InLoox for Outlook Features

Integrated project management for successful teams

  • Extends Microsoft Outlook to a central project platform
  • Easy-to-use and self-explanatory
  • High user acceptance thanks to the familiar user interface
  • Can be used as a stand-alone solution or in combination
    with InLoox Web App and/or InLoox Mobile App
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Project planning: Deliver your projects on time, budget and scope

  • Gantt chart
    • Easy planning: Get a visual overview of upcoming tasks and resource allocation.
    • Flexible project planning: Inloox adapts to your planning methods. Use it for simple projects but also for complex projects with dependencies and constraints. 
    • Templates: Save time by creating templates. You can export, import and share these templates. You can also import MS Project plans into. 
    • Reporting: Print project plans or create meaningful project reports.
    • Snapshot feature: Record the current state of your project plan and use it to compare the status at different times. This feature is a backup as you can restore your plan to a previous snapshot.
    • Timeline feature: Keep track of the most important elements of your plan.
  • Easy scheduling
    • As you like it: Choose between forward and backward scheduling. 
    • Working time calendars: Add individual holiday calendars and working time calendars to incorporate different working time models such as shift work or part-time work. InLoox takes these times into account for the project scheduling. 
    • Time zones: You don't have to convert local times when planning projects for geographically dispersed teams. InLoox automatically uses the time zone settings of the device you're using. 
  • Multi project management
    • Project groups: Link project plans of two or more interdependent projects. This allows you to see dependencies between the projects and to identify and prevent bottlenecks in your ressource allocation. 
    • Publish planning elements: You can publish planning elements such as activities or milestones in other projects, e.g. to incorporate elements from a master organization-wide project plan into specific departmental projects. 

Task Management: Take your productivity to the next level

  • Kanban Boards
    • Agile project management: Organize tasks in a customizable virtual Kanban board.
    • Status: Quickly change the status of a task via drag and drop.
    • Collaboration: All team members see at a glance which tasks are pending, which are in progress and which are already done.
  • Personal and project tasks
    • Personal tasks: Organize your To-Dos in personal tasks without having to create a project or project plan
    • Global task list: Keep track of your tasks across all your projects 
    • Task list: Display the InLoox task sidepanel in Outlook and never miss important due dates.
    • Project tasks: Assign tasks to actitivities in the project time planning. Tasks are in sync with the project schedule and the project's progress is automatically updated as soon as a task is completed. 
    • Outlook synchronization: Sync InLoox tasks with Outlook Tasks or the Outlook Calendar
  • Create & edit tasks
    • Task organization: Leave a comment on the task, link documents and lists to the task and assign tasks to team members
    • Lists: Add check-lists to tasks or use the list feature to organize project information in a structured way even before creating a project schedule.

Collaboration & communication: So teams can work better together

  • Integrated communication
    • Turn mails directly into a new project or task: The One Click feature enables you to create a new project directly out of an email. Or turn the email into a project task or file it in the document storage - all without leaving the Outlook email view. This accelerates your project workflows. 
    • Customizable email templates: Save time with custom email templates that you can access directly from the Outlook message window. E.g. create templates for project kick-offs or project requests - all relevant information is automatically included and you don't have to write the same mails over and over again. 
  • Comments & notes
    • Project communication in one place: Reduce the number of meetings, calls and emails to coordinate your project. Comments and tasks enable you to keep your project communication and information directly in InLoox. 
    • Project notes: Use project notes to communicate important project updates and information with your team.
    • Task comments: Leave comments to keep your project manager up-to-date. As a project manager, you can use the task comments to leave feedback for your team members. 
  • Notifications
    • Automatic notifications: The notification system informs you automatically if changes were made to the project plan, project tasks, time tracking entries or if new documents were added to the project. 
    • Reminders: InLoox informs you about upcoming and pending tasks. You can decide when or if you want to receive reminders. 

Resource management: Identify bottlenecks & allocate workloads more efficiently

  • Resource availability & workload
    • Workload overview: You have an instant and complete overview of all project resources (team members, rooms, tools etc.) and their availability across all projects. The InLoox workload view integrates project tasks as well as Microsoft Exchange calendar appointments. 
    • Re-assign tasks: To create a balanced workload between teams and team members, assign tasks to another resource at the push of a button. 
  • Teams & skills
    • Team & departments: Define custom teams or use the department structure to monitor the groups' real-time workload. This enables you to see how the workload and spare capacities are distributed across teams and departments and react to bottlenecks quickly. 
    • Find the right person for the right job: You can add skills of your team members into InLoox, such as language skills, special industry knowledge or certifications. So you can easily find the right team member with the required skills for specific projects or tasks. This helps you save time searching for the right talent. 

Document management: All project documents in one place

  • Personal & project documents
    • Project documents: InLoox organizes your file or SharePoint Server. Access your project related documents directly from your projects or from the global document list. 
    • Personal documents: You can also organize your project-independent or private files in InLoox. It's up to you whether you want to keep them private or make them visible 
  • Document storage & folders
    • Consistent folder structure: InLoox creates project folders according to your settings. You can predefine subfolders that will be created automatically and even add custom rules for when a folder is created. 
    • Storage concept: InLoox saves storage space and avoids duplicates simultaneously. As the solution works with file and object links, documents are not saved in Outlook or Exchange Server. In InLoox now! it's possible to upload documents to the cloud.
  • Easy document management
    • Favorites: You can mark important files as favorites and add tags that show the status of the documents (e.g. "in review", "done" etc.)
    • Document previews: Have a quick loock at your project documents without even having to open them. You can add internet links as documents and even browse the page directly in InLoox. 
    • Outlook workflow: You can save Outlook emails as documents in InLoox - with or without attachments. You can also add an email attachment via drag and drop directly into an InLoox document folder. So all project-relevant mails are filed directly in InLoox. 
    • Link documents to other project elements: Create project documents directly from the project plan, time tracking or task. You can also link documents directly to these project elements. 

Mind maps: Structure your ideas visually

  • Idea generation & brainstorming
    • Record your ideas: Collect and organize ideas and information on your project visually. 
    • Be creative: You can edit and format the mindmap nodes to structure your thoughts, concepts and drafts. 
  • Seamless planning process: from the first brainstorming to implementation
    • One step further: The inloox mind map is not just a visualization feature. You can use it as a draft for your project plan. Which is why you can assign resources to a mind map node or link documents to it.
    • From mind map to kanban: You can turn your whole mind map, or specific nodes into tasks with just a few clicks. Information such as resources will be transferred as well - so you don't have to assigen resources to all the tasks again. 
    • From mind map to project plan: You can also copy a mind map into the planning. All nodes will turn into activities. All relevant information, e.g. linked documents, will be transferred accordingly. You can identify mind map nodes that have been copied to the kanban or planning by the resprective icons appearing on the right of each node. 
    • Mind map templates: You can share mind map templates with your team or use them in other projects. You can also import MindManager© files and edit them directly in InLoox for Outlook. Of course it's also possible to export a mind map template as a InLoox mind map file or other file formats. 
InLoox feature: Mind maps - Brainstorm new ideas and projects with your team and implement your ideas directly in InLoox by copying your mind map into the planning or Kanban.

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Time tracking: Compare planned and actual effort spent on tasks

  • Time tracking "en passant"
    • No more excel lists: You don't have to update long excel lists and add all information manually. InLoox can transfer key information from Outlook automatically, e.g. from calendar entries, tasks or emails. This makes documenting your efforts easier and more conistent - important for purposes such as billing. 
    • Stop watch: Team members can track the time they spend on tasks precisely with the integrated stop watch in InLoox for Outlook. As soon as they start to work on project-related task, the can just start the stop watch. When they've finished the task, they can save the tracked time directly to the corresponding project task. So they don't have to guestimate their work times and can concentrate on the tasks at hand. 
  • Plan / actual comparison
    • Planned & actual expenses: Compare planned and actual time spent on a task. This allows you to compare planned expenses (estimated effort it takes to complete a task) and actual expenses (actual time spent on completing the task recorded via time tracking). 
    • Better future project planning: When team members track their time consistently, it allows the project manager to make better estimates for future projects. Better estimates lead to better project planning. 

Budgeting: More accurate project budgeting

  • Expenses & revenues
    • Planning your project budget: InLoox clearly defines the project budget by planned and actual expenses and revenues. 
    • Budget templates: You can customize all budget templates according to your needs - this makes project budgeting much quicker since you don't have to start from scratch. 
    • Estimation & billing: InLoox enables you to create, send and follow-up project-oriented offers & invoices. Ongoing billing is also possiple based on project time tracking. The automatic billing numeration prevent forgetting any expenses or chargin twice. 
  • Budget overview & management
    • Budget visualization: A graphical representation of your planned and actual expenses and revenues of your project gives you an instant overview of your budget status and compare your expenses and revenues. You can identify budget deviations in advance & react on time if you see that a project is in danger of overrunning its budget. This allows you a complete control over the development of your project costs. 
    • Clearly defined permissions: Only authorized users have access to the budget planning. InLoox admins can give and deny access to view or edit budgets. 

Project controlling & reporting: Monitor your project's success

  • List views: projects, tasks, documents, time tracking
    • InLoox list views: Use the cross-project list views for projects, tasks, documents and time tracking to keep track of your all your projects. The list are similar to lists in Outlook and are just as simple to navigate
    • Sort, filter, group: The list views enable you to organize, sort and group items, e.g. by resource, deadlines, project types, priorities etc. So you can be sure to find the imformation you need quickly. 
    • Conditional formatting: Highlight information visually with conditional formatting. E.g. you can create a traffic light system to track your projects' progress - red can indicate that the project is in danger of not being completed on time. 
    • Save views: You can save custom views without having to create new views every time. You can even share list views with your team. 
  • Dashboards
    • Keep track of your project portfolio: You can monitor expenses, returns und deadlines and other important project KPIs effortlessly. InLoox shows you key data and developments at a glance, so you can identify budget overruns and missed deadlines in advance and react in time. 
    • Dashboard templates out of the box: InLoox offers several dashboard templates out of the box, such as a task overview, milestone trend analysis, expenses/revenues comparison and more. Download our dashboard templates here.
    • Dashboard designer: The powerful dashboard designer tool enables you to create graphic project dashboards from different diagram options and data sources.
  • Reports
    • Report templates: InLoox provides you with a wide range of different report types and templates, e.g. planning and budget overviews, plan-actual comparisons, cross-project timesheets, memos, status reports, cover letters, billing and quotation templates.  
    • Report designer: The report designer allows you to customize the layout and appearance of your project reports - even without programming knowledge. You can customize templates templates according to your corporate design and predefined structures. 

Integrations: Integrate InLoox into your existing systems & processes

  • InLoox and Outlook
    • Link information the smart way: InLoox interlinks tasks, appointments, email and contacts in Outlook directly with project information and synchronizes it in the background. You can create an InLoox task, file and email and track your time from anywhere in Outlook. 
    • Email to task to document: Turn emails into tasks via the Outlook ribbon, file them as document or drag the mail into the kanban board. 
    • One-Click feature: Use the One-Click-Feature to create a project, a task or document out of an email. 
    • Calendar entries to task or time tracking: Easily turn calendar entries into project tasks and/or time tracking entries.
    • Outlook contacts: InLoox uses your Outlook contacts for your projects and you can manage the address book centrally. 
  • Customizability
    • Custom fields & views: Define custom fields and views to get exactly the information you need. 
    • Custom reports & templates: You can create custom reports according to your needs and corporate identity. You can also use custom templates for project plans, tasks, mind maps and budgets to optimize your workflows. 
    • Custom notifications: The on-premise version, InLoox PM, allows you to create custom notifications to send to your project team. 
  • InLoox and your systems landscape
    • Application Programming Interface (API): InLoox offers an open API which enables data exchange between InLoox and other systems, such as SAP, ERP, CRM, Salesforce and more. 
    • Microsoft Office landscape: InLoox is not just integrated in Outlook - it's easy to integrate InLoox into the Office / Office 365 universe and doing so makes Microsoft the central platform on which users work together on a daily basis. 
    • InLoox technology architecture: InLoox supports a number of database systems of widely varying performance levels and for different installation scenarios - so you can accurately tailor it for a secure and efficient operation. Including remote branche offices or freelance employees is also simple. InLoox supports secure internet tunnels (VPN), dial-up connections (RAS) as well as data exchange and replication between servers (replication, clustering) located in different locations. InLoox is also designed for a robust operation with Windows Terminal Server, e.g. in conjunction with Citrix. 

    More information about Integrations here

Security: Protecting your project data is our priority

  • Roles & user permissions
    • Flexible permission management concept: The finely structured and freely definable security architecture allows you to assign permissions without much administrative effort. With read-only or editing permissions you can make sure that only authorized users gain access to sensitive data.  
    • Role permissions: Are defined according to the function in the project (i.e. project manager, team member). InLoox assigns permissions according to each role. Depending on what role you have, you'll be able to access different information in different projects. 
    • User permissions: Apply to all projects and are hierarchically above role permissions. E.g. person A is team member in project B + the role "team member" doesn't allow to view budgets, but person A has user permission for this = Person A can see the budgets in project B. 
  • Integrated security
    • Active Directory & Exchange Server: InLoox connects with Active Directory and Exchange accounts so you only have to create and store user accounts once. This allows you to include freelance employees, trainees or suppliers effortlessly. 
    • Connectivity & authentication: Connecting to the InLoox database is completely secure thanks to firewalls, logical separations and powerful permission concepts. Download the PDF on connectivity & authentication here
    • Data security: We have installed technical measures, safety features and binding corporate procedures to ensure the safety of your data. Learn more about InLoox now! security here
    • Location of data: All InLoox now! (SaaS) project data is stored in Germany data centers located in Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, thus adheres to high-standard security regulations (GDPR).