Question: My Outlook ‘Inbox’ has DMS fields for ‘Filing Location’ ‘Filing Status’ and ‘Filing Date’ – but my ‘Sentbox’ does not have these fields. Is this normal? How can I get this information to appear in my Sent Items and in my Inbox?
Answer: That’s normal, but don’t despair. You can easily add Filing Status to any Outlook folder, whenever you like. The trick: knowing that the software’s menu action affects the fields on only the current folder, not all of them at once.
How to add Filing Status to any Outlook Folder
If you want to have Filing Status on your Sent Items or Inbox, follow these steps. Here, shown in Outlook 2007, is how to add and remove the FileSite 9.0 Filing Status columns.
- Important: Navigate first to the specific Outlook folder where you wish to add or remove Filing Status columns. Click on it to ensure it is highlighted. In this picture, I’ve shown the Inbox as the choice.
- Click the WorkSite menu at the top of the main Outlook window.
- Click the menu item ‘Configure’. Outlook will display a sub-menu.
- Click the menu item ‘Filing Status’.
- FileSite will immediately toggle the presence/absence of the Filing Status columns in the current folder.
More detail…
When you click the Filing Status menu item, the software toggles the presence/absence of those columns from whichever Outlook folder you’re viewing at that moment. If you would like to activate the columns for your Sent Items, go to the Sent Items folder and then navigate through the WorkSite/Configure menu to choose Filing Status.
By default, your inbox likely has the following columns, generally in this order:
- Importance: ! for urgent messages
- Icon: e.g. a closed envelope for new mail, an envelope with superimposed green check for ‘filed-to-dms’
- Attachment: e.g. paperclip if there is an attached image or document
- From: sender’s name
- Subject: title of the message
- Received: the date received
- Size: size in KB
- Category: maybe, maybe not.
- Followup: a red flag indicates that there’s a todo item associated with that message
Next Steps
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