Creating Access ‘Jobs’, and Triggering Them from Outlook

In this post, I’m going to cover how to create a ‘Job’ in Access, and how to setup a reminder in Outlook, including a ‘Trigger from Outlook’ button.

This post assumes you’re largely familiar with importing data into access (I’ll try and do a post on this some time, for those of you less familiar). This technique also works for exporting data.

I’ve used this technique in Office 2010 & 2013.

Go ahead and create a new database, or open your existing one

Setup your Import or Export

After you’ve completed your import, you should see a screen asking if you would like to save your import steps…

Tick the Save Import Steps. This will prompt you to provide a name, thus creating a ‘job’. If you want to trigger from Outlook, tick the ‘Create Outlook Task’ box as well

Clicking ‘Save Import’ will then close the window, but opens up a pre-populated Outlook Task.

Adjust the parameters per your requirement, including, if required, setting it up as a recurring task

Once you’re done, hit Save & Close. This creates your task.

Then, when your task is due, Outlook will prompt you (if you setup a reminder)

Open up the task (double click on it)

Then, on the ribbon there should be a ‘Run Import’ button

That should be it. If you get an error message saying Failed to Execute Spec – just be sure your database has been saved & closed once since you created it.

If you want to create an Outlook task for any import/export jobs you’ve already created, then in Access simple go to the ‘External Data’ tab and select Saved Imports / Saved Exports (doesn’t matter which, they share a menu screen)

This will list your saved jobs. Select one, and then ‘Create Outlook Task’ from the bottom

And, as Forrest Gump would say, ‘That’s all I have to say about that‘ (don’t deny it – you did the voice too, didn’t you?)

Enjoy the rest of your day