Do you use Outlook's Journal?

**Diane Poremsky** · 07-29-2011, 11:40 AM

This poll is the result of a thread in the Microsoft Answers forum:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/o...9-df5396f88e9b

As Journal users are painfully aware, Outlook 2010's Contact Activities do not include the journal in the search results. Outlook 2010 also does not give users the ability to change which folders are included in the Activities search. Microsoft did this because only a small subset of Outlook users use the Journal and the feature is being depreciated.

With the introduction of the Social Connector and the People pane, Contact Activities are less useful - you can see (almost) everything in the People Pane. In my opinion, it's the feature with a bug because it doesn't search all Outlook items, not Activities because it doesn't search the journal.

The options in this poll are:
Yes, I live and die by the journal
Yes but not often.
I tried it but don't need it.
No, I never tried it because it's not something I need.
No, the admin disabled it years ago.
Huh? Outlook has a Journal?

As with all polls here, voting is open to everyone but you need an account to comment.

**outlooker8** · 09-19-2011, 02:19 PM

I have used Outlook's Journal in the past due to an employer requiring me to produce an activity report for every minute of my day. With the Journal I was able to show my daily work without spending any extra time logging anything.

**byroncallas** · 11-23-2011, 11:07 AM

The poll is missing an option: "No. I know it's there but I never took the time to learn about it."

**Forum Admin** · 11-23-2011, 01:53 PM

LOL. I would not recommend taking the time to learn about it at this stage of the game, unless you plan to stick with an old version of outlook for many years to come. It's rumored that the journal will be gone from the next version - even if it survives one more version, its currently crippled and is less than useful.

**Starbuck** · 03-01-2012, 09:42 PM

Great, I just found this thread ... I've been a big fan of the Journal for years, and just spent a lot of time with my wife to educate her on it's benefits. She was going to go back to her company and get them to start using it, because they're always chasing after information about who did what and when.

OK, so Journal is on its way out. What's Microsoft's proposed alternative in terms of process or software? I'm a huge fan of OneNote, which can be used for journaling. But that's not quite as integrated as the Journal. Custom forms?

I know a lot of people use appointments as a ways of tracking activity. I've always maintained an appointment is what you plan to do and a journal is for what you actually did do. In retrospect the same tool can serve both purposes for an accurate view of what might and does happen. With some custom code an appointment could be made to replace journalling. Thoughts?

**Diane Poremsky** · 03-03-2012, 12:43 AM

at this time, we are recommending onenote for new users. Yes, its not quite as full featured, but its the best option for many journaling needs. Also, journal will be in at least one more version, however the activities feature will not be fixed - if the journal meets your needs better than onenote, use it - just don't expect any fixes. You can use Start menu search to find items using the keyword store:mapi along with the search term.