Feature Suggestion

Wed, 09/12/2012 - 06:44 — dhowie

For a future version, I'd like to suggest that you devise a means of indicating which projects have open tasks in them when viewing the entire project list in the Project Explorer. For example, I have a workspace I call "Propsects". Within that workspace, I have set each of my active prospects as individual projects, of which I currently have forty.

Each of those projects may or may not have an open task assigned to them at any given point in time, but the only way I can tell if they have a task is to open each one individually. If the projects that have a task assigned to them were marked somehow (e.g. highlighted, different colored icon, indicator mark in front of the project icon), I'd be able to quickly identify those projects to review my progress on the tasks within.

Or perhaps I've missed something that would allow me to do this in the current version?

Dennis

Organizer Forum

Sat, 09/15/2012 - 12:50 — Chris

Great Idea

Dennis -

Thanks for the suggestion.

I need to understand what you mean by 'open'.

One thing you could do is use the status field within the task, e.g. In-Process, Deferred, etc. And then as you work each prospect, you can change the status of the task, e.g.

Adding new tasks to a prospect would create a number of tasks (perhaps a WBS if you use the same task structure for every prospect) that start life as "Not Started". Then as you're ready (or as you plan) each prospect, you could change the tasks you're currently working, move them to "In Progress".

You can see how many tasks are "In Progress" by the bar chart on the Organizer task pane, and you can use the 'Focus' filter for "In Progress". You can mouse over any of the tasks to see which project the task is assigned to. You can also use the project filter button on the task pane to zero-in on a specific project (prospect). You could also use the Due Date to put the tasks on your calendar and sort on due date. And visually see how the tasks are laid out on Outlook's calendar view.

Also - considering the project (prospect) is an Outlook category, you can go into Outlook's task folder and organize the tasks by Category to get one list where the tasks are grouped by category (prospect).

Hope that helps.

thx
Chris

Mon, 09/17/2012 - 04:12 — dhowie

Project Management

Chris:

As opposed to strictly a task manager, I've embraced the Ceptara Organizer as a project manager. I'm using Workspaces pretty extensively to break the key areas of my life into project focus areas, so I have a Workspace for my Home, one for my Family, one for the Office, one for my Church, one for a youth Football Team I help coach, and so on.

One of these workspaces is called "Prospects". Within that workspace, I have each individual prospect set up as projects. Each project may or may not have actions (tasks) assigned to them at any given point in time. When I refered to an "open task", I was talking about an action item that is not yet completed.

While I utilize the Organizer Pane in Outlook, my primary interface with the Organizer is the Project Explorer. It allows me to focus in on the various workspaces (something the Organizer Pane does not allow), see what projects I have within them, and ultimately what actions I have "open" within each project.

My suggestion is to develop a way within the Project Explorer to indicate which projects have unfinished tasks within them simply by looking at the project list when it is viewed in the pane on the left side of the Explorer. I guess I'm being "lazy", as I don't want to have to click on each individual project, or filter each project individually in the Organizer Pane, to see which ones have uncompleted tasks. And while the Tsk view in Outlook provides numerous ways to sort tasks, I have not been able to figure how to sort by Workspaces there.

Dennis