Authomatic Customizable Categorization

[Kyrpo]

Hi Outlook Experts,
All my team (30 people) receives emails with requests in a common outlook folder.
At the moment, in order to Categorize all the email in the list we use 3 colors, depending on the status of the request embedded in the email
(e.g. "In process" Red, "In Review" Yellow , "Reviewed" Green) and then once done, we take the email out from the common folder to archive it.
What I would like to implement is a second type of category in order to determine who categorized the email in the common folder (I'm considering using VBA as well).
Depending on who's the user (1 of the 30 ppl that has access to the folder) categorizing the email (Red, Yellow or Green) a second category should have been automatically added to the email.
I would like to use "different type" of category since using 30 different colors would make a mess in the folder.
Would it be possible to customize the "Categorize color", maybe having the initial of the user name instead of a colored square?
I'm also all ears if you have some different type of solution for the issue I'm facing.
Thanks for your help.

[gmayor]

If you are asking if it is possible to add more than one category to a message then the answer is yes and you can use the initial of the user name or the complete user name (or anything else sensible if you wish). it is the 'automatic' part that is not clear here. How are you determining what categories to add - and how are you adding them? If you are adding them manually, you could use a macro e.g.


Sub CategorizeMessage()
Dim iNum As Integer
Dim olMsg As MailItem
Dim oFrm As New UserForm1
On Error Resume Next
Set olMsg = ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)
With oFrm
.OptionButton1.Value = True
.Show
If .Tag = 1 Then
Select Case True
Case Is = .OptionButton1.Value
olMsg.Categories = "Red Category" & "," & Environ("USERNAME")
Case Is = .OptionButton2.Value
olMsg.Categories = "Yellow Category" & "," & Environ("USERNAME")
Case Is = .OptionButton3.Value
olMsg.Categories = "Green Category" & "," & Environ("USERNAME")
End Select
End If
End With
lbl_Exit:
Unload oFrm
Set oFrm = Nothing
Set olMsg = Nothing
Exit Sub
End Sub

The macro employs a userform Userform1 with three option buttons and a command button, each with default names. The userform code is


Option Explicit

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
Hide
Tag = 1
End Sub


The userform could look like

20795

Select a message. Run the macro to categorize with both the colour and the username. Run it again to change the categories.

[Kyrpo]

Hi Gmayor,

First of all I would like to thank you for your answer. I'm going to use some visual aids :)

20797

The top pic shows how the our email looks at work right now, we got a list of email (request) and anybody that has access to the folder picks 1 (by manually categorising it) and updates the status of it with further changes in its categorisation (from red to yellow to green). Problem is that by having access to the email folder there's no way to understand who's taking care of what just by looking at the 3 colours.

The second pic shows how (in my mind :D ) I see the thing changing with the macro. I would like that anytime someone categories something (and the categorising action could be a trigger event to launch the macro maybe) his/her name or his/her name initials should appear (I've inserted the 2 examples) so that once someone has access to the outlook page could have a first insight at how the distribution of work is and could more easily retrieve the email that he/she had categorised.

For my understanding with your macro (I'm gonna try it on Monday) we would would have the same visual effect in the email box with the difference that when someone categorises the email it's name is than displayed (once we select the mail) inside the categorisation description.

Once again, thank your help. I hope my description is now more clear and again I'm all hears if you have any different type of solution for this issue.

Best regards.