Tool to gather/org/link related Office docs, Outlook items, etc.?

[Dan]

I am a manager for a large company. Being a "virtual" organization with
"live" in MS Office. I need a tool or facility to collect all the Office
documents (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) and Outlook items (email, notes,
appointments) and probably other files/documents such as pdf files that are
associated with a certain person on my staff or a project or a task or a
client or other things.

I don't want to move the files or documents as some of them may be
associated with more than one person or project or whatever. Just direct
links.

And I would also like the ability to create notes associated with those
persons, projects, clients, etc..

I mistakenly thought that OneNote would make this easy. But the focus of
OneNote is really about creating freeform notes - almost useless unless you
have a Tablet PC or handwriting tool. Too bad. If they were not so limited
in their thinking/vision for OneNote it might have been the collection point
for the 98% of the Office and non-office documents and information for things
like projects, etc.. But that is not the case.

So has anyone found a way to do this?

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Have you tried one of the newer desktop search engines such as google (beta)
and MSN (also beta) or Copernic (not sure of beta status)? They can index
your items for a quick search - but I am unaware if they will offer the
additional functionality that you want (annotations, etc.)

The Outlook Journal is a good almost solution - you can associate Office
documents as well as all Outlook activities and find the associated
meetings, notes, Word documents, etc. using the Activities tab on any
contact record. However, it is limited to Microsoft Office products, and
then not all of them (just the professional Office suite products).

However, I think that your requirements are a bit much for one program -
perhaps a mixture of programs, or, a chance to get in on the ground floor of
a new product if your coding skills are up to the task.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, Dan asked:

| I am a manager for a large company. Being a "virtual" organization
| with "live" in MS Office. I need a tool or facility to collect all
| the Office documents (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) and Outlook items
| (email, notes, appointments) and probably other files/documents such
| as pdf files that are associated with a certain person on my staff or
| a project or a task or a client or other things.
|
| I don't want to move the files or documents as some of them may be
| associated with more than one person or project or whatever. Just
| direct links.
|
| And I would also like the ability to create notes associated with
| those persons, projects, clients, etc..
|
| I mistakenly thought that OneNote would make this easy. But the
| focus of OneNote is really about creating freeform notes - almost
| useless unless you have a Tablet PC or handwriting tool. Too bad.
| If they were not so limited in their thinking/vision for OneNote it
| might have been the collection point for the 98% of the Office and
| non-office documents and information for things like projects, etc..
| But that is not the case.
|
| So has anyone found a way to do this?

 

[Crouchie1998]

I am a professional programmer so, yes it is easy for me because I would
knock myself up a small application that does exactly what you want, but
that's me.

Not sure of any third party software out there. maybe you'll have to get
someone to write you an application to suit your needs. From what you wrote,
it shouldn't take more than 45 minutes to write providing you gave the coder
all info.

There is a site called RentACoder (http://www.rentacoder.com) which
programmers auction there expertise. You could be lucky & get someone to
write it for free, but you'll probably pay around $100 for it.

Sorry, that I am unable to be of more help.