Create and assign tasks

- [Instructor] Outlook comes with a built in mechanism for handling all your to do lists and it's called tasks. To get to your task list, click the clipboard icon on the bottom navigation pane. You'll notice that if you hover your mouse over it, you'll get a quick peek at all your tasks. But I'm going to click on it to go directly to my tasks. The first time you go into your tasks, you may find that you already have some in here. That's because Outlook treats your follow up flags as tasks. In fact, it's considered part of your to do list. Also, if you've connected a Gmail account to your account, and you've marked certain mails as important, Outlook treats those as tasks also.

On the left hand side, I can see my to do list and in here, I can see a follow up flag that we created from a previous email. In fact, I could double click on this and it would take me right to that email, or I can see it in the preview screen. On the left hand side, I can click tasks and it's going to bring me into my task list. Tasks work very similar to follow up emails. However, there are a few more options that you can do with them. There are a few ways to create tasks and the level of detail that you wanna add to each one is completely up to you.

The easiest way to create a new task is to click right inside the box labeled, click here to add a new task. From here, you can type your task and hit the enter key. The task has been created and you can continue to add more. Your task will show up in the to do list. You can click on it once and click mark complete, or in the task list, you can put a check mark next to it. It's going to cross it off and the task is considered done.

I could also double click on a task. It's going to bring up a much larger screen with some more information about it. I can add a note to that task if I want and then click save and close. Another way I can create a new task is by clicking new task from the home ribbon tab. I can enter a subject for the task. I can choose a start date by clicking the calendar icon. I could also choose a due date if I wanted to put a due date on it. And I can set a status for it.

Since this is a brand new task, it's currently set to not started, though I can choose in progress, completed, waiting on somebody else, or deferred. I can also set the priority and I can mark the percentage complete of the task. You'll notice that once I up the value, the status changes automatically to in progress. I can set a reminder for this task. Because it has a due date, I wanna remind myself by a certain time if it's not done. I could click save and close right now, but I wanna assign this to Sharon, so from the ribbon tab, I'll choose assign task.

I'll address it to Sharon and I can add an additional note if I want to. I can leave the checkbox that says, send me a status report when this is complete. I'll click send and Outlook will tell me that since I'm no longer to be the owner of the task, it's going to turn off the task reminder. It's up to Sharon now to put her own reminder on it. I'll click OK and my task has been sent. I can tell by this icon that the task has been sent to somebody else.