IMS in this case stands for "Information Management System." What that boils down
to is an excellent add-in for Microsoft Outlook that seamlessly integrates with
the stock user interface to provide tools to make it possible to more efficiently
manage a large volume of e-mail (which, sadly, more and more of us are facing these
days). If you're a fan of the
Getting Things Done system, you're likely to find this a very useful add-in
indeed.
The first thing ClearContext does is take over your Inbox with its custom prioritization
scheme. Based on several weighted factors (you can change the weighting), including
who the e-mail is from, how much you've participated in the conversation, and the
message and thread priority, this scheme color-codes messages and puts the more
important messages at the top of the list so they get your attention first. By default
ClearContext also groups conversations together so you can easily see what's been
going on.
Having found the important mail, what can you do with it? There are a number of
well thought-out one-click options here. For starters, you can assign a topic to
the message (either from a topic you've already created, or by making up a new topic
on the fly) and then file the message away under that topic; this makes for a much
easier filing scheme than Outlook's default way of creating folders and dragging
things around. Even better, you can turn a message into a task or an appointment
with a click, or delegate it to someone else. These options make it fast to clean
up an Inbox run amok. Finally, and perhaps most useful, is the built-in Defer functionality.
Click the button, pick an amount of time, and the message will vanish for that long,
coming back to your Inbox to pester you again when you're ready for it.
There are plenty of other nice touches here too. For example, you can have the application
file sent messages in the appropriate topic folder rather than stashing them all
in the giant Sent Items heap. There's a good set of rules for auto-assigning topics.
There's a Related View window that shows you, in one place, messages, tasks, and
appointments related to the current thread. There's a way to create followup tasks
that automatically cancel themselves if you get a response to your e-mail messages.
It all works quickly, and with toolbars in the main Outlook window and in message,
task, and appointment windows it's quite well-integrated with Outlook itself.
Version 3 of the product is a solid incremental upgrade from version 2. It adds
compatability with the RTM versions of Outlook 2007 and Windows Vista, as well as
support for Exchange 12. There are also some new features. One nice touch is the
ability to designate a set of Exchange Server public folders or a set of SharePoint
discussion lists as a secondary message store, and then to use ClearContext's features
to file messages into that store as well as into the primary store. This opens the
possibility of using ClearContext as a lightweight collaborative tool as well as
a personal productivity tool. If you're using Outlook 2007, you'll also find that
Related View is now integrated directly into e-mail messages, tasks, and appointments.
There are other usability enhancements throughout.
The only potential drawback I see here is that ClearContext really wants to take
things over for itself. If you've built up your own complex set of Outlook rules
and muscle memory of dragging things around and re-sorting views, it's probably
going to take you a while to learn to trust ClearContext. Similarly, if you're using
some other auto-filer, there may be conflicts as the two add-ins duke it out on
who gets to move messages where. But if you're overwhelmed by your Outlook Inbox
and looking for tools to help tame it, this one deserves a look. There's a trial
download available, as well as a free Personal Edition that lacks some of the advanced
organizing features.