Excited about MindReader
OK, now I’m really excited about MindReader! I’ve been collaborating with ActivityOwner on some minor tweaks that make my life easier, which motivated me to do a few more things with my Outlook Macros. Here’s what we have so far. (link to downloadable Outlook macro code at the end)
ActivityOwner has added:
- Support for “deafaultownerme”: I needed this because I work in a shared map environment. When I capture a task without specifying who owns it, I need my name to be on it by default. I have disabled the option in ResultsManager to take ownership of unowned tasks. So without this tweak, unowned tasks that I meant to be owned by me by default would slip through the cracks. Big win for me personally here.
- Support for “atresource” instead of “resourceat”: by default, when you MindRead something like “talk to Mike about foo”, the partner resource for Mike ends up looking like Mike@ (i.e. resourceat)–@ sign follows the resource name. But my convention is to put the @ sign before the resource name. So now I have the option to tell MindReader to make it @Mike, instead of Mike@.
- Support for a “delegated” resource verb: So now I can say “waiting for Bob to write the draft” and the resulting resources will reflect the delegation, with me as the ActivityManager, like this “Mike;Bob”. This is great!
I have cooked up:
- An Outlook macro like my old one to “convert” an email into a ResultsManager activity. But now, instead of enqueuing the activity with plain ol’ GyroActivator, it is enqueued with MindReader, via GyroQ. And it still carries the link to the email item with it using MindReader’s [link] keyword. After adding this macro to my Edit menu in outlook and assigning a keyboard accelerator, I can now key “Alt-e-v” and almost instantly, the email is marked read, moved to my saved folder, link to it copied to the clipboard, and GyroQ pops up with the ‘fq’ tag selected and the dialogue prepopulated with the [link] keyword, and the cursor focused for additional text input. I can then enter the subject of the activity, hit enter, and done. sweet. And it runs faster than my previous “tfe” ActiveWord that invoked a similar Outlook macro, because I’m skipping ActiveWords altogether here.
- A revised Outlook macro to slurp my Outlook tasks into RM Activities via MindReader. This was my ultimate Holy Grail since I first glimpsed a vision of the power of MindReader. I want to be able to capture a task on the go on my pda, and if I know who owns it, what date, or what context, to be able to enter it in plain text, right on the subject line of the task, and have it all marked up right when it lands in the RM In-Tray. Now, it does. My new Outlook macro builds a temporary GyroActivator file with a collection of tasks selected in Outlook, and feeds them through MindReader. It even slurps up any comments in the Outlook task notes and passes it along to the final RM activity using the windows clipboard and MindReader’s [note] keyword.
So, I have a feeling that I’ll be hitting zero more frequently now that MindReader is helping me to eliminate some of the work of post-processing and refining partially defined actions that I capture with GyroQ, GyroActivator in email processing, and Outlook tasks when I’m mobile.
Here is a link to the Outlook macro code: Outlook Macros for use with GyroQ and MindReader
November 17th, 2007 at 6:30 am
The SaveLinkAndMindRead macro is awesome! But it will not work in Outlook 2007 as MS has removed support for the Outlook protocol: http://blogwell.wordpress.com/2007/05/28/179/
To enable the the Outlook URI protocol in Outlook 2007 you will have to do some changes to the registry. Adding the text between begin and end below to a text document with a .reg extention works if you installation path is the default one:
—BEGIN—
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\outlook]
“URL Protocol”=”"
@=”URL:Outlook Folders”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\outlook\DefaultIcon]
@=”C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\OUTLOOK.EXE,-9403″
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\outlook\shell]
@=”open”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\outlook\shell\open]
@=”"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\outlook\shell\open\command]
@=”\”C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\OUTLOOK.EXE\” /select \”%1\”"
—END—
November 17th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Wow! Thanks for the tip with Outlook 2007. Makes me wonder if the whole hyperlink thing is just not the way to go after all, if it takes so much tweaking. I wouldn’t want to recommend this kind of registry hacking to the average user!
November 18th, 2007 at 4:24 am
Mike — This set of macros is amazing, particularly when combined with GyroQ and MindReader. I’ve always struggled to get to zero in my work environment due to high volume of actionable e-mail I get and the labor involved in capturing outlook information into a RM activity. This totally addresses that issue.
MindReader was originally programmed assuming that entries would come in the form “Visible Action item/keywords [mark up keywords]”. I revised it yesterday so that “[Mark up keywords]Action item” so that “[link]action item” will now work.
I also edited my local copy of your macro so that it saves the messages to to a local pst file rather than the “saved” sub-folder on the server. That eliminates the auto-archive problem and inevitable server space quota issues. This also enables processing of mail in pst files and accessing of hyperlinked messages when offline from the exchange server.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Mike - these Macros really rock. Since I’m maybe not as computer literate as some people, I thought I would post a few clarifications for people in the Macro process of Outlook. I”m an Outlook 2003 user so I don’t know how this will work with other versions.
Anyhow, you want to follow Mike’s instructions to create the Macro, however when you do so it might get confusing because a lot of Macros show up on the Macro list and unless you’re a VBA expert, you may not understand the interelationship amongst them. So here’s the steps I took to create the Macros and then put it in the Menu with a hotkey; I hope this dummies it down a bit for those of us who need it:
CREATE THE MACRO:
1. go to Tools > Macro > Macros and type anything in the name box, it doesn’t matter.
2. the VBA editor will open up; delete any statements that show up in the editor so that its entirely empty.
3. Paste Mike’s entire Macro statements into the VBA editor and then save and close it.
4. now go back into the Tools > Macro > Macros and you will see a whole bunch of Macros. you can now test run the SaveLinkAndMindread Macro which may appear second from the bottom on the list. Test run it and you’ll see it works great.
5. Now you need to add the Macro to the Menu’s and give it a Hot Key. Mike uses Alt E, V to run his macro so to do this do the following:
SET-UP A HOT KEY FOR THE MACRO AND PUT IT IN THE MENU:
1. go to Tools > Customize
2. make sure you click on the Commands tab at the top of the box. Go to the Macro category and go near the bottom. You’ll see the SaveLinkAndMindread Macro near the bottom.
3. Click and drag the Macro over to the Edit menu and drop it anywhere you want in the edit menu. I put mine right at the top of the list above the Undo command.
4. Select the EDIT menu and right click on the Macro name you just dragged up there.
5. You can now set some basic properties for the Macro, mainly giving it the hotkey. Here’s how…when you right click on the item you’ll see a line for the Name. Add the “&” ampersand just before the “v” in Save so it looks like this “Project1.Sa&veLinkAndMindRead”
6. Click anywhere outside and the Menu and item close. Now click again on EDIT and you’ll see that the “v” is underlined. Click anywhere outside that menu and then click on the close button from the Customize window.
You should be all set and if you run the ALT E,V combo on a selected email, Voila it runs and you’re done.
November 29th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Much thanks, Barry!
December 2nd, 2007 at 10:56 am
I’ve updated the link to the Outlook macros to where it now lives on ActivityOwner’s wiki. He made some great enhancements to make it easy to change the “saved” folder to an alternative, including a saved folder in a local .pst, which has a couple of great benefits. One of those is to move reference material off of the server, since it will eventually bloat and have to be moved off anyway. Another benefit is that by moving straight to the archive and THEN capturing the Outlook item link, that link remains valid essentially forever; whereas in my original version, the link was do an email item in the server based folder. So auto-archive ran and moved those items to the local .pst, the link would break. ActivityOwner’s modifications are a welcome improvement!
http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=SaveLinkandMindRead.bas
December 5th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I’ve been enjoying the use of this macro quite a bit and continue to tweak it to save more time. The main new addition is that it now automatically extracts the sender’s name (or addressee’s name if used in the sent-items folder) and prompts you to assign, owe, or contact the person about this task. It also prompts you to put the subject into GyroQ where it can be edited if needed.
Given that “savelinkandmindread” is a bit of a mouthful, I renamed the main macro as “OutLinker”. The home page for the macro on the AO wiki is:
http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=OutLinker
Thanks Mike — this is extremely useful code.
December 5th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Hi Mike,
this is great. AO has done a lot a tweaks to mindreader for me as well and this combination just brings it all that much closer to being a complete and integrated solution.
One thing I am missing you have alluded to in that you have written a macro to grab tasks in a similar manner. Can you let me have a copy of that code? I use a Palm and like you having the ability to grab tasks there but easily get them into RM is the Holy Grail.
December 8th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Hi Mal, actually, that code for dealing with Outlook tasks is in the same Outlook.bas file that AO has linked above. The function you’re interested in is called:
EnqueueActivitiesFromTasks_MindReader
Basically, just want to select one or more tasks in Outlook and then invoke this macro.
December 9th, 2007 at 5:50 am
EnqueueActivitiesFromTasks_MindReader is now part of the “OutLinker” macro. If the macro senses its being run on tasks it runs it.
See
http://www.activityowner.com/2007/12/08/outlinker-a-new-tool-for-draining-your-microsoft-outlook-inbox/
for more info.
December 9th, 2007 at 8:13 am
I’m updating my links to point people to the ActivityOwner enhanced code and usage instructions in the post above. It’s better
December 14th, 2007 at 4:52 am
Note that the registry script in Harold’s first message needs to have all its quotes changed back to simple “. The various blog sofware programs involved converted some of them to “fancyquotes” along the way.
There is a downloadable .reg file on the AO wiki now for this.