Outlook - Creating a task with subtasks underneath

[jonlien]

Does anyone know of an Outlook 3rd party add-on that allows me to create a task hierarchy similar to an outline format? I am a big fan of Ecco and have used it in the past for creating task hierarchy, but I really want to standardized on Outlook now.

Thanks.

 

[zigzag]

While not exactly an Outlook 3rd party app, I have been very happy using Natara's Bonsai . It allows you to create heirarchical lists of items that can be tasks or not. You can also link those tasks into Outlook automatically.

The only partial downside is that this program must be used with a Palm. So if you're not a Palm user, you're kinda out of luck. I'm surprised that they don't have a straight desktop only version. It has great Palm and Desktop software. Very usable.

I've been using it for about 2 months now with my Treo 650 and I'm loving it. I really needed a way to manage large project task lists without cluttering up my categories.

 

[Veritas]

I am not using a 3rd party software but have modified Outlook to achieve an outline view by creating user defined fields called Project, Areas of Responsibility, and Domain. I customized the task view to group task by Domain, Areas of Responsibility, and Projects.

NA tasks are associated to the user defined fields either by a custom outlook task form upon cration, filling in the fields for each task, or after you have populated some you can just mouse click and drag the tasks to associate them to any existing Domain, AOR, Project in the customized task view.

Here is an example of the customized task view. Clicking on Domain drills down all the way to the NA task.

+Domain: Work
+Areas of Responsibility: Budget
-Areas of Responsibility: Reporting
-Project: [Third Quarter Forecast] 3 items
[Third Quarter Forecast]create SepYTD actuals report
[Third Quarter Forecast]create Oct-Dec run rate report
[Third Quarter Forecast]ask team for any known Oct-Dec purchases
+Domain: Home
+Areas of Responsibility: Family
+Areas of Responsibility: Household
+Domain: Work SDMB
+Domain: Home SDMB

This is by no means perfect but is working for me. I have heard of another 3rd party software called LifeBalance that syncs up with Outlook.

 

[mcogilvie]

Does anyone know of an Outlook 3rd party add-on that allows me to create a task hierarchy similar to an outline format? I am a big fan of Ecco and have used it in the past for creating task hierarchy, but I really want to standardized on Outlook now.

Thanks.

Um, the Netcentrics GTD Add-in sold on this site? The latest version support subprojects. I think they may also discuss how to implement levels above projects. It's actually not hard to implement these kinds of levels within Outlook yourself, but it does require some knowledge of Outlook and some discipline. The basic idea is to use extra fields for the extra levels, and use Outlooks "Group by" feature to get a collapsible outline.

 

[jonlien]

Thanks For Your Help

Veritas,

Good idea. I will take a look at your implementation.

 

[UscholdM]

Outlook User-Defined Fields - syncing to Treo 650

I am not using a 3rd party software but have modified Outlook to achieve an outline view by creating user defined fields called Project, Areas of Responsibility, and Domain. I customized the task view to group task by Domain, Areas of Responsibility, and Projects.

NA tasks are associated to the user defined fields either by a custom outlook task form upon cration, filling in the fields for each task, or after you have populated some you can just mouse click and drag the tasks to associate them to any existing Domain, AOR, Project in the customized task view.

Here is an example of the customized task view. Clicking on Domain drills down all the way to the NA task.

+Domain: Work
+Areas of Responsibility: Budget
-Areas of Responsibility: Reporting
-Project: [Third Quarter Forecast] 3 items
[Third Quarter Forecast]create SepYTD actuals report
[Third Quarter Forecast]create Oct-Dec run rate report
[Third Quarter Forecast]ask team for any known Oct-Dec purchases
+Domain: Home
+Areas of Responsibility: Family
+Areas of Responsibility: Household
+Domain: Work SDMB
+Domain: Home SDMB

This is by no means perfect but is working for me. I have heard of another 3rd party software called LifeBalance that syncs up with Outlook.

This is a nice solution for using Outlook. Will this information carry over to a TREO 650 when synching Outlook?

Mike

 

[Veritas]

Outlook User-Defined Fields - syncing to Treo 650

Mike,

I do not have a Treo 650, but assuming it has Palm OS, no, it will not sync this information to the Treo, only the task level information will sync. I plan on my PC and sync to my Palm Pilot and use it to view and select tasks by category (@Errands, @Calls, @Home PC, etc.). If a PDA has Windows Mobile software (which I am not familiar with), perhaps the custom fields created in Outlook can be created and synced in the PDA.

Bill

 

[UscholdM]

Mike,

I do not have a Treo 650, but assuming it has Palm OS, no, it will not sync this information to the Treo, only the task level information will sync. I plan on my PC and sync to my Palm Pilot and use it to view and select tasks by category (@Errands, @Calls, @Home PC, etc.). If a PDA has Windows Mobile software (which I am not familiar with), perhaps the custom fields created in Outlook can be created and synced in the PDA.

Bill

Thanks. I looked at the software "Documents to Go" which seems to do a pretty thorough job of handling Office documents for a Palm.

Does anyone know whether the approach using user-defined fields in Outlook [described in a prior message] will sync with a Palm (e.g. TREO 650?)

Thanks
Mike

 

[joeycan]

You might be able to if you use a tool like chapura keysuite which allows to sync many fields over to Palm and Treo 650.