Activities was not “fixed” in SP1 and I’m not holding my breath waiting for Microsoft to fix it in a future update.
An Outlook user had this question: “After upgrading to Outlook 2010 the contact activities list shows only e-mail no matter what is selected in the Show: dialog box. This showed all linked activities in 2007. Is there a setting I am missing?”
If you are using the same profile and *.pst and didn’t import, Activities will only be listed by item. Activities’ “All Items” lists all items that were mailed – meeting and task requests listed there are from mail folders (usually the Sent folder), not your Tasks folder and Calendar.
Supported Activities
Of the item types you can Show, only email, contacts, and notes work as expected:
- All items: Shows only e-mailed items, including e-mailed meetings and tasks requests from mail folders (usually in Sent items).
- Contacts: Works as expected (searches Contacts folders)
- Email: Shows email only
- Journal: Does not work.
- Notes: Works as expected (searches Notes folders)
- Upcoming Tasks and Appointments: Does not show tasks and appointments from Tasks or Calendar folders.
According to the product group, they do plan to fix this in a future update.
Activities in other data files
Activities (as limited as they are in Outlook 2010) are only supported in the default data file. Contacts in other data files will not have an Activities button on the toolbar.
Opening Journaled Files
Outlook can create journal entries when you work on files created in the other Office applications. However, unlike previous versions, you can’t open the associated document. The journal entry opens when you choose the option to open the associated document.
Adding folders to Activities
In older versions of Outlook you could right click on any Contacts folder and in the Properties dialog, Activities tab, select additional folders to include in Activities displayed for Contacts in the folder. This feature was removed from Outlook 2010.
People Pane as a replacement
The People Pane offers some of the same features found in Activities – this is the future of “activity” searching. While it doesn’t support every Outlook item type, it works well for both contacts and non-contacts alike and is accessible from email or contacts.
One drawback to the People pane is that it seems to stop after maybe 200 messages are found. (I haven’t counted the exact number, mostly because only a few people send me that much email.)
Using Advanced Find to replace the Activities tab
If you need to find all Outlook items that are linked to a contact, using Advanced Find will find everything. You need to select All Outlook Items from the top of the dialog then switch to the Advanced tab. Type Contacts as the Field name and enter the contacts name in the Condition field.
Using the Contacts field in a Group by View
While not as useful as the Activities pane or Advanced Find, if you only need to view items within a single folder, a custom view that groups by the Contact field may be useful.
When in a single line view, right click on the row of field names and choose Field Chooser. Find the “Contact” field and drag it to the row of field names. You can group by this field or sort by it.
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Last reviewed on Apr 24, 2012
Re: Only mail received items showing in People Pane.
According to the product group, they do plan to fix this in a future update.
Despite the fact that this dismal oversight by MS has been queried since Office 2010 was first released, SP 1 has not fixed this problem. In previous versions the linking was automated. Soon as one linked a procedure to a contact it would show in the contact details. Using add ons such as MS Business Contact Manager and say ExchangeWise are work but may require user intervention by phycically linking the item. Presently I am using Linker for windows which, although it is a manual exercise, it works like a charm by placing the link in the Notes section of the contact, which than places the outlook subject link in the note next to the date/time created with a quick access button. It appears that MS touts the enhancements to its sofware, but does not seem to care too much about the consternation caused to millions of users when certain “functionalities” have been removed or simply do not work. In this case, the very fact the the contact details show tabs for “all items, Activities, Mail (which only shows received and not sent) etc indicates that this should be working. I certainly will be placing these comments on as many forums as I can, so maybe, just maybe MS will rectify this oversight. Of course MS does listen, shown by the incorporation of the “Quick Launch Bar” in Office 2010, which is simply a replacement of the old Toolbar. The “right click” options are also brilliant.
Remember, Outlook prior to 2010, how you could click on activities for any contact and receive a well-ordered list of emails, tasks, appointments, etc for that contact. It made searching for specific contact information easy, it even allowed sorting.
Well, Microsoft in their wisdom, said “Hey, it’s a feature that we feel was hardly used so we are gonna just remove it in Outlook 2010.”
Sadly, the day came when thousands of Outlook users went to search a particular contact for calendar history info and were unable to. You can assign a calendar item to a client (still) but it’s self-defeating as it does NOTHING. It doesn’t link to a darn thing and no report will show it, I’m specifically focusing on calendar items.
As far as I know, there is no fix and never was intended to be a fixed according to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179110.aspx#BKMK_WhatsRemoved
Due to that wonderful decision which feature I depended on to keep track of client activity, I’m looking into a 3rd party email program with calendar or a contact management program.
The sooner I release myself from Microsoft’s clutches the better for me and my clients.
I’m a Microsoft partner who’s starting to look at other partners.
I relied heavily on sorting messages by date in Activities view of contact information. I’d appreciate this being reactivated in Outlook 2010.
Likewise, I am disappointed in this loss of functionality. One of the posts above gave a glimmer of hope that MS will address this issue soon. Has there been any change in status?
There is no change. Unlike you, I’ve lost all hope that it will be addressed in a manner that will be useful. The journal is depreciated and will eventually be removed from outlook.
This is crazy! These funtions are why I own this program. How could this have been missed? I suspect it was not a mistake, but rather an intentional move because they realized they could sell more of other programs if they took funtions from Outlook. Why are people not not freaking out? If I had bought fords for years and then I bought a new one and was not told it did not have reverse I would get my money back.
Why do they still have the funtionality to pull all activiees and the specific activities (tasks, journal) in the contact view? I suspect it is so they could say it was all just a big mistake, if enough people freaked out. How do you freak out o a company that does not allow you to talk to them. Where is their phone number? When I sent emails in to Microsoft I recieved ridiculous computer responces that directed my to other sites. I suspect this is just a game.
If enoug people demanded their monney back (from who?) and if the news picked it up, and if it cost them enough money they would fix it. Instead, i suspect, they will dummy it down so they can sell more access or other client tracking program which had sales hurt by these funtions.
Dear god people rise up! Why did they take the funtionality away? Why didn’t they tell anyone? Why won’t they fix it? i feel like I’m in a herd of cattle who is strong enough to not be slaughtered, but we are too lazy or stupid to do anything about it.
If I’m wrong please show me the way, if I’m right please DO SOMETHING! Mnay of us who really know how to make this program save us time just got screwed. Where is all the information I saved and linked to the contacts? NO ONE CARES!!! WHY IS THE FUNTIONALITY STILL THERE IS THEY INTENDED TO NOT FIX IT? I suspect it is so they could deny it was on purpose and fix it later ….IF WE MAKE SCREWING US PAINFUL!!
Come on people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was not a mistake -well, the journal part was not a mistake. I’m not sure about the other broken parts. The linked items are still linked – just not found on the Activities page.
Class action lawsuit…….I bet that would get it fixed
I’m sure the EULA covers their butt, otherwise they’d have thousands of class actions against them. :) Part of the problem is that few people use Activities and even fewer use Journal – its actually the major problem. If a larger % of Outlook users actually used the features, they would not be planning on removing them from future versions. Development money goes into the features more people use – email, calendar, tasks, and contacts. (Admins have hated the journal since Outlook 97 introduced it.)
Microsoft has not done a good job communicating their plans for activities and journal with their customers – actually, they haven’t said anything. As a result, we have Microsoft Support saying its a bug and making people think/hope its going to be fixed. I have no such hope – I think we have a better chance of seeing improvements to the People Pane, although they haven’t made any movement there either. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the unfortunate truth…
I have an interesting issue with Outlook 2010. I have a number of contact folders for different types of business contacts. One of my folders has 557 members, and if I go to contacts, the folder says 557 and all of the contacts are there. The folder is also marked to show up as an email address book. BUT, if I write a new email, or forward and email, and I select that folder via to: or cc: or bcc:, there are only 6 records in the file that show up, and three of them are duplicates – but have the contacts name and phone number as the email address. I can’t find any hits on the internet as to why this is happening or how to fix it.
@ Lee – look at the properties for your business contact folder it is likely you need to check a box that allows it to be seen when accessing it from the new email to:, cc: and bcc: menus
Microsoft, you really screwed this up. i have over 2,000 contacts and I used the Activities feasture every single day to follow the evolution of client subject matter discussions and upcoming Tasks and Appointments. You have destroyed my productivity in trsacking my client relationships. Taking such a feature away for “under usage” without providing some alternative to those thousands of people who rely upon the feature is reprehensible.
I used the Activities view to track Tasks attached to my Contacts and miss not having it. Anyone know of a workaround?
I suppose you want GOOD workarounds? Sorry, there aren’t any. (Seriously.) You can use Advanced Find or Instant Search and search for the Contacts name. You can use the People Pane to view email associated with the selected contact but it won’t find tasks or journal. You can add the Contacts field to the View and Group or sort by it. Actually, adding the Contacts field to the view might actually be the best option. (I’ll add the instructions to the web page.)
What the… I used this feature extensively in OL 2003 but have since moved on to a real CRM. I just sold a client on the feature and upgraded them to OL 2010. Whatever happened to the golden rule of not modifying currently released functionality. Sure, provide an option to turn it on/off but to remove it?
MS, get your head out of your butt and patch this back into existence please.