How To Create a Billable Hours This Week View in the Outlook Calendar
From the Microsoft Outlook Calendar view menu bar select View/Arrange By/Current View/Define Views and the Custom View Organizer window will open.
Click the New button and the Create a New View window will open. type “Billable Hours This Week” in the Name of new view field and then make sure that Table is selected for Type of view. If you use Outlook on a mail server and would like to allow other users on your server to see this view, make sure that This folder, visible to everyone is selected in the Can be used on frame at the bottom of the Create a New View window (see thumbnail below).
Click the OK button and the Customize Current View: Billable Hours This Week window will open – see thumbnail below.
Click the Fields button and the Show Fields window will open. “Frequently Used Fields” will most likely be visible in the “Select available fields from” drop down box. To add a field to the view, make sure it appears in the “Show these fields in this order” list box on the right hand side of the window, select it and then click the Add button. Add the following fields from the Available Fields list box on the left hand side of the window if they are not already listed in the “Show these fields in this order” list box: Contacts, Subject, Start, and Duration – see thumbnail below:
For fields appearing in the “Show these fields in this order” list box that you do not want included in the view, select them and then click the Remove button. Click the New Field button to add the first custom field “Billable Hours” and the New Field window will open. In the Name field type “Billable Hours”, select Number in the Type dropdown field (see thumbnail below) and then click the OK button.
Repeat this process for the following fields using the data types in parentheses and the Formats after the dash for each listed field:
- Rate (Currency) – $12,345.60 ($12,345.60)
- Invoice $ (Formula) – [Billable Hours]*[Rate]
- OK to Invoice (Yes/No) – Icon
- Invoiced? (Yes/No) – Icon
- Invoice Date (Date/Time) – 12/23/2007
Next select “Message” from the Available Fields list box and click the Add button. The Show Fields window should now look like the one below.
Click the OK button and then click the Group By button to open the Group By window. Select “All Document Fields” from the “Select available fields from” dropdown box in the lower left hand corner of the Group By window. Next select Company from the Group items by dropdown box in the top left hand frame of the Group By window – see thumbnail below. Click the OK button.
Now click the Filter button to open the Filter window. Go to the Advanced tab of the Filter window, click the Field button and then select “Categories” from the Frequently-used fields popup menu. Set the Condition dropdown field to “Contains” and type the word “Billable” in the value field then click the Add to List button. Next click the Field button and select “End” from the Frequently-used fields popup menu. Set the Condition dropdown field to “this week” and click the Add to List button. The Filter window should now look like the one in the thumbnail below. Click the OK button.
Click the OK button on the Custom View: Billable Hours This Week window and your view should now appear similar to the one below.
Please note that you will need to list “Billable” in the Categories field for all billable appointments so you may want to add that category to your Master Category list. To add a category to an Outlook appointment, either use the Categories button in the open appointment item or right click on the appointment from any calendar view and select Categories from the pop up menu. Check off “Billable” in the Categories list box of the Categories window and then click the OK button.
By what means did you associate the Company & Contact Name with the appointment for reporting by client?
Jamie,
Great pick up! You will also want to add the Company field to the view so that company can be edited. Company is actually not a standard Calendar field so you will have to borrow it from either the All Contact Fields, All Task Fields or All Journal Fields in the Select Available Fields From drop down box on the Show Fields window. Once you have created an entry for a given company, you can add new entries to that list by dragging and dropping them from the “None” grouping to the correct client group.
Thanks for catching this omission from my How to!
Tried this 3-4 times and could not make it work Outlook tells me that the view cannot be saved, any ideas? I followed the instructions to the letter with no results.
Ray, first of all, which version of Outlook are you working in. Second, are you working in a table view or a card view? This process will only work with Table views. You might try copying the view that you are working in and then adding your column to the copied view since the original may some how be protected – is it an Outlook standard view? Please let me know if this suggestion helps, otherwise, I’ll contact you directly via email. Thanks! Misty
You wrote:
“Once you have created an entry for a given company, you can add new entries to that list by dragging and dropping them from the “None” grouping to the correct client group.”
I’m using ‘Company’ from the Contact fields, but the table entries all show up under the heading ‘Company: (none)’ regardless of the company the contact is with. Where are we creating company entries and what list are we dragging new entries to?
Hi, JM! You will have to manually type the company name for the first record for each company in the view and then when you hit the enter key, that record will move to a new grouping for that company. Remember that you are working with calendar items, not contact items and calendar items do not actually have their own Company field so this is actually a custom field you are adding to the record. Hope this helps! Misty
Hello, I’m having the same issues as “Ray.” I found out that the error seems to occur during the “Filter” steps outlined above. Can this fix be published? Also, when I went to try this the second time, the system told me I already have a view named “Billable Hours This Week,” but this view can’t be seen at all in the View menu. Please help.
Hi, Bryan, and thank you for your comment. I finally was able to recreate this error – are you working in Outlook 2007? Here is the work around: Go aheand and follow all the steps in this post for creating the view, but leave out the custom fields and the Group By portion – so basically you are just choosing the Outlook standard fields and creating the filter. The view should open fine. Next right click in the column header area and select “Customize Current View” from the pop up menu. Now click the Fields button and follow the instructions for adding the custom fields – I actually added them one at a time and clicked the OK button each time to try and figure out which field was the problem child, but I never got an error message. Then go on and follow the instructions for the Group By button. You may also want to add the All Document Fields/Company field to the view as well so that you can edit the first few appointments for that company and then drag and drop the rest.
No idea what is causing this strange behavior in Outlook – sometimes its just plain quirky. Please let me know if you have any further troubles after trying this work around and thank you again for your comment!
Misty
Hi Misty,
Thank you very much for sharing this info…very helpful!
I created a Billable Hours table and I am finding that the only billable hours showing in the table are those for future appointments or appointments within the last couple of days.
How can I add the Billable Hours from a couple of weeks ago to the same table?
Thank you.
Sara
Hi Misty,
Regarding the posting above about Billable Hours not showing in the Table, I just figured out what to do…End time – This Week – had to be changed to Anytime.
Thank you again for providing this info (and the Mileage Table info)…very helpful and much appreciated!
Sara
Sara, thank you for your comments and glad you found the Mileage Table info helpful! Misty