Keeping track of communication threads

I’ve been trying to figure out how to group all the communication revolving around one topic. The topics are not on-going, as in over weeks and months. However, frequently, numerous people reply to an email over the courser of a few days but not in sequence. I want to be able to group them together or do something that keeps me keep track of all of them so I can reference.

The way to do this is to group your messages by conversation. To do this choose;
View-> Arrange By-> Conversation

If you want to combine this with your own sent items or when the messages have been scattered amongst different folders, you can use a Search Folder which includes the Inbox folder and the Sent Items folder (and any other folder you might want).

To create such a Search Folder choose;

1. File-> New-> Search Folder
2. Scroll down and choose "Create custom Search Folder"
3. Click "Choose…"
4. Name the Search Folder. For instance: Conversations
5. Click "Browse…"
6. If you want to search in your entire mailbox leave the selection of your root folder and the "Search subfolders" option. If you want to search all your Inbox and Sent Items folders, deselect the root folder and select the Inbox and Sent Items folder. If you don’t want to search subfolders of the Inbox and Sent Items folder, deselect the "Search subfolders" option.
7. Press "Ok" until you’re back to the main Outlook window.
8. Select the just created "Conversations" Search Folder and set the view to Group By Conversation