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Reminder Manager 1.3.1
Slovak Technical Services' nifty add-in makes Outlook's reminder feature much more useful for systems administrators.
by Ben Schorr

Posted February 12, 2004

I depend on Outlook's reminders to help keep tasks from falling through the cracks. I have reminders to check the server event viewer, attend staff meetings, return phone calls, follow up on tech support requests, and check the status of projects, among many other things. Although Outlook 2003 is a big improvement in reminder handling (the unified reminder window is a lot better than the little individual windows that once cluttered my screen) there is room for improvement.

That's why I was so intrigued by Slovak Technical Services' Reminder Manager 1.3.1. It is a COM add-in that works with Outlook 2000 (Corporate/Workgroup Mode only), 2002, or 2003. There are two primary benefits of the program when used with Outlook 2003: extending reminder capability to folders that don't natively support them (which is most of them) and the ability to send reminders to other addresses and devices through SMTP. With older versions of Outlook you get an additional benefit: All of those scattered reminder windows are replaced with a single, unified, reminder window not entirely unlike the one in Outlook 2003 (see Figure 1).

Installing Reminder Manager is simple, but it has a catch. To install it, you shut down Outlook, double-click on the single, downloaded file, and let the wizard do the rest. The catch is that you must have CDO 1.21 installed. If you upgraded from a version of Outlook prior to 2000 then you'll already have it installed; if not it's an optional install with Outlook and can be found on your Outlook installation source. When you install Reminder Manager it checks for the presence of CDO 1.21. If it doesn't find it, Reminder Manager will prompt you to insert your Microsoft Outlook installation media (or ask you where the network location is) and install CDO 1.21 for you.

When the installation is complete, the Reminder Manager configuration window opens automatically. Here you can configure how Reminder Manager behaves. The most interesting options are which folders you want Reminder Manager to monitor and what you want it to do when a reminder actually occurs.

The folder list shows the real power of Reminder Manager. You'll discover you can fire reminders out of any e-mail, contact, task, or calendar folder in any store you have open—even your archive folder if you have that open. That includes Exchange public folders and .PST files. If you're like me, you have a lot of subfolders for specific projects and departments. With Reminder Manager I can set a reminder on that item in my "Accounting Software" folder that reminds me to call our vendor for the new report forms next Monday.

You need to be aware of several items when working with public folders, however. First, if you're using Outlook 2003 in cached mode reminders, it will only fire out of public folders that are in your Public Folder Favorites folder. Although the configuration screen makes it appear as if you can fire a reminder out of any public folder, if you're using Outlook 2003 in cached mode and you choose a public folder that isn't in your favorites list, the reminders won't fire. If this limitation causes a problem, then either add the appropriate public folder to your favorites or turn cached mode off. When not in cached mode Reminder Manager will work from any public folder, just as it does in Outlook 2000 or 2002.

The second thing you need to be aware of is that reminders won't fire on post items; only e-mail, tasks, appointments, or contacts. That's easy to remember because Outlook 2003 doesn't offer you any way to add a reminder to a post item anyhow.

You're probably thinking "I share a public folder with my entire team. It would be nice if when one person dismisses a reminder on a public folder item, the reminder would fire for the other members of my team." Well, then you're going to like this tool. Reminder status is preserved for each individual user on public folders.

Another item to set on the first screen is how you want Reminder Manager to behave when a reminder occurs. You can configure whether it should play a sound (and what sound it should play) and whether it should display a message. Another setting on this screen, which is a popular feature request with Outlook, is the ability to select what the default snooze time should be.

If you want the reminders to also be sent to a device or e-mail account, click on the "E-mail and Pager Options" radio button near the top of the screen (see Figure 2). From here you can configure where you want the reminders sent. Any device that has an SMTP address (as most text pagers and cell phones do today) can receive the reminders, or you can opt to have them sent to another e-mail address.

Some of you may be users of another Slovak product, Extended Reminders. Extended Reminders only works in the default store; it's basically a subset of Reminder Manager. If you choose to upgrade to Reminder Manager it will automatically recognize Extended reminders, migrate all of its settings, and disable it.

You add reminders to items the same way you always have. Open the item and click the Flag button on the Standard toolbar, or right-click on the item and "Flag for Follow-up." With Outlook 2003 you can also set the quick flag, then right-click on that quick flag and choose "Add Reminder." You can specify both the date and time you wish the reminder to appear, as well as the type of reminder ("Follow Up," "Call," etc.).

When reminders do occur, if you have it configured to display the reminder window, you'll see a screen that looks like Figure 1. The reminders window has a bunch of useful options. It will of course show you the current reminder(s), but you can also tell it to show all upcoming reminders by clicking View | Future Reminders. One thing that takes a little getting used to: If you snooze a reminder alarm, it doesn't disappear from the screen. Reminder Manager puts a strikeout line through the item you snoozed, but it remains displayed until the snooze expires, and it pops up to remind you again.

Like Outlook, Reminder Manager allows you to open the items from the reminder window if you wish, or you can dismiss the reminder from the window. Making changes to Reminder Manager's configuration after it's installed and operating is fairly simple. Under Tools | Options in Outlook you'll discover a new tab called "Reminder Manager" that lets you access the same configuration options you set when you installed the program.

Should You Buy It?
I am pleased with Reminder Manager 1.3.1, and found only two minor drawbacks. Outlook 2003's cached mode can be a little quirky, and that sometimes causes some quirky behavior. Turning off cached mode in Outlook 2003 or adding the required Exchange public folders to your Public Folder favorites seems to resolve most of those issues, however. The other drawback is that Reminder Manager is a client-side application. That means if you want reminders to fire to your phone, pager, or other SMTP address, your client with Reminder Manager must be running and logged in. Slovak Technical Services offers free lifetime support by e-mail (or telephone during business hours) and free lifetime upgrades. A 30-day trial is available for download.

Quick Facts
Reminder Manager 1.3.1
Web: www.slovaktech.com/remindermanager.htm
Phone: 407-673-7655
Pricing: $30 for a single license; quantity discounts available for multiple licenses
Quick Facts: Extends reminder capability to folders that don't natively support them; has the ability to send reminders to other addresses and devices via SMTP.
Pros: Works with Outlook 2000 and later; extends reminders to most Outlook folders. Scattered reminders are replaced with a single window.
Cons: Won't work in Internet mode in Outlook 2000. Quirky functions in Outlook 2003 cached mode.

About the Author
Ben M. Schorr is the director of information services for Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert in Honolulu. He's a contributing author on Managing Microsoft Exchange Server (O'Reilly & Associates, 1999) and a Microsoft Outlook MVP.