OutLinker: A new tool for draining your Microsoft Outlook inbox
When was the last time your inbox looked like this?
The holy grail of Getting Things Done (GTD) is routinely emptying your various Inboxes to zero and processing the context into projects and next actions. Tools like GyroQ can help you capture ideas and process your paper in-trays, but if you are working in the corporate world, you probably find that 80% or more of your activities flow to and from your Microsoft Outlook inbox and sent-items folders.
Chances are your Outlook inbox has over 100 items in it right now and you feel swamped, but let me ask you a question — how many of those message are actually unread?
If you are like me, you have probably read or glanced at most of them, but hesitated moving them because you….
- were not sure what to do with them
- were afraid that if you moved them to an archive you would forget to do them
- worried you wouldn't find them and their associated attachments when needed to act on or reply to them
While MindManager and ResultsManager provide a great framework for managing projects and next actions, it can be somewhat time consuming to copy/paste email content and manage their attachments via topics if you are dealing with 100's of messages each week…
Until now.
Mike Wilkerson of NodeGlue.com has been tinkering with various ways of integrating Outlook and MindManager for a couple of years and has recently adapted his macros to work with MindReader. With his permission I've been tweaking his code to better work with MindReader and enhancing MindReader to work with it on the receiving end. Along the way the code has been simplified and combined into a single Visual Basic Outlook macro - Outlinker.
Once you have installed OutLinker, clicking on the button for the macro will prompt you for the "next action" for the selected message and for MindReader keywords to mark up the task. It will also provide the option of using the message sender/addressee as the person who you need to "wait for", "owe to" or "contact about" for the action.
It will then create an marked up activity in the intray of the destination map identified by MindReader and add a hyperlink back to the original Outlook message so you can readily access it for the attachments or for future replies. The content of the message is also added to the note of the activity. Note that the hyperlink may not work if you are using Outlook 2007.
I am finding it very useful to run through both my inbox and sent-items in this fashion.
The program is currently set up to transfer this information directly into MindManager via MindReader, but you can also have it queued up via GyroQ by changing the "UseGyroQ" setting at the top of the code. Make sure you are using GyroQ 1.9.4.7 rather than 1.9.4.9.
The second useful feature of Mike's macro is that if you run it on task list, it will transfer the selected items into MindManager via GyroQ. Mike uses this feature to capture action items on his PDA and then transfer them into MindManager later. I haven't used this feature as much yet, but sense it will be very useful in enabling capture on devices like Blackberries.
If you have Outlook on your system, but manage your mail in GMail, you might want to explore GMail's new IMAP functionality. I was surprised how well Mike's macro worked with Gmail folders via Outlook and have even been able to archive mail on one gmail account from the inbox of another Gmail account with it. Gmail also supports bookmarks/permalinks now so you can use the approach here to link out to Gmail messages from MindManager activities as well. In that case you just want to copy the link into your clipboard and then enter a task into GyroQ and include the "link" keyword to tell MindReader to add the hyperlink.
Getting the OutLinker macro code installed and configured requires a couple of steps which may be intimidating to novices, but I think it is worth the effort. Please log into the wiki and make improvements to the OutLinker home page or instructions based on your experience or just comment below with suggestions.
Stumble it! 
Entries 
Tom Hodgers said,
December 10, 2007 @ 8:55 am
Hi ActivityOwner and MIke,
Fantastic job with Outlinker!
As you mentioned A.O., about 80% of activities in the corporate world pass through Microsoft Outlook. But what about the rest of us "disincorporated phantoms" who use Outlook Express or other e-mail and newsgroup gathering software either for business or private use? Are we to be left out in the cold?
Is their an easy way, for those of us who have little or no experience in coding, to adapt this Outlinker.bas script to our particular use?
If so, could you please write a short method on how to adapt the script?
If not, I am sure there are many users/potential users who, like me, would apreciate a version for Outlook Express with maybe an easy method for changing the software involved.
Thanks for the great work.
Tom
ActivityOwner said,
December 10, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
Hi Tom — I don't think Outlook Express has any macro functionality, so you need to do a few things manually that this script is automating for Outlook.
There are two strategies you can take to capture mail content from Outlook Express or other programs into GyroQ/MindManager.
Option 1: Capture text of message as note of activity:
1. Hit the "forward" button, Control-A to select the content, Control-Q to launch GyroQ. (you can cancel the foward after the copy — it is just a way to get the header info).
2. Type "q" to bring up "q" tag and type in your action item and then include [note]. The content on the clipboard will automatically be added to the note of the task and the [note] text removed from the action item.
Option 2: Capture link to a saved copy of the message
1. Select "File, Save As" and save the message to a folder on your disk in the mail programs native format (.msg for outlook, .eml for outlook express).
2. Go to that folder, click on the file and select "copy".
3. Hit Control-Q, q and type in action item and include "link" or [link]. A hyperlink to the email message will be added to the task.
If you are using Gmail, you want to copy the hyperlink address and follow the above to have the message permalink included in the task.
"Outlinker" eliminates these manual steps for Outlook (and captures both the note and the link). You may be able to automate these steps with ActiveWords or another keystroke macro program depending on your setup.
Magnus said,
December 11, 2007 @ 8:59 am
This is a fantastic tool.
Have been able to hit zero for the first time in many days.
Took a while to install but well worth the time
ActivityOwner said,
December 12, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
Thanks Magnus — I'm enjoying using this on the other end as well as I come upon processed tasks and can complete them more readily by having the underlying message easily accessible.
I found the installation doesn't take too much time once you know what to do. The key finding a way to make the install more clear to new users. Hopefully the wiki will evolve to make the instructions more clear.
ActivityOwner said,
December 13, 2007 @ 6:34 pm
I'm finding that the Outlook and MindManager lock up occasionally when using the direct transfer mode, so I have switched the default to "usegyroq=true" at the top of the macro. You can change it yourself or just pull in new macro code from the wiki.
I've also updated MindReaderNLP.mmbas to correctly handle strings with multiple sets of brackets (e.g. [blog web@]post blog entry[today!]
ActivityOwner said,
December 13, 2007 @ 11:37 pm
I uploaded a .reg file for enabling hyperlinks to Outlook 2007 folders:
http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=OutLinker_Installation#OutLook_2007_hyperlinks
malcolm said,
December 14, 2007 @ 5:56 am
Thanks guys, my mail box was dragging me down and causing my whole approach to GTD to crumble and I was going under. Outlnker has saved the day.
Thanks Again
Malcolm
User of:
MM7 Pro, ResultsManager, GyroQ Pro, MindReader, and now Outlinker!!
Ron Russell said,
December 18, 2007 @ 3:01 pm
How do you reference a pstfolder that is not directly below your pstfile. I am on an Exchange server so my pstfile is set to "Mailbox - name". When I place my pstfolder directly below it everything works fine. However when I place one level lower in my "Inbox" folder (which is where I would like it to be) I cannot get the reference to work.
Ron
PS - THANK YOU for this - I have been searching and waiting for this functionality to be available for a long time.
Chuck said,
December 19, 2007 @ 7:18 pm
This is the first time I've been able to consistently clear out my inbox - this is a great tool. I am getting some occasional errors however - for example, I am now getting Runtime Error -2147221040 DataObject: PutInClipboard OpenClipboard Failed. Any suggestions?
Chuck
Chuck said,
December 19, 2007 @ 8:13 pm
Well I may have corrected the foregoing problem by tinkering with some clipboard settings on the subject computer - I will let you know if they reappear.
CHUCK
ActivityOwner said,
December 20, 2007 @ 12:08 am
Hi Ron — MIke actually had the macro set up to use a folder underneath the inbox. I added back that code as an option and uploaded it to the wiki. Just set "underinbox=true" at the top of the code and put in the name of the folder you want. Note that the link will break if you have to move the messages out of exchange into a pstfile.
Chuck — Thanks for info. I didn't realize there was such a thing as "clipboard settings". Good to know.
nigel said,
December 20, 2007 @ 3:49 pm
Having trouble installing. The only Macro I see listed is "Project1.Outlink". Have followed the instructions to the letter. Using Outlook 2007 and Mindmanager 7.
Appreciate any help…
ActivityOwner said,
December 20, 2007 @ 10:33 pm
Hi Nigel — Project1.outlinker is the only macro you need. Did you try running it on a selected message or task?
Ian Goldsmid said,
December 30, 2007 @ 7:14 pm
Hi
I believe I've followed every instruction accurately. When I use the Project1.outlinker macro, for example on an email in my Inbox (Outlook 2007), the email gets moved as expected to Personal Folders/mainarchive - and the request gets sent to gyroQ (Pro Edition: 1.9.4.7) - then when I send the queue to MindManager 7 SP1 (7.1.388) - the new, macro created Topic gets added to my Daily Capture Map, under the In-Tray Topic, but there is no link to the email - there is only the new Topic with the keyword as name.
Links are working for my Outlook 2007 - I have enabled them many times, and I also use "Linker for Windows" freebie from Teamscope, so I know for sure that my Outlook hyperlinks are functioning correctly.
Can someone help me troubleshoot this?
Thanks,
Ian
ActivityOwner said,
December 31, 2007 @ 3:27 am
Hi Ian — Have you upgraded your MindReaderNLP.mmbas to the latest version?
I needed to change it on 7Dec to recognize the "olmsg" keyword that tells it to grab the hyperlink from the 1st line of the text on the clipboard. That sounds like the issue here.
I have mainly been using the direct transfer to MindManager and bypassing GyroQ prompt. I'd recommend running in that mode.
Eventually I'll work out how to add the info directly to the queue (the way tasks are added), but for now direct seem the easiest to troubleshoot and monitor.
Ian Goldsmid said,
January 1, 2008 @ 2:17 am
Hi
Thanks - yes I dod and did have the latest MindReaderNLP.mmbas from Dec 7th. Maybe direct transfer to MindManager and bypassing GyroQ prompt is the issue.
Excuse me for being a bit dense - but how do I effect the direct transfer to MindManager and bypassing GyroQ?
Thanks, Ian
ActivityOwner said,
January 1, 2008 @ 7:43 am
Hi Ian — Just paste in the lastest copy of outlinker.bas. It has disabled the GyroQ transfer mode for messages:
http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=Outlinker.bas
Ian Goldsmid said,
January 1, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
Hi
OK - great - now I have the outlook item and an outlook internal url link placed in my daily capture map. However, the link (when clicking on it in the mind map) doesn't work - its broken. So I did a little investigation. The outlook url captured by outlinker and placed into the daily capture map is:
Outlook:000000004E3A410C593E1149B6213AD50BC7EB3164D92F01
However, when I capture (with teamscope windows linker) the link from the outlook email outlinker moved from my inbox to the mainarchive folder - the link string now is:
Outlook:000000004E3A410C593E1149B6213AD50BC7EB3144D92F01
You will notice three digits have been changed. Now I know from experience Outlook often does this to an internal email url when moving it from one folder to another. So perhaps outlinker is capturing the email url when it is still in the inbox - then outlinker moves it to mainarchive folder, and the url changes in the process, and hence no longer works when trying to launch it from mind manager….
What do you think?
Ian
ActivityOwner said,
January 1, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
Ugh — You are right — I broke the code while adding in the appointment functionality (which doesn't move items) and hadn't gone back and tested it on moved messages. Corrected version has been uploaded.
Thanks for tracking this down!
Ian Goldsmid said,
January 1, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
fantastic - working perfectly now!
ActivityOwner said,
January 1, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
A few more bugs surfaced and were swatted down so head back and grab the latest version.
Harald Inge said,
January 2, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
Does anybody know if it is possible to make the link "global" (between all files/folders)?
ActivityOwner said,
January 2, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
I'm not sure what you mean by "global Harald. Can you elaborate?
Harald Inge said,
January 3, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
Sorry — what I mean is if there is anyway to create/alter the hyperlinks so that they will not break when items are moved between outlook pst files…
ActivityOwner said,
January 3, 2008 @ 9:03 pm
I don't think that would be possible. I am surprised that the links survive movement within a pstfile. If you do happen to break a link by moving the file, you always have the text of the email in the note of the topic. You copy a unique string from there to use with a search tool like X1 or Google desktop to find where the message has ended up.
This is not as fast as the direct link, but better than hunting around manually.
Marco van Laerhoven said,
February 11, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
Hi ActivityOwner,
I'm using a localised version of Outlook, in which the Inbox and Sent items folder have a different name. Esspecialy the latter is causing a problem, when using for example the olwf MindReader tag - it is incorrectly getting my name instead of the recipient because it doesn't recognise Verzonden Items as the sent items folder. Is it possible to add the name of these folders in the Oulinker Settings ??
ActivityOwner said,
February 11, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
Hi Marco — Good suggestion — I just make sentitemsfolder a configurable options in the settings. It defaults to "Sent Items" . I don't see anywhere in the code that references "inbox" as a string.
Chuck Brown said,
April 2, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
Whenever I use the "olt" tag, I get:
The sequence {run:macro:Call
MacroRun(GetPath(mmDirectoryMyMaps)&"/AO/ao_gyroq_to_outlook
_task.mmbas","pick up laundry")} returned an error:
Message from MindManager 7:
A runtime error occurred while executing the macro
\\infinity06\users\cbrown\My Maps\GyroActivator-macro.MMBas.
Any ideas what I have wrong?
ActivityOwner said,
April 2, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
Hi Chuck — The trick to get to the bottom of a problem like that is to open the gyroactivator-macro.mmbas file mentioned in the error message within the macro editor and then hit play. It will give a more specific error message from there.
Have you downloaded the ao_gyroq_to_outlook.mmbas" file to the "My Maps\AO" directory?
Chuck Brown said,
April 3, 2008 @ 8:27 am
AO,
Yes, I have the ao_gyroq_to_outlook.mmbas in place. When I run the macro within the editor, here is the text of the macro:
' Created by GyroActivator 1.5.1 4/03/2008
Sub Main()
Call MacroRun(GetPath(mmDirectoryMyMaps)&"/AO/ao_gyroq_to_outlook_task.mmbas","This is a test")
End Sub
And the error is "(10012) Macro/module has syntax errors. '\\infinity06\users\cbrown\My Maps\AO\ao_gyroq_to_outlook_task.mmbas'"
ActivityOwner said,
April 3, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
Hi Chuck — The next step would be to open that file inside the editor and click on "Macro, Check Syntax". I think the problem is that you need to add a reference to the microsoft outlook library. See the instructions posted with the tag here:
http://www.activityowner.com/2008/01/22/important-mindreader-update-for-outlinker-users/#comment-12206
This tag/macro pair was created quickly based on a comment request and didn't get much documentation.
Mark said,
June 17, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
I have only had outlinker work on 2 email messages. Otherwise keep hitting the error below. Don't see any accesible clipboard settings and have the latests, May 08, version of Outlinker. Can someone help? Chuck did you finally eliminate the issue and if so I would really appreciate knowing how.
Cheers, Mark
Chuck said,
December 19, 2007 @ 7:18 pm
This is the first time I've been able to consistently clear out my inbox - this is a great tool. I am getting some occasional errors however - for example, I am now getting Runtime Error -2147221040 DataObject: PutInClipboard OpenClipboard Failed. Any suggestions?
Chuck
"Chuck said,
December 19, 2007 @ 8:13 pm
Well I may have corrected the foregoing problem by tinkering with some clipboard settings on the subject computer - I will let you know if they reappear.
CHUCK"
ActivityOwner said,
June 17, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
Mark — Do you have any third party programs running (particularly related to the clipboard)?
Mark said,
June 18, 2008 @ 10:14 am
AO…not that I am aware of. I am running in parallels on a macbook pro.Not sure how/why I was able to get 2 to work and not the rest. I am running Office 2007 student but my Outlook remains 2003. I also have Onenote - though it is closed it has an icon showing…back after killing the icon in task mgr but still get the error.
The email content is all stacking up in the clipboard. I re-pasted the code into Outlook and tried again and it cleared the clipboard contents but next try it is erroring every time.
Mark PS - i appreciate your interest and help
ActivityOwner said,
June 18, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
Perhaps the issue is related to shared/synced clipboard between XP and OSX?
Marco said,
June 23, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
I recently started getting problems using outlinker:
Whenever I turn an email into an action item I get an error in the following line:
Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
The error is (429): ActiveX control cannot create object …
I think this may be related to a recent "automatic MS update", but have no clue where to start looking. Can you help out?
Mark said,
June 24, 2008 @ 12:14 am
AO…you hit it on the head. I found a checkbox to turn off parallels shared clipboard and now it works fine. Cheers, Mark
ActivityOwner said,
June 24, 2008 @ 7:36 am
Hi Marco — That line is in the subroutine that writes to the GyroQ queue, but before it actually looks for the file. I'm not sure what's happening. Google search mentions it quite a bit in regard to browser security and with regard to registry issues. Here's the best solution I could find — try this at command line:
regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\scrrun.dll
Marco said,
June 24, 2008 @ 8:07 am
Another nail on the head … Thanks for making it work again!
Marco said,
August 7, 2008 @ 4:07 am
Hi AO,
I've been using outlinker for quite a while now and still love this tool.
One thing I've wanted to be different was the fact that the "action" in mindmanager would always include the "RE:" or "FW:"
When looking around in the code, I found there was already a function to remove these from the text in the dialog.
The change I've made is in the GetNextAction function:
defaultna = cleansubject(objitem.Subject)
Maybe this is something for other users too, or something for your main thread …
ActivityOwner said,
August 7, 2008 @ 6:18 am
Hi Marco — That's a great suggestion. I went ahead and added it to the wiki version of the code.
I usually write in a specific next action rather than use the subject line as is so it hadn't occurred to me to do this. The "cleansubject" routine was used for the text prompt above.
Note that the code has two other recent changes including a "send to activemap" (s2am) keyword (which does an immediate transfer to the active map's selected topic, and a timer that tells you how quickly you are moving through your mailbox.
I"ve been really enjoying outlinker use. Unfortunately it (and NAA) keep me too focused on getting things done to blog about it much :-).
Marco said,
August 19, 2008 @ 4:22 am
hi AO,
Thanks for the change in the code; I'll have a look at the s2am keyword too - sounds good! BTW: I like the daily stats too, they provide for a nice chart in excel.