Features and Usage of the “Perfony for Outlook” Add-in

Once you’re signed in (see ” Install the Perfony Add-in for Outlook”) , you can open the Perfony panel at any time by clicking the icon on the Outlook ribbon.

The Perfony add-in for Outlook will allow you to create and view links between your Perfony account and:

• Your Outlook emails: Turn an Outlook email into an action in Perfony and manage your Perfony actions from a sidebar in Outlook
• Your Outlook Meetings: Sync Your Outlook Meetings with Your Perfony Account

1. Convert an Outlook email into a Perfony action

There are three main subfeatures, which appear as tabs at the top of the Perfony panel in Outlook:

• Manage Your Action Plan
• Turn an email into a Perfony action
• View and respond to comments on your Perfony actions.

Manage Your Perfony Action Plan from Outlook

The first of the three tabs, it allows you to manage your action plan—that is, the list of tasks you need to complete or oversee, including any delays, priorities, progress, and task dependencies.

At the top, a drop-down menu lets you change how your actions are sorted based on the following settings:

• Name of the share
• State of progress
• Priority
• Expiry date
• Name of the attachment file.

Turn an email into an action in your Perfony

The second tab in the Perfony panel for Outlook lets you add a new Perfony action from within Outlook with a single click.

This is a very handy feature when you receive a message asking you to perform or have performed a certain action.

Clicking on the tab will bring up a pre-filled action creation form. The subject of the mail is proposed as the title of the action and the content of the mail is added to the additional information of the action.

You can edit these suggestions, on the one hand, and add additional information, on the other:

• A priority
• A deadline
• A manager
• An attachment file (by default, the action will be added to your Todo)

Click “Create,” and you’re done. To be sure, go back to the “My Actions” tab in the “Perfony for Outlook” panel—your action should already appear there (provided you are the one responsible for it).

View and respond to comments on your Perfony actions

It is necessary to make sure a small adjustment is made in order to operate this tab.

Go to your Perfony dashboard (you can use the link in the lower-right corner of the “Perfony for Outlook” panel), then access the preferences menu by clicking on your avatar and select “Email Alerts.”

Make sure that email notifications for adding comments are enabled.

Now that this has been verified, let’s go back to the “Perfony” pane in Outlook.

The third tab, “Comments,” is only active in emails notifying you of a new comment about you on Perfony.

This tab lets you view the entire history of comments related to your actions and reply to them without having to leave your email inbox.

Creating your Perfony meetings from Outlook

With the Perfony add-in for Outlook, a meeting you organise in Outlook also becomes a Perfony meeting, with nothing to type again: the subject, date and time, venue or Teams link, recurrence and participants are taken over when the invitation is sent. You then find the meeting in Perfony to prepare the agenda, write the minutes and follow the action plan. A change to the invitation in Outlook is carried over to Perfony.

Before you start

• The Perfony add-in must have been deployed by your organisation’s Microsoft 365 administrator (see Install the Perfony for Outlook add-in): the Perfony button then appears in the Outlook ribbon. Installed by yourself from the add-in store, it shows the pane but does not create the meeting when sending.
• You need a pilot profile in Perfony, and the same e-mail in Outlook and in Perfony. Participants are recognised by their e-mail: those without a Perfony account do not appear in the Perfony meeting.
• Outlook on the web, new Outlook for Windows, classic Outlook for Windows (version 2206 or later) and Outlook for Mac. On Outlook mobile, the pane exists, but not the creation when sending.

Creating a synchronised meeting

1. In the Outlook calendar, create a new event: subject, participants, date, venue or Teams meeting.
2. Before sending, click Perfony in the ribbon. The Perfony pane opens on the right.

1. On first use, the pane lists your Perfony accounts: choose your organisation’s one (or Sign in with another account). The choice is remembered.

1. The pane takes over the subject, the dates, the pilot (you) and the participants. The Meeting synchronised in Perfony switch is on: leave it so. To send an invitation without a Perfony meeting, switch it off.

1. Click Send. The Perfony meeting is created when the invitation is sent, in your instance, with you as its pilot.

Updating or detaching a meeting

1. Open the meeting in your Outlook calendar, then click Perfony: the pane shows that it is synchronised.
2. After changing the invitation (date, participants, subject), click Synchronise with Perfony to carry the changes over, or just send the update to the participants: synchronisation happens when sending.
3. Open in Perfony shows the Perfony meeting in a new tab.
4. To detach the meeting, switch the switch off then send the update: the Perfony meeting is deleted, the Outlook event remains.

Good to know

• If you are not signed in to Perfony when sending, Outlook blocks the sending with the message “Please log in to Perfony via the front panel before sending” and an Open Perfony button: sign in from the pane, then send again.
• The pane is opened on the invitation before sending: that is what arms the creation. An invitation sent without opening the pane does not create a Perfony meeting.
• A user without a pilot profile sees the message “You must have a ‘pilot’ licence for meeting management”: they can use the pane on e-mails (actions, comments), not the meeting synchronisation.
• A recurring meeting in Outlook becomes a recurring meeting in Perfony, with the same repetition rule.
• On a received e-mail, the same Perfony button opens your action plans to create an action or a comment from the message.