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document updated 11 years ago, on Mar 30, 2013

My focus is using Outlook Tasks as a lite bug tracker.

While there are certainly better bug trackers out there, I often find myself on teams that don't have experience with usual software development practices, so I often have to make do. I'm not allowed to take time to install/maintain a web-based DB-backed tool. Externally hosted tools are also out due to confidentiality.

Excel

Before I dive into Outlook though, I should note that some people use Excel [2] [3] as a lite bug tracker as well.

This is a pretty common practice, but at the same time, there's a number of articles out there that criticize it. [1] [2] Many of the criticisms center on the fact that Excel really isn't set up for concurrent updates from multiple users.

Sharepoint

Sharepoint is one answer to the criticism that Excel doesn't allow concurrent updates.

But that means you have to have a Sharepoint server setup locally.

Using Tasks in Outlook 2007

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled program. How do we do this within Outlook?

Of course, there are some criticisms of using Outlook for project planning / issue tracking. [1] Bottom line: Don't use Outlook if you're looking for a full-fledged bug tracker; however, it is ready to use ASAP without any work required to set it up.

Sorting

There are a LOT of questions about people trying to customize sorting more.

Things I like to use:

Repurpose the "Mileage" field.† It's free-form.
Repurpose the "Billing Information" field.† It's free-form.

† To make this field visible, change the "select available fields from" drop-down to "All Task fields"