You use smart tags to perform tasks such as scheduling appointments, emailing letters, and adding Outlook contacts, all based on data displayed on an Access form. You can even determine the weather, or get the latest news on each city that appears on an Access form!
It's extremely simple to add a smart tag to an Access form. Here are the steps involved:
Create a new form, or open an existing form in Design view.
Select the control on which you want to base the smart tag. For example, if you want to use the smart tag to schedule an appointment, you would probably want to select a control bound to the contact name field.
Show the Data properties for the Control and click within the Smart Tags property (see Figure 5.45).
Click the Build button (the ellipsis). The Smart Tags dialog appears (see Figure 5.46).
Click to select the smart tag you want to add. For example, to send mail, schedule a meeting, open an existing contact, and add new contacts, select Person Name.
Click OK. A smart tag appears in the Smart Tags property (see Figure 5.47).
After you have added a smart tag to a control, you will notice smart tag action buttons when you view the form in Form view (see Figure 5.48). Click the action button for a particular record to see the actions available for that smart tag. In Figure 5.49 you can see that the Person Name smart tag has the Send Mail, Schedule a Meeting, Open Contact, and Add to Contacts menu items all associated with it. Figure 5.50 shows the result of selecting the Schedule a Meeting menu item.