Hivelight & Microsoft Outlook

Hivelight and Microsoft Outlook

For most lawyers, the inbox is still the default task manager. Emails get flagged, starred, or left unread as a reminder to act. Important requests get buried. Follow-ups fall through the cracks. And at the end of the day, the inbox feels more like a problem than a tool.

The Hivelight Outlook Add-In solves this. It lets you convert any email into a properly structured task — assigned to the right matter, the right milestone, and the right person — in seconds, without leaving Outlook.

Why the Inbox Is a Poor Task Manager

Email is built for communication, not work management. Flags and stars don't tell you what matters, who owns it, or when it's due. They don't connect correspondence to matters. They don't give your team visibility into what's been actioned and what hasn't.

When your team manages tasks from their inbox, important work becomes invisible to the rest of the firm. Partners can't see workloads. Deadlines get missed. Nothing is accountable.

Hivelight changes that by making it trivially easy to take an email and turn it into a structured, trackable piece of work — right from within Outlook.

What the Hivelight Outlook Add-In Does

Convert Emails into Tasks Without Switching Apps

When an email arrives that requires action, open the Hivelight Add-In panel within Outlook, select the matter it relates to, and create a task. The email subject becomes the task name. The email body becomes the task description. The client correspondence is captured, linked to the right matter, and assigned to the right person — all in under 30 seconds.

Keep All Correspondence Linked to the Right Matter

No more hunting through your inbox for that email a client sent three weeks ago. When you create a task from an email, the full content of the correspondence is saved as the task description in Hivelight, permanently linked to the matter. Your entire team can see it, reference it, and act on it — even if they weren't cc'd.

Assign Work Directly from Your Inbox

Don't just note that something needs to be done — assign it. When creating a task from an email, you can immediately select an assignee and a reviewer, set a due date, and choose the milestone it belongs to. Work gets delegated the moment it arrives, not hours later.

Run Your Day to Your Priorities, Not Your Inbox

Because all actionable emails are converted into tasks in Hivelight, your day is no longer dictated by whoever emailed you last. You log into Hivelight's dashboard and see your tasks ranked by urgency — across all matters, all clients. Your inbox becomes for communication. Hivelight becomes for work.

Works Everywhere You Use Outlook

The Hivelight Add-In works seamlessly across all versions of Outlook:

• Outlook on the Web (browser)
• New Outlook (desktop)
• Classic Outlook (desktop)

The experience is consistent across all three — so your team gets the same productivity boost regardless of how they access their email.

How to Create a Task from an Email

1. Open the email you want to act on.
2. Click the Hivelight Add-In icon in your Outlook toolbar to open the side panel.
3. Sign in to your Hivelight account (one-time setup).
4. Select your workspace.
5. Start typing the matter name — Hivelight will suggest matches from your active matters.
6. Review the pre-filled task details:
   • Task Name — defaults to the email subject. Edit as needed.
   • Task Description — defaults to the email body. Add context or instructions as needed.
   • Milestone — defaults to the current active milestone on the matter. Change if required.
   • Due Date — defaults to today. Adjust to the appropriate deadline.
   • Assignee and Reviewer — select from your team.
7. Click Create Task.

The task is immediately visible in Hivelight, attached to the correct matter and milestone, and the assignee is notified. Click View Task to jump straight to it in Hivelight, or click Clear to convert your next email.

The Business Case

For a firm handling 20 or more active matters, the Hivelight Outlook Add-In can save each fee earner 30–60 minutes per day — time previously spent manually logging correspondence, creating tasks, and chasing colleagues for updates. Across a team of five, that's 2–5 hours of productive capacity recovered every single day.