Really great program would be perfect with calendars and ability to email tasks to user.
Frank Marciano
via web
The email function should be easy, providing one email address for each user and then let them or yourself assign the mail item as a task
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Support Staff 2 Posted by John Skufca on 03 Jun, 2010 02:56 PM
Hello Frank,
Would you mind expanding on the calendars functionality? Having a calendar view or integrating it with other calendar software?
We have talked about the option to create tasks via email but right now it is just a discussion. We like this idea, but finding a way to implement it is a different story. With email, you have a subject and body text. With Stacks, their are many more fields to consider like client, project, task title, start date, due date, status, and details. How that information is assigned with an email is the question.
We have some ideas but this is not a feature that will be implemented in the near future.
John
Stacks Admin/User
3 Posted by frank on 03 Jun, 2010 07:51 PM
John
Thanks for responding, I have personally tried over 50 task project
management programs over the last 6 months and am very aware of the current
state of the art. The reason I chose your programs is its immediacy and
simplicity and price plans with payment for users instead of projects.
In keeping with the simplicity of your program make it a very simply process
whereby each user has a Stacks email address that anyone could email a task
to including the user. Your program would then take the sender email info,
the subject info and the text of the message into the body of a Stack Task,
the user would then god through the emails and classify each email by
client, project and due date. Make it simple, don't complicate the process
by allowing users to put client and project and due dates in brackets in the
subjects to sort the email to the different clients and projects, just give
me the ability from gmail, outlook, etc, to send an email, which is many
times an actionable item, to an individual in the stacks system, not every
email but only important ones, The way I see it, more forwarding would go on
from my own email account to my Stacks system as tasks.
As for the calendar function, look at teamwork live, which has a separate
calendar for each project and a group calendar that incorporates all the
project calendars. But in my mind that is a secondary issue.
But the email idea could then incorporate Jott, and other programs that can
email out.
Keep it simple, all info from the emails goes in the task detail are. Email
back if you have any questions I would love to help.
Frank Marciano
Support Staff 4 Posted by John Skufca on 04 Jun, 2010 02:08 AM
The problem I see is Stacks currently requires and client and project assigned to the task. If this information is not provided in the email. A task will need to entered into a queue of "unassigned" tasks for a user. The person assigning the task or the user who had the task assigned to him/her would still need to log into Stacks to give the task a client and project which defeats the purpose of just sending an email.
We are not opposed to the idea but just want to implement it well.
John
Stacks Admin/User
5 Posted by frank on 04 Jun, 2010 04:12 AM
I am a busy attorney, this is my Website
<http://www.hobokenattorney.com/>and I am very computer literate. I
am taking my time to work with you
because you have asked for my ideas and because I believe you have a very
effective website and business model.
The "on the fly" ability to quickly assign new clients and projects to a
task and then to keep the task as central to the group user interface is
brilliant in its mimicry of the way most people process tasks and it does it
in an uniquely user friendly way.
However, your program is limited, because to get tasks into your system you
must be in the program. The steps and clicks and thoughts necessary to get
into a browser window to assign task is not intuitively obvious.
Ideally people who subscribe to Stacks would always have their browser open
and when task thought occurs they can just tab to the browser window and add
a task to Stacks. But that is not the way it will be for most people. But,
almost everyone is always getting and sending emails.
So if a person got an email that triggered a need for a task they could just
forward it to Stacks, if they had an idea on the train they just take out
their BB or Iphone and email the task or idea to Stacks.
It is essential that there are no requirements or rules in composing or
forwarding an email to Stacks, Just allows emails to one inbox for each
Stack user and then when that user has the time, they go through their
Stack inbox and assign the email/task to a client and project, simply and
easily
I believe the most useful aspect of a GTD system is the concept of just
having a place to dump all ideas, no thought just have a single place to put
all action thoughts. Now most GTD systems out there get too busy, too many
rules that interfere with the flow of task management, but something like
Remember the Milk has a simple way to add tasks into its system.
Forget the Twitter mode, the sharing mode, just do like this as taken from
the RTM site
- When signup for Remember The Milk, you are assigned a *unique email
address*. Emails sent to this special address are *automatically
converted into tasks* and appear in your Inbox.
But in Stacks they would not be "automatically converted into assigned
tasks, They would just need to be converted in such a way that the sender's
email address, the date, the subject and text box be placed in the detail
section of a task, and then all the user would have to do is make a few
clicks to assign the converted email.
That's it, do not get all crazy with requirements to bracket this or that
client or project in the subject line and add this or that that due date in
the email yada yada.
Keep it simple, a person can send or forward an email to their one Stack
email address that will appear in one inbox, do not give people the option
to email into client or project areas, it gets to complicated.
Do not let the people have to think about the project name, client, due date
or priority when they are sending the email, and don't limit the person's
Stacks inbox to just accepting emails from only one registered email
account.
Keep it simple, and let the User process the converted emails into assigned
task when they have time to go to their browser.
I guess that's it for now, I think this ability is more important than
calenders and will let Stacks totally integrate into a person's normal
workflow day.
Support Staff 6 Posted by Bruce Clark on 07 Jul, 2010 05:35 PM
Frank, thanks for your insight. We do appreciate your time.
One idea we've thrown around with Stacks is the idea to have an inbox to dump quick tidbits to. Basically what you're talking about, assign things into the inbox via email, text, or mobile app, then parse them later when you're in the system and have time.
To be honest we haven't had as much time to work on Stacks lately as we'd like to. This will be changing in the near future, and we'll be releasing more details about that soon.
-Bruce
Bruce Clark closed this discussion on 07 Jul, 2010 05:35 PM.