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August 17, 2005 10:56 AM

In the course of a typical work day I send off a bazillion emails, and have trouble making sure that each receives a proper follow up. Basically if I email Mike and Jane on Monday, and on Tuesday only Jane has gotten back to me, I would like Mikes email flagged as unanswered. Is this possible?

FYI I'm using Outlook 2003, and would not consider moving to another system unless it's compatable with this system. (Calendar mainly).
I know it's possible to setup "reminders" in outlook that pop up at specified times, but these still "remind" you regardless if the original reply was responded to or not.
Also receipts are annoying, and still don't really address the main issue.

posted by parallax7d to computers & internet (11 comments total)

If it's an invite that you want them to RSVP to, use Goovite.com, which provides an easy way to track RSVPs.

If it's a todo that you need action on, put different todos on your todo list and track them separately.
posted by mark7570 at 11:18 AM on August 17, 2005

I extensively make use of the calendar and task screens of Outlook. By doing this, I assign a task to a co-worker, and they either accept or decline. And when they've completed it, they check it off, which notifies me that the task has been completed.
posted by benjh at 11:24 AM on August 17, 2005

You can add read responses to e-mails in Outlook, so at least you'll know that Mike saw your e-mail (assming he allows you to be notifed by that and didn't just read it in preview which (at least in earlier versions didn't actually indicate it was read for some reason).

You can also set follow-up flags, I think those are actually reminders for the recipients instead of reminders for you, but I'm not entirely sure about that.
posted by willnot at 11:26 AM on August 17, 2005

I sometimes BCC myself on this types of e-mail and then either mark it as unread or put it in a special "follow-up" folder. I then delete the message or mark it as read when the follow-up is complete. This helps keep the projects on my radar along with the details of who I assigned them to, when I assigned them, what the instructions were, etc.
posted by brain_drain at 11:35 AM on August 17, 2005

If you use a "threaded" email client like mutt or (somewhat) thunderbird, you will be able to see all response to your messages quite easily.
posted by madajb at 12:17 PM on August 17, 2005

You can flag messages in your Sent Items folder for follow-up, as well as those in your inbox. (Following up on willnot's comment, you can flag for yourself or for the recipient. I would be up the creek in a big way without those flags.)
posted by SashaPT at 1:22 PM on August 17, 2005

What you want is generally referred to as "customer relationship management" or CRM software. If you google on "crm software outlook" you'll get a barrage of results showing apps that are compatible with Outlook and do exactly this sort of thing.

I'm really not in a position to recommend one package over another, but that might get you started in the right direction over at versiontracker.
posted by adamrice at 1:40 PM on August 17, 2005

I use brain_drain's system -- everything I send to other people, I cc: to myself. (Indeed, if you want them to respond, I recommend cc: over bcc: since it emphasizes that you're keeping an e-paper trail.) Then it sits in my inbox glaring at me until their email comes to take it away.
posted by Aknaton at 3:42 PM on August 17, 2005

I use SashaPT's method. I flag my emails with the date I want to follow up on them.
posted by Kellydamnit at 4:21 PM on August 17, 2005

I don't know for certain you can do this, but I know that for Tasks, I wanted a 'Lawyer' field to indicate who assigned it to me. I then used the 'new item' row to let me enter new tasks, and created a new custom view that displayed that 'Lawyer' field in addition to other items in a table view.

I could see you creating a custom 'Responded to?' field for e-mails (with even, perhaps, a checkbox), then modifying the view to also show that information, allowing you to sort it by responding, as well.

Caveat: I'm doing this in my head; I have a Mac at home and Outlook 2003 at work, and I'm home, so I'm not 100% sure you could do this -- but would be surprised if you ran into problems.
posted by WCityMike at 6:56 PM on August 17, 2005

Thanks everyone for all the responses, I guess I have many more options to consider than I thought!
posted by parallax7d at 4:20 PM on August 18, 2005