D
dvanderboom
Microsoft Project is too much for many small companies, especially where all
the fancy charts and scheduling features are unnecessary. Outlook,
unfortunately, is often too little, but its flexibility and strength in so
many areas suggests to me that it could be easily updated to grow into gap
between the two current products.
More often than not, I need to perform a set of tasks for a specific
business purpose, and against a set of assets. A business purpose would be
something like "prepare marketing material for the XYZ campaign". There
would be multiple tasks under this parent task. Several tasks would relate
to creating and publishing a brochure (an asset), another for a radio
commercial (another asset), and so on.
As a software developer, I might have a business purpose of "add feature X
to SuperDuper software". In order to do that, I would need to make multiple
updates to a module here on one tier, several more to a component there on
another tier, and so on.
Currently, there is no satisfactory way to create this multi-level heirarchy
in the Outlook tasks list. As flexible as it is, I group it in several
different ways and manage to get by, but only with annoying workarounds, such
as adding lots of extra fields for categories that must be entered
redundantly each time I add a new task.
1. I'd like to see parent tasks, and subtasks indented and collapsable
within larger "business purpose" tasks.
Then, still allow multiple views of tasks, so that I can view them grouped
by business purposes, or in another way, such as by asset (all changes to a
software module, or a product catalog, etc.)
2. When entering a new subtask within a parent task, it would be quite
helpful to have certain fields inherited by the parent. So if the parent
task has "user responsible" and "company department" fields set up, all
subtasks would have those defaulted in. The parent task might display those
two fields, while the child tasks don't display them. (Why bother, when you
can look up at the parent task?)
3. And for icing on the cake, summary / calculated fields on parent tasks.
Number of tasks completed, incomplete, overdue; total hours spent/remaining;
etc.
----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...d86f81f26&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.general
the fancy charts and scheduling features are unnecessary. Outlook,
unfortunately, is often too little, but its flexibility and strength in so
many areas suggests to me that it could be easily updated to grow into gap
between the two current products.
More often than not, I need to perform a set of tasks for a specific
business purpose, and against a set of assets. A business purpose would be
something like "prepare marketing material for the XYZ campaign". There
would be multiple tasks under this parent task. Several tasks would relate
to creating and publishing a brochure (an asset), another for a radio
commercial (another asset), and so on.
As a software developer, I might have a business purpose of "add feature X
to SuperDuper software". In order to do that, I would need to make multiple
updates to a module here on one tier, several more to a component there on
another tier, and so on.
Currently, there is no satisfactory way to create this multi-level heirarchy
in the Outlook tasks list. As flexible as it is, I group it in several
different ways and manage to get by, but only with annoying workarounds, such
as adding lots of extra fields for categories that must be entered
redundantly each time I add a new task.
1. I'd like to see parent tasks, and subtasks indented and collapsable
within larger "business purpose" tasks.
Then, still allow multiple views of tasks, so that I can view them grouped
by business purposes, or in another way, such as by asset (all changes to a
software module, or a product catalog, etc.)
2. When entering a new subtask within a parent task, it would be quite
helpful to have certain fields inherited by the parent. So if the parent
task has "user responsible" and "company department" fields set up, all
subtasks would have those defaulted in. The parent task might display those
two fields, while the child tasks don't display them. (Why bother, when you
can look up at the parent task?)
3. And for icing on the cake, summary / calculated fields on parent tasks.
Number of tasks completed, incomplete, overdue; total hours spent/remaining;
etc.
----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...d86f81f26&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.general