Working with the Journal Folder

When you open the Journal folder, you'll see the default By Type view: a timeline grouped by entry type. This view has the date running left to right across the top of the pane, with the journal entries listed under the dates. The Timeline view default shows seven days, as shown in Figure 15.2.

Figure 15.2. The default view for the Journal folder is a Timeline view.

Along with scrolling, you can right-click on the row with the month and year to display the date picker or, on the date scale, choose Go to Date to move around the journal. Although the Outlook bar has a link for opening shared journals, only Exchange Server users can open and use shared Journal folders.

Use the View menu to select different views of your Journal folder, including timelines grouped By Contact or By Category and Table views showing all items, or filtered by the last seven days, or limit the display to phone calls only.

The Reading Pane is turned off on the Journal folder by default; however, you can turn it on using the View, Reading Pane menu selection. You can use the Reading Pane with any view, including the Timeline view, and you can see all the journal fields in the Reading Pane. For security reasons, you can't open shortcuts on the journal item from the Reading Pane; you have to open the journal entry first. When the actual file is attached to the journal entry, you can open it from the Reading Pane. In most views, you'll want the Reading Pane on the bottom of the window to maximize the viewing area for Timeline views.

Using Views

The journal comes with six predefined views, using timeline or table layouts. You can customize these views or create your own custom views. You aren't limited to using Timeline or Table views with the journal. Day/Week/Month views also work well with the journal, although Icon and Card views do not.

The following are Timeline views for grouping the journal entries:

• By Entry type

• By Contact

• By Category

Each of these views defaults to showing the journaled items for the week. You can change this to one day (segmented by the hour) or one month by pressing the Day or Month toolbar button. You can return to a seven-day view by clicking the Week button.

One of the first changes you might want to make in a Timeline view is reducing the size of the font used for the month and year. Right-click on the bar where the month and year are displayed, choose Other Settings, and then adjust the size of the Upper Scale Font in the Format Timeline View dialog box, as shown in Figure 15.3.

Figure 15.3. Change the timeline display options using the Format Timeline View dialog box.

Other options you can change from the Format Timeline View dialog box include showing week numbers and changing the maximum width of the labels displayed with the icons. You can also control whether the icon label is displayed when viewing a month in the timeline.

The remaining preconfigured views use a Table view with filters controlling what you see:

• Entry List No filter used

• Last Seven Days Filtered to display entries created within the past seven days

• Phone Calls Filtered to display only phone calls

You can customize any of these views or create new views using your own criteria.

NOTE

If you create entry types for incoming and outgoing phone calls, as described in "Creating Custom Journal Entry Types," you'll have to modify the Phone Call view to show the new entry types.

Customizing the Journal View

The journal comes with several views, all of which are customizable. Right-click on the top row of the journal and choose Customize Current View. The Custom View Organizer opens, enabling you to customize the current view to your liking. If you want to restore the default settings for the view, select the Reset Current View button at the bottom of the dialog box.

NOTE

When a button or option is dimmed, it isn't available for the type of view you're creating or modifying.

If you don't like the predefined views, or need more views, you can create new views. To create a new view:

1. Select View, Arrange By, Current View, Define Views to open the Custom View Organizer.

2. Select New to create a new view.

3. Enter a name for your view and select the type of view you want to create. Day/Week/Month makes a nice journal view, but Icon and Card views aren't very useful.

4. The Customize View dialog box, shown in Figure 15.4, opens and you can set the options you want to see in the view.

   Figure 15.4. Modify your views using the Customize View dialog box.

   

When you finish customizing the view, select Apply View to use the new view immediately. You can apply it at any time by selecting the view's name from the Current View toolbar button or View, Arrange By, Current View menu selection.

TIP

Instead of creating a new view from scratch, you can select an existing view in the Custom View Organizer, select Copy to create a copy of a view, and then choose Modify to edit it.

For more information about using views and creating custom views, see "Creating Views and Print Styles," p. 87.

TIP

Contacts provide an additional way to view journal entries: from the Activities tab of an opened Contacts form. In fact, many frequent journal users never use the Journal folder; they use only the Activities tab of the contact.