Journal

I don't recommend that new users start using the Journal, but if anyone who used journal with an older version of Outlook and upgraded to Outlook 2013, can use a bit of VBA magic to autojournal documents.

I'm going to begin this by saying that I really think it's time to find another solution for journaling. I have no idea how many more versions we'll see before Microsoft rips Journal's heart out. It's time to move on to something that is going to be around longer. On the other hand, it's possible  

A major shortcoming with Microsoft Outlook and Exchange Server is the lack of an obvious method for creating public journal entries for contact records in a public folder. I explain the problem and include some possible approaches developed by the Exchange/Outlook community.

The Journal comes with a limited number of entry types but you can easily add more by editing your registry. As always, you should backup your registry before editing it. You need to open the registry editor. To do this, go to Start Menu, Run (or the Start Search field in Vista/Windows 7) and type  

Let's say you have a person named Bob as a contact. In Contacts, select Bob and drag that contact record to the Journal icon on the Outlook Bar. A journal form will pop up with a shortcut to the Contacts entry for Bob and a space for taking notes, as well as a timer to  

Outlook tracks Office documents automatically (if you set up the Journal options that way), but does not associate documents with particular contacts. Try creating a journal entry for the contact first, by dragging the contact to the Journal folder or icon. Then use the Insert | File command to insert a shortcut to the document.