View Outlook Data

Views are powerful tools that let you select the data you want to see, organize it how you need it, and see it in a way that emphasizes what’s important to you. Outlook has numerous predefined views that are specific to each Outlook folder (e.g., Inbox, Calendar, Contacts) and also lets you create your own custom views.

 

Use Predefined Views

Arrange Data

The default view for the Inbox is Messages view, arranged by date and shown in groups.

• To arrange in other ways, click View ►Arrange By and select another option. For example, choose By Size to see the giant e-mails taking up a huge part of your allotted mailbox size.

Show Items in Groups

Outlook can show items in groups that share common characteristics (e.g., contacts from the same company, e-mail messages that arrived today, appointments scheduled next week).

• To show items in groups, click View ► Arrange By ► Show in Groups. If Show in Groups is checked, you can remove grouping by selecting it again.

Switch Between Views

Switch between any of the predefined views by clicking View ► Arrange By ► Current View and selecting a different view.

• To switch between views more easily, use the Navigation pane (View ► Arrange By ► Show Views in Navigation Pane).

 

Customize Views

You can customize any view to contain the fields you want, sorted and grouped in the order you want. You can add filters to the view to see only data that meets specific criteria (e.g., contacts only from Michigan, e-mails only with certain words in the body, meetings regarding only a specific subject). You can also change font formatting, modify other global settings, alter how columns display, or set up automatic formatting so that items that meet your criteria receive special font formatting automatically.

Customize Table Views

Table views are easy to customize. You can sort a field by clicking its field name, rearrange fields by dragging, or add/delete fields using the Field Chooser. To practice, switch to Phone List view in Contacts (View ► Arrange By ► Current View ► Phone List).

• To sort a view by a field, click the field name. Click it again to toggle between ascending and descending sort.

• To rearrange fields, drag a field to a new location. Drop the field when the red arrows are in the desired position.

• To remove a field, drag it off of the column header row.

• To add a field, turn on the Advanced toolbar (View ► Toolbars ► Advanced). Click the Field Chooser button and then select the field you want to add from the Frequently Used Fields list (or click the down arrow to select fields from another list). Drag the field into position in the table view.

  

• To create a new field, click the New button on the Field Chooser. Enter a name for the field, select the type of field, and, if other than text, select the format of the field. Drag the field into the table view. The field is available in the customized table view and on the All Fields tab of an open contact.

Customize the Current View

To customize any view, click View ► Arrange By ► Current View ► Customize Current View.

• Click the Fields button to Add and Remove fields, rearrange fields (Move Up and Move Down), and Add new fields.

• Click the Group By button to group data by a specified field. To be effective, Group By fields need to contain common data (e.g., the same state, the same company, the same department). You can set up to four levels of grouping. Data is sorted automatically by Group By fields.

• Click the Sort button to sort data by specific fields when Group By is set to None. You can set up to four levels of sorting and can choose Ascending or Descending for each.

• Click the Filter button to set filter criteria. The Filter dialog box contains four tabs:

  1. The first tab varies depending on the folder in which you are working (e.g., Messages, Contacts, Appointments and Meetings). On this tab you can set criteria such as a search word or From.

  2. More Choices tab: Includes categories; Unread, Important, or Flagged items; and items of a specified size.

  3. Advanced tab: Contains all the available fields. Click the Field button, select a field category, and select the field you want to use. Set the condition and value for the field.

     • For example, to find all meetings held in Room A, select Location as the field, set Contains or Is (Exactly) as the Condition, and Room A as the Value. Click Add to List.

     • You can set a second criterion, e.g., to find all meetings in Room B. Outlook finds meetings that meet either criterion (it treats the two criteria as an “or”). But if you add criteria other than Location, the meeting must meet both criteria (“and”), i.e., Location is Room A and Subject is Raises.

  4. SQL tab: Shows the SQL code written as a result of the criteria you set. To edit the code directly, click the Edit These Criteria Directly checkbox. Be aware, though, that if you edit the code you can no longer use the three previous tabs.

     • Tip: Each filter you set is added to the other filters even if it appears on a different tab. To remove all the filters, click the Clear All button.

• To change fonts and select other settings specific to the folder in which you’re working, click the Other Settings button.

• To create rules to change formatting based on criteria you set, click the Automatically Formatting button. Click the Add button, enter a name for the rule, and then set the properties for the new rule (properties typically include font settings and a condition).

• To specify display format for each field in a table view (Phone List, Messages, etc.), click the Format Columns button.

• To restore a view to its original settings, click the Reset Current View button on the Customize View dialog box.

Create Custom Views

Creating a custom view is like customizing an existing view, but you have to give your custom view a name and decide what type of view you want to create. You can create a:

• Table view: To show rows and columns of data

• Timeline view: To show date-driven data

• Card view: To see data in an index-card format

• Day/week/month view: To see date-driven data as a calendar

• Icon view: To see data stored in a note format

Almost all data can be displayed in any of the view types: e.g., a card view of calendar data to make a conference schedule, or a timeline view of e-mails to see when they were sent or received.

To create a custom view:

1. Click View ► Arrange By ► Current View ► Define Views, or click the down-arrow on the Current view drop-down list on the Advanced toolbar and choose Define Views.

2. To base your view on an existing view, select the view and click Copy. Name the new view, then decide who can use it:

   1. This Folder, Visible to Everyone means that the view is available only in the selected folder (e.g., Inbox, Calendar, Contacts) but that anyone who has permissions to the folder can switch to this view.

   2. This Folder, Visible Only To Me restricts access to the view to only you. No one else can see the view even if they have permissions to see the folder.

   3. All [FolderName] Folders makes the view accessible to anyone who has permissions to any folders of the same type (e.g., all Contact folders, all Calendar folders, etc.).

3. To create an entirely new view, click New, name the view, select the view type, and select where the view can be used.

4. Click OK from the Copy View or the Create a New View dialog box to open the Customize View dialog box (see Customize the Current View, above).

5. After you customize the view and click OK, click Apply View to see the new view applied to the current folder. The new view is available from the Current View drop-down list on the Advanced toolbar, the Current view menu (View ► Arrange By ► Current View), and in the Views list in the Navigation pane.