A File Centric Outlook®

Some might say that I am slightly obsessed with order. Before I started using Credenza, my Outlook inbox looked like an overly-segmented organizational diagram. There was an endless list of folders with subfolder and sub-subfolders. Not to mention my list of custom rules that was a mile long.

When you look at how emails are sorted in Outlook, they are generally organized by date, sender, or subject – a more transactional approach. The one thing that always bothered me about this was how there was no way to centrally locate information – not just emails, but associated appointments or contacts. Sure, you can create rules so emails are automatically sent to particular folders as they come in, but that’s as far it goes.

Like many practices out there, I work and think in a file centric manner. If you’re new to our blog or don’t use Credenza yet, you’re probably thinking “if only Outlook were file centric”. Well, with Credenza it is, and it makes it super easy to associate emails to Files! Essentially, Credenza turns Outlook® into a file centric practice management tool. While with Outlook you can use rules to move emails to folders, with Credenza you can easily associate emails to Files - in addition to moving messages to folders named after a specific File (I’ll elaborate on this part in our next post). And it’s up to you whether you want to set future emails to or from the same email address to be automatically associated to the same File.

Since Credenza adds Files to Outlook, I can see all File related material (appointments, contacts, expenses, time entries…) in one place. Just open a File and it is all there.

With Credenza, information is not only organized by sender and recipient, but by project! Now that my emails are organized by File, I can’t imagine having to go back to Outlook’s basic sorting capabilities.