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The Best Outlook Plugins & Add-Ins for Business

Like most of us, you probably use Microsoft Outlook every day. Although you use it to check your emails, you may also

Like most of us, you probably use Microsoft Outlook every day. Although you use it to check your emails, you may also use it for a lot more. The calendar feature tells you who you are meeting and when and it’s your go to place for the phone number of a contact.

These features alone make Outlook a really powerful platform. But the addition of add-ins and plugins to expand its functionality and integrate it with other platforms can make Outlook one of the most important tools in your office.

There are a huge number of Outlook add-ins out there. Sometimes, it’s hard to find exactly what you are looking for. We have put together a list of tools we have found useful in the past to help get you thinking about how you can make Outlook work best for you and your business.

DocuSign for Outlook

Printing, signing, scanning and faxing documents can be a time consuming and tedious task for many professionals. The Microsoft Outlook add-in from DocuSign makes this process a little easier. You will never have to print and sign another email attachment ever again. With this add-in installed, the next time you receive an attachment which requires a signature, simply click “Sign Attachments” in the ribbon bar and drag and drop your signature or initials. Your attachment is signed and ready to send, all without leaving Outlook.

Boomerang for Outlook

Boomerang is a productivity add-in for Outlook which helps keep your inbox organized with useful reminders and scheduling features. Temporarily archive emails from your inbox and have them returned as unread when you actually need them. This helps you to keep your inbox uncluttered without overlooking important tasks. Boomerang for Outlook also has great features for scheduling meetings such as the ability to send an interactive calendar with available slots allowing the recipient to confirm a time with one click.

Wunderlist for Outlook

Wunderlist is a productivity application which helps you keep on top of the huge volume of emails you receive every day by moving tasks from your emails into easily manageable to-do lists. When you receive an email which requires an action, simply click the Wunderlist button and the application will automatically create a new task with the subject line as the title and the email’s content as the note. Wunderlist also has some great collaboration features which allow you to share to-do lists with other members of your team.

Wunderlist Outlook Add-in Screenshot

Skype for Outlook

Skype is one of the world’s most popular video chat services and has become an essential piece of software in many businesses. This plugin brings the great functionality of Skype to your Microsoft Outlook.com account. With Skype for Outlook, you can add Skype details to your existing email contacts. Then easily send instant message or launch a voice or video call with your contacts, all without ever leaving Outlook. This is a really great tool for those situations where a quick call is better than a series of emails.

Messageware Utility Belt

The Utility Belt from Messageware adds a number of useful business tools; an advanced calendar, a calculator which supports copy and paste and a stopwatch to help you keep track of time spent on tasks. This plugin also has useful features for users working in international teams or who have colleagues, clients or partners in other regions. The Time Zones feature is useful when arranging calls and meetings. While the Area Codes reverse lookup feature allows you to identify a contacts location based on their phone number.

Salesforce Lightning for Outlook

If your business is using Salesforce CRM you will definitely want to download this Outlook add-in. Salesforce Lightning for Outlook brings the business intelligence contained in your CRM to your email client and allows you to see all cases, opportunities and custom entries associated with an email address. The Salesforce Lightning plugin also boosts your team’s productivity as it allows you to easily create new Salesforce records and opportunities without ever leaving your Outlook account.

Salesforce Outlook Add-in Screenshot

RoomFinder

Finding and booking an available meeting room can be a real challenge in many offices. The RoomFinder Outlook add-in makes finding an available meeting room which meets your needs a whole lot easier. Along with the usual features you would expect such as availability and support for multiple locations and time zones, RoomFinder also allows you to search and sort rooms by feature, capacity and purpose. So, booking a meeting room with a projector and space for ten people becomes easier than ever.

Find and Dial Numbers

The Find and Dial Number add-in for Outlook is an application which does just one thing but does it well. This add-in will scan any email in your Outlook account and identify telephone or fax number written in plain text. It will then add the tel: markup to these numbers allowing you to simply click the phone number to dial. This will work with any application which supports tel: hyperlinks for dialing, such as the Skype for Outlook plugin above.

Messageware TakeNote

TakeNote adds the ability to create notes and reminders and associate them with individual emails or contacts from within Outlook. Notes can be easily added, viewed and edited at any time by clicking on the TakeNote button in Outlook. This allows you to easily add reminders for follow ups or document non email interactions with the contact.

Takenote Outlook Add-in Screenshot

Templafy Digital Assets

Templafy Digital Assets works across the Microsoft Office suite of tools and streamlines document and correspondence creation. Create a text and image library of assets which you and your team use regularly such as logos, quote templates, directions to your office or terms and conditions. Create emails more quickly by simply clicking the Templafy tab and adding in the required template content.

Companybook Insider

The Companybook plugin adds useful business insights to your emails and is great for sales and marketing teams. Compantbook will automatically detect the company an email has been sent from based on the domain and provides a panel with relevant company information including: industry, contact details, news and even a list of executives and decision-makers. These fields can be clicked to reveal even more information making researching a business easier than ever.

Smartsheet for Outlook

Smartsheet is a platform which helps teams manage and automate collaborative projects by creating interactive workflow and project management spreadsheets. The Outlook add-in makes it easy for you to add the information from your emails directly to a Smartsheet. Emails can be easily converted into shared tasks or added to existing tasks to add context. And attachments can be added to existing sheets to allow the whole team to access them.

MailMeter & Mailbox Analyzer Lite

An email archiving solution is an essential tool for any business using email. MailMeter from Waterford Technologies provides a reliable and secure email storage and archiving solution and helps you to reduce email storage, meet compliance requirements and avoid data loss.

MailMeter’s Individual Search & Retrieval feature also allows end-users to quickly and easily search for and find every email they have ever sent or received. And our optional Outlook Add-In helps users make the most of their existing Outlook email account.

To see how MailMeter can help your business with email storage and management, download your free copy of Mailbox Analyzer Lite by clicking here now. Alternatively, get in touch with the team at Waterford Technologies and we can help find the right solution for you.

Mailbox Analyzer Lite

 

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