ClearContext Corporate Blog

New in our latest release, Notification Managers move automated emails from your Inbox into a categorized view so that you can quickly process notifications without interruption.  Use ClearContext templates or create your own customized notification managers.

As you receive messages that meet the criteria of an enabled Notification Manager, messages will be moved into the Notification Manager’s home folder and automatically categorized.  View a summary of all of your Notification Managers on the Notifications tab of FolderContext or on the summary Dashboard (Pro only). 

Home Folder   

Click on the home folder of an individual Notification Manager to see a more detailed, categorized view of your notifications:

Click on a category in the home folder to mark all unread messages in that category as read, jump to a link associated with the current category or filter message display in the folder.  The latter function is available in Outlook 2007 only.   

Use the options menu to:   

• Jump from the current folder to the dashboard for this Topic (Pro Only)
• Edit the parameters for this Notification Manager (more below)
• Share the Notification Manager with a friend of colleague
• Clear message filters set from individual categories (i.e. "View only…")

Templates   
ClearContext ships with two, preconfigured Notification Managers for managing Facebook and LinkedIn requests.  To enable:

1. Open the Notifications tab in FolderContext    
2. Click on a disabled notification manager
3. Select yes when asked to enable
4. Select a home folder for this Notification Manager

ClearContext will automatically move email from the selected service into the home folder and categorize by requests, invites, etc..  For more detail on these specific Notification Managers, see our notifications page.

Customized Notification Managers   
Create your own notification managers to manage automated email messages:

1. Open the Notifications tab in FolderContext or from the Dashboard (Pro Only).    

   

2. Select Actions > Create New Notification Manager.    

   

3. Select a folder that you will move these messages to – this can be an existing folder or a new folder – and click OK.    

   

4. The selected folder will be opened and the Notification Manager builder will appear.    

   

5. Give your Notification Manager a name. This is the name that will appear in the Notifications Summary.    

   

6. Click Add Rule to add a condition that will cause messages to be moved into this folder. For example, create a rule to move all messages from domain facebookmail.com to this folder. Please note that you can only add one rule for moving messages into this folder.    

   

7. If you would like, click Add Icon to add a 16×16 icon to display for this Dashboard.    

   

8. Click Add Category. This is how you will identify and track various classes of messages that are moved into this folder.    

   

9. Give the Category a Display name and a Category Name. The latter is an Outlook category that is assigned to incoming messages that meet the criteria you set.    

   

10. Add rules(s) that will cause this category to be assigned to an incoming message in this folder. Extending the example above, create a subject rule that assigns category Friend Request to all messages from facebookmail.com that arrive with the word friend in the subject. Please note that an OR condition is applied when multiple rules are entered – if an email arrives that meets any one of the rules you have set, the category will be assigned.    

   

11. Add a link to this category by clicking the Add Link button. This link will appear in the category’s action menu. For example, you might add a direct link to your Facebook friends approval page here.    

   

12. Change the appearance of this tab or add a 16×16 icon as desired.    

   

13. Repeat steps 8 through 12 to add as many categories as you would like.    

   

14. When you have completed building the dashboard, press Save and restart Outlook.

Use regular expressions to create complex criteria for category assignment in the Notification Manager.  Details on regular expression syntax are available here.

Import/Export   
Share a Notification Manager via Options > Send this Notification Manager.  Import Notification Managers from the Notifications Summary in FolderContext or the Dashboard (Pro Only).

Disable/Delete   
Disable a Notification Manager by right clicking it in the Notification summary and selecting Disable Notifications.  You may delete a notification manager by removing it from the Dashboard directory in Windows:

1. Close Outlook    
2. Locate your ClearContext program directory:   
         
   • Vista: C:\Users\{USER_NAME}\AppData\Local\ClearContext\ClearContext Information Management System\Dashboards\  OR  C:\Program Files\ClearContext\ClearContext Information Management System\Dashboards\

          

   • XP: C:\Documents and Settings\{USER_NAME}\Local Settings\Application Data\ClearContext\ClearContext Information Management System\Dashboards\

   

3. Delete the XML file that corresponds to the Notification Manager that you want to remove

Jump to Folder

While viewing the Notifications Summary, quickly open a Notification Manager home folder by right clicking the title for the Notification Manager and selecting Jump to Folder.

The complete ClearContext Personal and Professional User Guide, including a downloadable PDF, is available here.

New in our latest release, the Attachment Explorer allows you to preview attachments within Outlook folders as if you were viewing them in a Windows file folder.

Preview    
While in the folder you want to explore, launch the Attachment Explorer in one of several ways:

• Click the Attachments button on the Inbox toolbar.  This button is available by default in Personal, but must be added to the Pro toolbar.
• Select Attachment Explorer from the ClearContext Outlook menu (Keyboard Shortcut Alt-XA)
• From the Files tab in FolderContext, select Actions > Open Attachment Explorer
• From a Project Dashboard (Pro Only) click the Attachment Explorer icon .

Once you have opened the folder you want to explore, click on a file in the left hand pane to see a preview in the right hand pane.  Some file types cannot be previewed.

Change views    
While in the Attachment Explorer, there are several ways to change the file display:

• Select the Views header to choose various views, switching to a smaller detailed list of the attachments in this folder, larger thumbnails, etc..
• Click the Sort Header to change sorting by attachment name, type, received date, etc..
• Drag the bar between the attachment list and the previewer to change the width of these panes.

Act    
Select files in the attachment explorer by clicking on them.  Right click or select Actions to quickly act on these attachments.  Options include:

• Open the messages containing the selected attachments
• Open the attachments themselves
• Save the attachments to a file folder
• Forward the attachments via email

Quickly Open Messages

Double-clicking an attachment in the file list will automatically open the message it is attached to.  Quickly open the email that contains the attachment you are previewing by clicking the link at the bottom of the preview pane.

The complete ClearContext Personal and Professional User Guide, including a downloadable PDF, is available here.

New in our latest release, FolderContext automatically displays all attachments and contacts contained in the current folder so that you can quickly locate the information you need.

FolderContext is integrated into the folder list for all supported Outlook folders.  Expand and minimize by pressing the +/- button in the header.  There are three tabs on FolderContext – Files, Contacts and Notifications.

Files   
The Files tab shows all attachments contained in the current folder.  For attachments that appear in more than one message, click the more button to see a list of all emails that contain the file.

Perform the following actions from within the Files tab:

• Double-click a file to open the most recent message to contain that attachment.
• Highlight message(s) and right click or select the Actions menu to open the message containing the attachment, open the attachment itself or forward or save the selected files.
• Sort the file listing via the Actions menu.

Contacts   
The Contacts tab automatically lists all contacts contained in the To and From fields of the folder’s emails.  The colored contact icon indicates the assigned priority for the contact.  For contacts that exist in the Outlook address book, click more to show additional contact details.  Click create to quickly new contacts to the address.

Perform the following actions from within the Contacts tab:

• Double-click a contact to open the contact record.  Adjust priority from here to improve Outlook prioritization.
• Highlight contact(s) and right click or select the Actions menu to email or set up an appointment with the group, export contacts to a file or create a distribution list.  You can also invite others to try ClearContext from here.
• Sort the contact list via the Actions menu.

Notifications   
The Notifications Summary displays a summary of all active notification managers.

• Click the +/- next to the header for each Notification Manager to expand message categories.
• Right-click individual Notification Managers to enable/disable and/or jump to its home folder.
• Select Actions > Import Notification Manager to import a new Notification Manager into Outlook.
• Select Actions > Create New Notification Manager to create your own custom message view.

More detail on Notification Managers is available here.

FolderContext Tips

Pro Users: When in a Topic folder, select Jump to Dashboard from the Actions button to open a Project Dashboard.

Share Project Files: Has a new person joined your team?  Get them up to speed by opening your project folder, selecting all attachments in the Files Tab and forwarding to them.

Create a Project Meeting List: From the Contacts tab, select all contacts in your Project, right click and select Create Dist List to quickly add these contacts to an Outlook distribution list.

The complete ClearContext Personal and Professional User Guide, including a downloadable PDF, is available here.

The ClearContext User Guide has been updated to v4.5 and now includes information on the tabbed Dashboard, FolderContext, Attachment Explorer and Notification Managers.  View it online here.  If you want it offline, grab the downloadable PDF at the bottom of the page.  I’ll be posting some of the updates to the blog over the next few days.

We pushed out a minor point release late last week to address the following:

• Improved Dashboard performance when opening multiple tabs
• Stability during periodic thread cleanup
• Calendar display range default in Outlook 2003
• Taskline date display in Dashboard Tasks and Actions
• Added RV: to list of known prefixes to better support Spanish language threading

If you are experiencing issues related to the items above, we suggest you download and upgrade from here.

CNN ran an article today on email horror stories:

“With some 55 billion e-mails being sent daily (not including spam), according to e-mail archiving company The Radicati Group, misdirected e-mails have become the online equivalent of a wrong number. They’re unavoidable, annoying — and often embarrassing.”

There are a few tips for avoiding the problem, but they miss the easiest and most effective way to mitigate the issue – use technology to delay sending.  See my earlier post on setting up Outlook to hold messages in the Outbox for a minute or two before pushing them out into the world.  This continues to be a lifesaver.

BTW, Gmail Labs tackles a similar problem in a way that is either brilliant or really dumb depending on how much drinking and mailing you are prone to do.

One new feature that I forgot to mention in yesterday’s "What’s New" post.  We’ve implemented an Activity Log so that you can see the last actions you took using ClearContext.  This is a quick way to find messages you recently filed.  Go to ClearContext > Activity Log to view.

I recently had a number of folks ask about the additions we made between IMS v4 and ClearContext Professional.  At a high level, new features in the latest release include:

Topic Suggestions

ClearContext now suggests Topics based on your past history when filing.  After upgrade, run ClearContext > Analyze Contacts to increase the accuracy of suggestions.

Redesigned Tabbed Dashboard

The Dashboard contains a new summary view.  From there, open Project Dashboard tabs to view all the information related to a  project into a single combined view – email threads, contacts attachments, appointments and tasks.

Contacts and Attachments by Project

ClearContext automatically identifies contacts and attachments in your projects and folders so that you can quickly and easily share information with your team.

MessageContext

Formerly RelatedView, MessageContext now shows message text and indicates attachments in messages.

FolderContext

Instantly:

   
• See attachments and contacts from emails in each folder.

   

• Sort, save, and forward those attachments.

   

• Create distribution lists, meeting requests, etc. from those contacts.

Attachment Explorer

Explore and preview attachments within Outlook just like folders on your desktop.

Notification Managers

Too many status and notification emails in your inbox?  Many people’s inboxes are clogged with email like:

   
• Notifications from online services

   

• Automated log and alert emails from IT applications

   

• Receipts and status from e-commerce sites

Notification Managers automatically move these emails out of your inbox into a categorized view so you can quickly process notifications without constant interruptions.  Use ClearContext templates or easily create your own customized notification managers.  For more information, see our Notifications page.

Fit, Finish and Performance

Too numerous to list here, we have also implemented many v4.5 performance and fit and finish enhancements as requested by our customers.

As a reminder, the upgrade to ClearContext Professional is free for all registered IMS v4 customers.  If you are running v3 or earlier or you are running the Personal version of ClearContext, download and install a free 30-day trial of ClearContext Pro.

In the latest release we implemented notification managers – a tool for handling emails that regularly clog up your Inbox.  You know the ones – notifications from online services, automated log and email alerts from IT applications, receipts and status from e-commerce sites, etc..  Notification Managers are designed to get these out of the Inbox and categorize them in a way that makes it easy to review when you’re ready.

We ship with two Notification Managers by default – one for LinkedIn and one for Facebook.  Enable these by clicking on them in the Notifications tab of FolderContext.  You can also create your own Notification Manager and share it with friends and colleagues.  Here are step by step instructions for doing that:

1. Open the Notifications tab in FolderContext.
2. Select Actions > Create New Notification Manager.
3. Select a folder that you will move these messages to – this can be an existing folder or a new folder – and click OK.
4. The selected folder will be opened and the Notification Manager builder will appear.
5. Give your Notification Manager a name. This is the name that will appear in the Notifications Summary.
6. Click Add Rule to add a condition that will cause messages to be moved into this folder. For example, create a rule to move all messages from domain facebookmail.com to this folder. Please note that you can only add one rule for moving messages into this folder.
7. If you would like, click Add Icon to add a 16×16 icon to display for this Dashboard.
8. Click Add Category. This is how you will identify and track various classes of messages that are moved into this folder.
9. Give the Category a Display name and a Category Name. The latter is an Outlook category that is assigned to incoming messages that meet the criteria you set.
10. Add rules(s) that will cause this category to be assigned to an incoming message in this folder. Extending the example above, create a subject rule that assigns category Friend Request to all messages from facebookmail.com that arrive with the word friend in the subject. Please note that an OR condition is applied when multiple rules are entered – if an email arrives that meets any one of the rules you have set, the category will be assigned.
11. Add a link to this category by clicking the Add Link button. This link will appear in the category’s action menu. For example, you might add a direct link to your Facebook friends approval page here.
12. Change the appearance of this tab or add a 16×16 icon as desired.
13. Repeat steps 8 through 12 to add as many categories as you would like.
14. When you have completed building the dashboard, press Save and restart Outlook.

Once the dashboard is complete and Outlook has been restarted, incoming messages that meet the criteria you set up will be automatically moved into your dashboard topic folder:

• When you click on the folder, your categories will appear as tabs across the top of the preview pane along with counts of unread messages that appear in the folder for each category.
• Click on each category tab to mark items read, filter the folder to show messages from that category only, or open a link that you have set up for the category.
• Click Show Read Items to show counts of all items by category rather than unread.
• Select Options > Edit This Notification Manager to change the parameters you have set.
• Select Options > Jump to Project Dashboard to open a Dashboard tab for this Topic.
• Select Options > Send this Notification Manager to share with friends and colleagues.

We envision that you will come up with many creative ways to use the functionality. Please tell us how you use the Notification Managers and give us feedback on how you would like to see the functionality grow.

At the risk of hurting my arm while patting my own back, I have to say that FolderContext has become an indispensable component of my working environment.  Here are some examples of how I use it:

Contact List Creation    
We asked potential beta testers to send an email to a beta account. Using AutoAssign, I pushed all of these requests into a beta Topic folder. When the time came to contact the group, creating a distribution list was insanely simple:

1. Open the beta folder in Outlook.
2. Click the Contact tab in FolderContext.
3. Highlight all contacts in the list.
4. Select Actions > Create Distribution List.

Voila! I now have a beta distribution list for future correspondence with the beta group.

We anticipate that, much like the Contact Exporter, individuals will find this feature to be a great way to communicate with your project team, invites friends to an event, and upload contacts to various social networking sites.

Attachments by Topic    
We recently released a TWC powered build of IMS. One new feature in the release is customized TWC tutorial emails. Several iterations of these emails were sent back and forth as Word Documents. When it was time to convert the Word documents to tutorial emails, I was able to quickly find the latest version of each document:

1. Click on my TWC Topic folder.
2. Click on the Attachments tab of the FolderContext.
3. Highlight the attachments I wanted.
4. Select Actions > Save Attachments.

This automatically saved the most recent version of the attachments from email onto my hard drive.

Easy, right?