Journal deprecated

Question

With the Journal eventually getting pulled from Outlook, what mechanism does Microsoft recommend to replace that functionality? It seems the Journal suffers from poor marketing and now anyone who actually got the message and fell in love with it is going to suffer because others didn't get the message.

I explain the Journal as follows:

• Appointments are a record of what you are Going to do at a fixed point in time. It's also a historical record of what you planned to do.
• Tasks document what you should do, and help to track progress toward a due date, but the task record does not include structured detail about events related to the task.
• Journal entries document what's happening as it happens. It's your record of what events actually took place, not what you planned to do.

Once people understand that a Journal can help them to document how they have spent their time, they don't want to let it go. So what's the replacement? OneNote pages? Open market time-logging apps and SaaS?

As Outlook developers, what new library should we be investigating as a replacement? Of course we can create all kinds of alternative solutions, but is Microsoft leaning in any specific direction on this? Does Microsoft assume we'll create our own new item types?

I think removing functionality like this from Outlook is a really bad idea. YMMV

Thanks!

Answer 1

The Journal is still there for the moment, just hidden from the new Navigation Pane. Activities are gone however.

 

The Journal really is very rarely used, although some of my Outlook MVP friends use it regularly. For the most part Tasks would be the replacement, although some people are suggesting using Access. But that involves a completely separate program.

 

A custom Outlook object replacement would only be possible using Extended MAPI to create a new IPM class of items. Not something I'd want to try to develop and use in my applications.

--
Ken Slovak
[MVP-Outlook]
http://www.slovaktech.com
Author: Professional Programming Outlook 2007

"Starbuck" <=?utf-8?B?U3RhcmJ1Y2s=?=> wrote in message news:31d0cc37-c0a5-4d69-a60c-64fafaddd7ff...

With the Journal eventually getting pulled from Outlook, what mechanism does Microsoft recommend to replace that functionality? It seems the Journal suffers from poor marketing and now anyone who actually got the message and fell in love with it is going to suffer because others didn't get the message.

I explain the Journal as follows:

• Appointments are a record of what you are Going to do at a fixed point in time. It's also a historical record of what you planned to do.
• Tasks document what you should do, and help to track progress toward a due date, but the task record does not include structured detail about events related to the task.
• Journal entries document what's happening as it happens. It's your record of what events actually took place, not what you planned to do.

Once people understand that a Journal can help them to document how they have spent their time, they don't want to let it go. So what's the replacement? OneNote pages? Open market time-logging apps and SaaS?

As Outlook developers, what new library should we be investigating as a replacement? Of course we can create all kinds of alternative solutions, but is Microsoft leaning in any specific direction on this? Does Microsoft assume we'll create our own new item types?

I think removing functionality like this from Outlook is a really bad idea. YMMV

Thanks!

---

Ken Slovak MVP - Outlook

Answer 2

(Answer accepted)

Yeah, I read MVP postings and see the enthusiasm for Journals and the lament that the feature isn't more widely used.

I'm understanding that Microsoft seems to have deprecated this functionality without pointing to a go-forward replacement. Tasks are OK logs against ongoing projects, but not for logging general daily activity: Phone calls, meetings, recording when someone said something, jotting notes from voice mail, logging changes to code or other documents...

It seems OneNote is the place for this sort of thing now, but for anyone who knows OneNote, it's also probably Not the right place for this sort of thing. :)

An enterprising developer could see this as a commercial opportunity, but if Microsoft can't get people to use it for free then the success of a commercial offering is arguable.

Answer 3

I just started using Office 2013 and noticed how Microsoft cut the legs out from under it. I use the email tracking feature heavily and now that's gone too. They've made it difficult to find and impossible to add to favorites. I don't have a problem with the journal being deprecated provided its feature set it available somewhere else. Why does Microsoft always do this? Less is more? Work harder not smarter? I've filed many a-frowny-faces for this.