Automate categories in Outlook Calendar

Software
1

for work we use salesforce to schedule events and tasks which then is synchronized into our Outlook calendar. I would like to automate how these things look in based on an initial word in the subject line. For instance if the subject line starts with Call it would be categorized call and turn blue. If it began with demo it would be categorized demo and turn green

does anyone know of any software that interfaces with Outlook and could automate this process?

2

If it’s backed by Microsoft 365 you might be able to use Microsoft Flow to do that. I’ve done some work with it to try and push M365 events out to a Google calendar and it did work. Mostly. I would hope setting a category would be possible and reliable.

3

Can you not do this with Outlook Rules?

1 Like
4

+1 for Outlook rules. There is one called “Subject contains” and the rule can then apply categorisation. You could refine it by adding Salesforce sender address to avoid random emails with a similar subject to replies/forwards to get caught by the rule …

1 Like
5

Great info. I will check that out. I dont’ use the desktop version so I’m hoping the web version has what you are talking about. Keep in mind this is for the calendar… not mail.

6

I use rules (from the desktop) to colour different appointment types within my calendar automatically.

7

It may be worth installing the desktop app, just to manage your rules if the web app doesn’t support rules.

8

Recommendations in descending order:

  1. Outlook Web rules (if they support what you’re looking to do).
  2. Power Automate (new name for Microsoft Flow). This might depend on your company having enabled it. It’s not the most intuitive automation tool, but it is very powerful and I’m very confident you could get it to categorize your appointments the way you’d like.
  3. Rules using the desktop client installation. I believe categorization rules aren’t server side executable, which would mean you’d need to have the outlook client running for the rules to work. I could be wrong on this though. Keep in mind as well the the desktop version of Outlook is slated to change drastically in the next year or so with Project Monarch. They’re not using Electron but effectively, they’re making a wrapper around the web client (over simplification) so any client side rules you define here likely won’t port over nicely.

Hope this helps!

1 Like
9

Sheesh. They only just did a huge overhaul of the Mac app. Mind you, the web version has come on leaps and bounds in recent years.