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Don't Delete: Mark it Complete

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I have heard of a few instances where people love the To-Do Bar, but can't figure out how to get tasks off of it. So here is a little explanation.

Because the To-Do Bar is a collection of tasks, flagged mail and flagged contacts, when you delete a flagged mail in the To-Do Bar, you are deleting the actual mail, not just some associated task. The upside of this means that there isn’t an extra version of this task eating up your mailbox quota – there is only one item represented in multiple places (To-Do Bar, Daily Task List, and in your mail file system.) In case you did not want to delete the actual mail, we provided a PONT (point of need training dialog) to warn you:

So now you're stuck, right? NO! Mark it complete! Only active (non-complete) tasks show up in your To-Do Bar. You can mark any task complete in the following ways:

1. Click on the flag

2. Right click on the flag, and select “Mark Complete”

3. Right click on the mail itself, select “Follow Up” then “Mark Complete”

4. In the open item, click on the flag in the ribbon and select “Mark Complete”

Marking a mail complete gets it out of the To-Do Bar, but you still have a record in the Daily Task List of when you completed it. The mail is still in your file/reference system, so next time you come across the mail, you see by the check mark that you took some action on it and it is done. You can just keep it for reference. Of course, if you don’t need it for reference, then by all means, hit delete!

An alternative way to make the item disappear from your To-Do Bar, is to clear the flag. Clearing the flag removes the “taskiness” from the mail – it is as though you never flagged it or dragged it to the To-Do Bar. You can clear the flag in the following ways:

1. Right click on the flag, and select “Clear Flag”

2. Right click on the mail itself, select “Follow Up” then “Clear Flag”

3. In the open item, click on the flag in the ribbon and select “Clear Flag”

If you prefer to have a checkbox in your view instead of the flags, then you can customize your view in the following way:

1. In the To-Do Bar, click on “Arranged By:…” and select “Custom…”

2. Click on “Fields…”, and remove all but “Task Subject” and “Categories.”

3. Add “Complete” (which is a Task Field), move it to the top of the list, and then click Ok.

4. Next click on “Other Settings…”

5. Under “Other” unselect “Use compact layout…” then click Ok and then Ok again to get out of the dialog.

Viola! Checkboxes on the left side of your task view!

Bottom line: Mark it complete! Don’t delete.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 07, 2006
    +1 for delete/mark complete/cancel.

  • Anonymous
    December 11, 2006
    Hmm...if some other IMAP user flags a message, it appears as flagged on my machine too, so it shows up under MY tasks!  It looks like Outlook 2007 has lost the ability to distinguish between messages that I flag and messages that other people flag.

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2007
    Every time I try and print a dayplanner page from my Outlook calendar, it is printing completed and marked through tasks.  Is there a way to have the tasks DELETED so that the dayplanner pages I print only show active tasks?  I set my screen to "active" when I am in the tasks section in Outlook, so that is not a problem.  I just want the ACTIVE tasks to print on the printed calendar sheets.  ???  Help?

  • Anonymous
    January 12, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2007
    Dear Melissa and anyone else who can help, I accidentally clicked on the flag for an old task.  It then disappeared, since that made it complete and completed tasks don't show up.  I'd like to see ALL of my tasks, even completed ones IN MY TASK view, ideally,  Is there any way to "show completed tasks" in the task view? --Fred

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2007
    Fred, In the Tasks section of Outlook, if you click View->Current View in the menu bar at the top of the Outlook Window, you can select "Completed Tasks." Alternatively, by default in the Navigation Pane, you can select "Completed Tasks" in the Current Views section. By default, the To-Do Bar does not show completed tasks, but they are not gone! -Melissa

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2007
    Dear Melissa, Thanks, that allowed me to find all my completed tasks! --Fred

  • Anonymous
    February 10, 2007
    Is there any way of showing ONLY the task list in the to do list rather than all flagged mails as well - just like it used to be in Outlook 2003? Any help much appreciated! Thx

  • Anonymous
    February 10, 2007
    Ang, See: http://blogs.msdn.com/melissamacbeth/archive/2006/09/29/Make-your-To_2D00_Do-Bar-only-show-tasks-.aspx -Melissa

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 06, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2008
    Each time I print a document I get a pre-printed document that gives me the history of the document, which has the filename, keywords, creation date, etc., help help help, i want to stop that page from printing and I can't find where to stop it! HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP thank you!

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2008
    I would be say thanks. I looked for long time and now I find the solution! Thank you!