Manually Recording Phone Calls in Visual C#.NET

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When you use automatic dialing to call a contact, you can time the phone call, type notes in Outlook 2007 while you talk, and create a journal entry for the call. This feature can come in handy if, for example, you bill clients for your time spent on phone conversations.

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Follow these steps to keep a record of an outgoing call in the journal: 1. Open the Contacts folder, and select the contact entry for the person you want to call. 2. Click the Dial button on the Standard toolbar, or if the Contact window is open for the contact, click the Call button in the Communicate group on the Contact tab to open the New Call dialog box, as shown in Figure 23-7.

3. Select the Create New Journal Entry When Starting New Call check box, and then click Start Call. A journal entry opens with the timer running. You can type notes in the body of the journal entry while you talk. 4. When you ve nished with the call, click Pause Timer to stop the clock, and then click Save & Close. You also can create journal entries for incoming calls, although Outlook 2007 currently offers no means of automatically creating the journal entries when you pick up the phone and start talking. Instead, when you answer the call and realize that you want to track it, you can open the journal as you begin the conversation, start a new journal item, and click Start Timer. Make notes as needed, and click Pause Timer when you hang up. Add any necessary details to the journal entry form, and then click Save & Close to create the item.

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You can start a new journal item and use the timer to time any activity, assuming that you don t need to-the-second timing. Just stop the timer and close the form without saving it unless you actually want to save the information in the journal.

For information about setting up automatic phone dialing and making calls from the Contacts folder, see Working with Contacts in 18.

You can assign categories to all Outlook 2007 items to provide a means of sorting and organizing those items. The journal is no exception: each journal item can have multiple categories assigned to it. Journal items, however, can also be classi ed by entry type, which de nes the purpose of the journal item. In many respects, entry types are like categories, because you can use them to sort and search for journal items. When you create a journal item manually, Outlook 2007 assumes that you re creating a phone call journal entry and automatically selects Phone Call as the entry type. However, you can select a different entry type in the Entry Type drop-down list. Figure 23-8 shows some of the available entry types.

Unlike categories, which you can create on the y, journal entry types are limited to those types found in the prede ned list in Outlook 2007. Although the default entry types cover a lot of bases, they don t offer much exibility. For example, you might want to use the journal to track your activity in an application that isn t included in the list, or you might need to keep track of trips to the doctor, school programs, or other events. Although you don t have the ability to add entry types directly when you create a journal entry, you can modify the registry to add journal entry types. You can use these user-de ned entry types for journal items that you enter manually. Here s how: 1. Open the Registry Editor by choosing Start, clicking in the Search box, typing regedit, and then pressing Enter. (In Microsoft Windows XP, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then press Enter.)