't need to be at the top of the list.
I found out you can asssign categories in IMAP by adding the Category field to your email view. -robrfoster
Really? That'd be AWESOME! But, are you sure about that? From everything I've read and tried, there's no way to add a Category OR Custom Flags to IMAP e-mail messages. What worked for you? How did you add a category to an IMAP e-mail message?
Mine is "Tomorrow"! For the purposes of backup and restore, where is Outlook's flag data saved? I recently exported my Outlook data to a .pst and imported it all on a new PC - but my flags did not come with the exported data. I've searched the internet for the answer but had no luck. Many thanks!
peter
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