Reviews

Agendus for Windows Mobile and Agendus for Windows Outlook Edition

May 17, 2007

Agendus for Windows Mobile

As I mentioned, making the switch over to a Windows Mobile handheld as my primary device was pretty simple, except that I really missed my favorite software. On my LifeDrive, I used Agendus every day to help keep my life organized—so trying to use the rather anemic built-in Outlook Mobile application was painful, to say the least. When I heard about Agendus for Windows Mobile, I couldn’t install it fast enough. While I can’t say that it was everything I was hoping for, I am generally pleased with how quickly I got back into the Agendus groove.

When you first open the application, you’re greeted by the Agendus version of a Today screen, listing all of your appointments for the next couple of days as well as Quote of the Day and This Day in History features, plus a Weather module. Icons along the bottom help you navigate to the different areas of the program, namely Today, Day view, Week view, Month view, Contacts, Tasks, Messages, Search, and Preferences. The various calendar views are nice and clean, pleasing to the eye, though not as useful as the built-in calendar because they show so little detail. There’s no word wrap option on the monthly calendar, for example, so you only get to see five or six letters from each appointment. You can color code individual items and add icons, which can help you squeeze more information into the tiny space.

There are built in category filters you can access by tapping on the button at the top right corner of the screen, but unfortunately the arrow you need to press to scroll down if you have a long category list is so close to the Cancel button at the bottom of the screen that it’s more an exercise in frustration than a useful tool. That could easily be fixed, along with the date navigator in the top left corner of the screen—I expected the arrows on the left and right sides to move forward and back by weeks, instead of by days. That doesn’t make any sense when that same tool also lists each day of the week for single tap access.

Fortunately the new entry screen, while almost overwhelming at first, is well organized. Tabs at the top cover general information, allow you to set repeating options, and add your own notes to the entry. Tap once on the appropriate box to select the priority, and use the small four quadrant dropdown if you use the importance/urgency metric from Franklin Covey. The date and completion status are just below, and then you have three tabs for the item description (the blue “i” in a square), color/automatic advance (the two red checkmarks), and the photo if you would like to add one (the camera).

Just under that is the box that allows you to associate a contact’s name to the entry, which is where most of the power of Agendus rests. Instead of having a bunch of isolated contacts, appointments and tasks, you can add contacts to each item to help tie things together. You can also set up “dummy” contacts for particular projects if you use the Getting Things Done methodology from David Allen. The bottom of the screen is where you can add an icon, choose the category, and/or set an optional alarm.

The Contacts area was slightly disappointing, in that it doesn’t have all of the features and options from the Palm OS version. There doesn’t seem to be a concise view, meaning that all of the various phone numbers and email address for each of your contacts will be displayed, severely limiting what you can see on the screen at any one point in time. In the work category, for example, I was only able to see the first four names before I had to scroll down, and scrolling was difficult because if you didn’t hit the scroll bar on the right hand side of the screen just right, Agendus would assume that you wanted to dial that contact’s phone number. This area also suffers from the same category/cancel issue I mentioned above.

The Tasks function really shines, and it’s obvious that the developers spent the necessary time to polish this area of the program. The screen is nicely laid out, with simple controls to group tasks by various criteria such as category, due date, or priority, a simple category filter, and options to view only certain tasks by past due, future due, undated, this week, etc. The only minor gripe with this area is when you use the Group By Category feature certain categories are listed more than once if you’ve assigned multiple categories to specific tasks. Assign something to Personal and Errands, for example, and you’ll see a listing for Errands/Personal and Personal. This is probably a sign of Agendus’ Palm OS roots, since tasks can reside in only one category on that platform, but it should still be fixed.

Pressing the envelope icon in the bottom toolbar will take you to your Outlook Inbox. There is currently so support for Notes, though the fact that Memos are included in the Palm OS edition lead me to expect that this feature will be added at some point. The final two icons are for the Search function, which is extremely useful, though somewhat slow, and the Preferences section, which is quite minimal at this point in time. In general I found Agendus to be stable and relatively speedy in most areas, though there a few minor annoyances and I believe that the calendar views need to be significantly improved in order to bring them up to par with the Palm OS version of Agendus.

Agendus for Windows, Outlook Edition

Since I had to switch to Outlook when I switched to Windows Mobile, it’s only natural that I also took a look at the Outlook version of Agendus for Windows. Unfortunately I can’t say as many positive things about this application as I did about the PDA version, mainly because of the fact that it works, but is rather clunky when compared to pure Outlook 2003. Where Outlook is simple and elegant, Agendus for Windows is not, mainly because the views associated with the plug-in look almost exactly like what you would find in the Palm Desktop version of Agendus for Windows. This is great if you’re aiming for an exact replica, but I expect more out of a desktop application, even if it is just a plug-in and not a standalone program.

In order to use Agendus for Windows, you just install it and then launch Microsoft Outlook. You’ll see a new set of menus just under the main Outlook toolbar; the buttons allow you to quickly jump to specific modules in much the same way that the small icon bar at the bottom of the screen does in the handheld version. The new addition here is the Agendus menu, which you can use to access the free time finder, update the Quote of the Day and This Day in History modules, check for program updates, access the help module, etc.

The best part is the fact that the various sidebars give you more detailed information about each entry as you click on it, so the calendar and contact views don’t suffer from the same limitations as the handheld version. Unfortunately these areas are significantly slower than the standard Outlook views, which I find to be both surprising and less than acceptable. The price is also $15 more than the handheld version, without offering enhanced functionality. I expected more from an application running on a full-fledged computer instead of a handheld, and I hope that future versions will have added features.

Conclusion

While I can recommend Agendus for Windows Mobile to any handheld user who is looking for something superior to the Pocket Outlook experience, I’m less enthusiastic about the Outlook edition of Agendus for Windows. If you’re a very heavy user of the contact history and linking features, it’s a must, because that’s the only way you’ll be able to get the big picture view on the desktop. But if you do most of your editing and data entry on your handheld, and don’t mind having the names of linked contacts added to the descriptions of individual appointments and tasks, instead of in a separate field, Agendus for Windows Mobile may be all that you need.

There are free trial versions of both applications available at the iambic web site. Agendus for Windows Mobile is $24.95 for the Professional edition and $19.95 for the Standard; a detailed comparison chart on the different versions is available here. Agendus for Windows Outlook Edition is $39.95.

Agendus for Windows Mobile:

Agendus for Windows Outlook Edition:

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