Top 10 Outlook-based Project Management Tools

2022. The new Outlook becomes a hub for collaboration



Microsoft has unveiled an updated Outlook for Windows, which the company had been working on for over two years. The main goal of the update was to unify the program's interface with the online service Outlook.com, and this has been achieved. The Mac version, which will be released soon, will have the same interface. The new interface allows you to see a list of emails, tasks, and a calendar on a single screen. And thanks to integration with the new Loop service, you can, for example, send messages to Teams, open files from SharePoint, or work with projects (from Loop itself) directly in the body of the message. Furthermore, the new version allows you to quickly convert emails to tasks or calendar events, attach files using @mentions, pin emails to the top of the list, connect a Gmail account, and manage its emails.


2019. Microsoft integrated its personal organizer app To-Do with Outlook


Microsoft has released a new version of its Microsoft To-Do personal organizer. It features full customization of color scheme and background, 2-factor authorization, smart recommendations for creating today's task list. Finally, the integration with Outlook is implemented: the Flagged Email list in the app displays flagged messages from Outlook.com. Also, it features integration with project management service Microsoft Planner, voice assistants Alexa and Cortana. At the end of the blog announcement, Microsoft hinted the closure of the Wunderlist service, which was acquired by the company 4 years ago and became the base on which To-Do was built. After that the Wunderlist founder Christian Reber asked Microsoft (via Twitter) to buy it back to make an open-source product.


2018. The online version of Outlook has received a new interface.



Microsoft has rolled out an updated version of Outlook.com. The design of the email, calendar, contacts, and tasks has been updated, and several useful new features have been added. First, each email can now be assigned one or more custom-colored tags to help sort your email. Second, you can now view all emails for a specific user. Third, an image hub has been added, displaying all images from emails. The developers have also added the ability to chat in Skype's built-in web chat or make calls while reading email.


2017. Wrike integrates with Microsoft Outlook actionable messages



Project management system Wrike has expanded its integration with Microsoft Office 365. It now includes support for actionable messages in Outlook. This integration allows users to update task content (including due dates, statuses, and comments) directly from the email client interface. Wrike also launched the Office 365 Connector, which automatically notifies all participants in Outlook and MS Teams group chats of any work updates. By the end of the quarter, the company plans to release an updated version of the Outlook plugin, which will make creating new tasks from emails even easier. Wrike previously introduced integration with MS Teams Messenger, as well as an add-in for Word and PowerPoint, allowing users to create and edit tasks from these applications.


2017. Microsoft unveiled productivity app To-Do that will replace Wunderlist


Microsoft acquired the popular mobile to-do list app Wunderlist back in 2015, and now it’s preparing users for its eventual demise with the release of its new application To-Do. The new app was built by the team behind Wunderlist, and will bring in the favorite elements of that app in the months ahead. The company also added that it won’t shut down Wunderlist until it’s confident that it has “incorporated the best of Wunderlist into To-Do.” In the meantime, Microsoft is encouraging Wunderlist users to make the switch by offering an importer that will bring in your lists and to-dos from Wunderlist into To-Do, where those items will now be available in other Microsoft products, like Exchange and Outlook. The To-Do app is not ready at this point to meet the needs of all Wunderlist users, however. As many users realized, some platforms do not yet support To-Do, including Mac, iPad and Android tablet. Task list sharing is also not available.

2014. Producteev Adds iPad Apps and Outlook Integration



It's fair to say that Producteev, the task collaboration service, hasn't seen much updating since its acquisition of Jive. But they've finally unveiled something new. First, a paid version has re-emerged (as you may recall, Producteev became free immediately after the Jive acquisition). For $99/month, customers are offered premium support, branding options, and a plugin for integration with MS Outlook. This plugin effectively doubles as a desktop client for Producteev on PC and Mac. Tasks and projects are synced between Outlook, your online account, and Producteev's mobile apps. You can also create tasks directly in Outlook the familiar way—as a single line with hashtags. You can add tasks directly to your Outlook calendar, and they'll appear in Producteev. Another new feature is an optimized task management app for iPad.