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About this lesson

The Task To-Do Bar provides a customizable view for your task list.

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6.03, Task To-Do Bar - Exercise.docx
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Quick reference

Task To-Do Bar

Viewing tasks in other Outlook windows is easily customizable with a few setting changes.

When to use

Viewing tasks alongside email and calendar can be customized to best fit your preferences. Follow these setup ideas and pick the one that works best for you.

Instructions

View task To-Do Bar
  • In the Email view, choose View Ribbon, click To-Do Bar, and click Tasks.

 

  • A faster alternative is at the left Navigation pane using the “Peek pane”. Float the mouse over the Task button, and the Peek pane appears.

  • Click the upper right corner: “Dock the peek”.

  • In the Calendar view:  Viewing the Task pane to the right of the calendar will squish your Calendar view. Instead, you can view the tasks at the bottom border of the calendar:
  • Click on Calendar, click View, click “Daily Task List".​​​​​​

  • Choose Normal.

  • And the tasks show under the calendar.


Sort the To-Do pane
  • By clicking Arrange By: at the top of the To-Do pane, choose a Sort option. "All Mail"
  • By clicking Arrange By: Type, it will separate tasks from inbox 
  • Turn on the Show in Groups option
  • Collapse the Message group to hide emails and just view tasks.
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  • 00:05 We're going to talk about viewing our task, but
  • 00:07 we're going to take it up a level.
  • 00:09 Because it's not always convenient to have your task view open,
  • 00:12 we spend most of our time in our email on our calendar.
  • 00:16 So let's go ahead and open up our email with a Ctrl+1.
  • 00:21 I'm going to put my task pane on the right-hand side, so I'll click on View,
  • 00:26 and over here we have a To-Do Bar, and I can choose Tasks.
  • 00:30 This puts a pane over on the right-hand side, and
  • 00:35 then I can choose the Arrange Bys or the Message format or the post.
  • 00:41 But the problem with this view is it really squishes my reading pane,
  • 00:45 but it's okay, that's my option.
  • 00:48 If I want, I can go back to View, put my reading pane at the bottom of my screen.
  • 00:54 Anything that helps you manage your screen,
  • 00:56 you have all those tools under the View ribbon.
  • 00:59 Let's go ahead and close this.
  • 01:02 I'm going to reset my reading pane to the right.
  • 01:07 And now another way to get there, instead of going to the View ribbon To-Do Bar,
  • 01:11 let's just float our mouse on the task icon on the navigation pane and
  • 01:14 take a look at the top right of this box.
  • 01:17 There's a little tiny icon up here that you would not even pay attention to if it
  • 01:22 hadn't been pointed out for you, it's called Dock the peek.
  • 01:26 Dock the peek pane on the right-hand side of the screen, I'll go ahead and
  • 01:30 click that.
  • 01:30 And there it is, same system.
  • 01:34 All right, there's another option, but it's only found in calendar, so
  • 01:37 I'm going to close this.
  • 01:38 I'm going to activate my calendar, Ctrl+2.
  • 01:42 When the calendar pops open, I can do the same thing, float my mouse on Task and
  • 01:46 hit the Dock the peek button.
  • 01:49 Closing that, but there's another option.
  • 01:52 Only in the Calendar view, under the View ribbon,
  • 01:55 do we have the option that says Daily Task List.
  • 01:58 When you hit that drop-down, it says Normal, Minimized, Off, and Arrange By,
  • 02:02 and you can choose it.
  • 02:04 So I'll say Normal, and check out the bottom of my calendar.
  • 02:08 Now I have all my tasks showing up on the day they're due,
  • 02:11 not on the right-hand side, so it hasn't really affected my view of my calendar.
  • 02:17 At this point on the Daily Task List, I can arrange by Due Date or
  • 02:22 Show Completed Tasks.
  • 02:23 I don't want to show my completed tasks, I just want to show the ones that are due.
  • 02:28 But you have the option to do that one as well.
  • 02:31 All right, I'm going to turn that one off.
  • 02:33 Go back to my mail, Ctrl+1.
  • 02:38 I'll go to the View ribbon > To-Do Bar > Tasks, just to show you, again,
  • 02:43 how to put them over there.
  • 02:45 Let's talk about the setup of this.
  • 02:47 You see, I have already rearranged my task pane, but
  • 02:51 when it first comes on, it doesn't look like this.
  • 02:55 It's not shown in groups and it's sorted by date.
  • 03:00 So now I've got all my emails that I have flagged.
  • 03:04 So instead, a great way to set this up that I finally
  • 03:09 figured out is I want to arrange this by type.
  • 03:16 And then I also want to arrange in Show in Groups.
  • 03:21 When you Show in Groups, now it'll group the messages together,
  • 03:25 and I can collapse all my email messages,
  • 03:27 and then it'll show my tasks, and I can expand or collapse those as well.
  • 03:32 I don't need my flag messages to show because i already have flags in my email.
  • 03:37 I don't need to see them alongside my email screen.
  • 03:43 So it is my personal preference.
  • 03:46 When I set this up, I show all my mail and I arrange it by type.
  • 03:52 I show in groups, and then I can collapse my messages but have my tasks appear.
  • 03:59 After I close this, when I come back to my tasks, notice the peek pane.
  • 04:06 The peek pane is arranging these by date.
  • 04:09 But the moment I open that peek pane, it remembers the settings I just set up.
  • 04:15 So that's awesome as well.
  • 04:17 I love the view.
  • 04:18 I use this occasionally.
  • 04:20 I like how convenient it is to turn it on and off from the peek pane.
  • 04:25 All right, so that's just one more level of how to view your tasks.

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