Here's my Entourage wish list - what's yours?

[MacGrrl]

Have to say, I LOVE this product even though its limitations are
frustrating. I keep trying other ones but keep coming back to
Entourage for its simplicty, colorful-ness and its easy, breezy,
intuitive design.

I've sent this feedback to them before but never hear back so
hopefully it got read. So here are my wishes for Entourage:

CRM capability
Phone list view with preview
Colored customizable contact flags in phone list view

The ability to drag your tasks into order (rather than just general
priorities)
Multiple calendars in the same account
Custom calendar views that are still in calendar view rather than a
list view
The ability to share email between accounts without a server

more project management capabilities
Subfolders in project view, sub-projects


Features I really love:

The interface, the design
The easy integration of notes and other files into a project
The way you can color code everything and drag pictures into the
project page
The project center
Lots more but I have to get back to work!

 

[Matt Beals]

The single best feature of Entourage is Project.

Matt

Have to say, I LOVE this product even though its limitations are
frustrating. I keep trying other ones but keep coming back to
Entourage for its simplicty, colorful-ness and its easy, breezy,
intuitive design.

I've sent this feedback to them before but never hear back so
hopefully it got read. So here are my wishes for Entourage:

CRM capability
Phone list view with preview
Colored customizable contact flags in phone list view

The ability to drag your tasks into order (rather than just general
priorities)
Multiple calendars in the same account
Custom calendar views that are still in calendar view rather than a
list view
The ability to share email between accounts without a server

more project management capabilities
Subfolders in project view, sub-projects


Features I really love:

The interface, the design
The easy integration of notes and other files into a project
The way you can color code everything and drag pictures into the
project page
The project center
Lots more but I have to get back to work!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Custom calendar views that are still in calendar view rather than a
list view
Agreed.....
The ability to share email between accounts without a server
Not sure what you mean?
Subfolders in project view, sub-projects

Agreed.....

You know you can use Help | Send Feedback to send a message to the
MacBU, right? Since the next version is in beta, they should be
planning the version-after-next about now, it should be a good time for
requests like this.

 

[MacGrrl]

Actually what I meant to say was, share email between identities
without a server.

 

[Diane Ross]

Actually what I meant to say was, share email between identities
without a server.

Set up an IMAP account. The concept of Identity is to keep things separate.
Sharing between Identity is counterintuitive.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>

 

[MacGrrl]

I'll have to look into that and see what that is.
The idea of identities isn't counterintutive to what I'm doing,
though. Since Entourage didn't offer the flexibility to have
different calendars, and since it didn't allow me to order or organize
projects (another thing for the wish list), it was becoming
cluttered. So I ended up with like 30 projects, no way to organize
them, etc. So I had to go in and create different identities. One
identity is "projects", for my customer projects. One is "marketing,"
for the call list, etc. One is 'personal,' which holds my personal
calendar. One is 'events,'which has events through out the year that
have to be followed up on. Since Entrourage didn't give an option to
create a second calendar,, or to organize projects into folders, or
create custom calendar views that remain in the form of a calendar,
creating separate identities was the only way to stay organized.
I wanted to be able to share email in all my identities though, so I
don't have one email here, one email there, when I switch around, or I
don't miss one.

 

[Diane Ross]

This is what Categories and Custom Views are for. You can have custom views
for your calendar as well as your notes, tasks, mail and projects. Next you
can use Spotlight with your Entourage data to help view your data. Smart
Folders are also a good option to check out.

Learn About Custom Views

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/custom_views/index.html>

One of the new features in Office 2008 is called MyDay. See this screenshot:

<http://www.tuaw.com/photos/office-2008-for-the-mac-screenshots/136002/>

 

[MacGrrl]

I'll check out the links, and spotlight. Not familiar with smart
folders in entrourage either so I'll look that up.
But the problem with the custom views is that they don't preserve the
calendar view. So all you get is a list of tasks or events. that's
no good to me. I want to see the visual calendar.
Same with the project center. If you have 30 projects, there's no way
to filter them and see only five of them, maintaining the project
view. Again, you just get a maddening list of tasks. And you can't
even change the order of your list of projects in the project center -
for instance, color coding all your work projects red, then sorting by
that color so all your red ones are at the top. You can't drag your
most used ones to the top, either.

Maddening.

 

[Brent Walker]

My wish list for now, being new to the MAC and Entourage is to have the
ability to import my old .pst files from Outlook 2003 form the PC
environment without having to setup any Exchange Server or IMAP mapping
environment. Both are MS products and should be flexible enough to allow
for the importing/exporting of that data.

I have years of old .pst files (each by year, 2004.pst, 2005.pst, 2006.pst,
etc) that I no longer have access to since I no longer own a pc. I have the
files stored on a USB ext drive but they are no good to me now. MS has all
sorts of import routines for other products, guess they did not consider
their own!

Still Wishing,
Brent

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I'm not completely sure--but can you set up all your identities to check
the same email accounts? Shouldn't that keep all the email in all of
them? Especially if IMAP?

I've got something like 20 projects--I suspect that prefacing the names
with a lower-case a or z would have been less annoying than switching
identities all the time. I've also incorporated subprojects into the
names--using your example of customers, for instance, names like
cust:ABC and cust:XYZ and custEF would have forced appropriate
sorting. (Folders *would* be better, especially if one had the option
to click on the Customer Folder to see all customer events from all
customers in a single project view.)

But that doesn't fix your calendar issue. However, while you can't view
custom calendars in table form, when you print a calendar, you *can*
tell it to only print items from a certain project or category (Layout
in Print dialog). The occasional reprinting (or printing to PDF) might
have been less annoying than switching identities, and probably could
have been scripted to save custom print setups and run them easily.

Perhaps you don't use Word/Excel/PPT very much, and thus being forced to
quit them all to switch identities is not as annoying to you as it would
to be. To me, that's to be avoided at all costs--I might rather switch
OS users than Entourage identities, and would have looked for other
workarounds than multiple identities.

When you use Help | Send Feedback, be sure to not just to list features
you want, but to describe how you use Entourage and why you want these
things, as it's the sort of detail you give in these later posts that
would help them really understand how the program should work. For
instance--there is no need for them to allow you to easily share email
between identities if they fixed your other needs for a visual rendition
of custom calendars and project sorting, so the plain wishlist would
mislead them. Perhaps add a link to this thread in Google Groups.

 

[Diane Ross]

I'll check out the links, and spotlight. Not familiar with smart
folders in entrourage either so I'll look that up.

Smart folders are in the Finder not Entourage. Sorry if I wasn't clear about
that.

From Finder Help:

Organizing related files with Smart Folders
With Smart Folders, you can organize files by what they have in common,
instead of by their location on your disk. Because they use Spotlight, Smart
Folders can organize files by their contents, as well by attributes that
describe those contents and how they were created. For example, you can
create one Smart Folder with all your spreadsheets, another with the
documents you modified today, and another with the presentations that
mention a specific project.

Even though a file exists in only one location on your disk, it can occur in
many different Smart Folders. A presentation you're working on could appear
in a Smart Folder of files you modified today and another of presentations
that mention a specific project.

In the Finder, choose File > New Smart Folder.
Choose your search criteria.
To search your files' names, contents, and attributes for text, type in the
search field. To limit where the Smart Folder searches, click one of the
listed locations, or click Others to choose another location. To search on a
specific metadata attribute, use the pop-up menus.

Click Save, and choose the name and location for your Smart Folder. You can
place a smart folder anywhere you can place a folder.
If you do not want your Smart Folder to be be in the sidebar, deselect Add
To Sidebar.

To view the items that match your Smart Folder's criteria, click it in the
sidebar or double-click it in the Finder. The folder is updated
automatically as you change, add, and remove files.

To edit a Smart Folder, locate it in the Finder or in the sidebar and open
it. When you are done changing the search criteria, click Save.

To change the name of a Smart Folder, Control-click it in the sidebar and
choose Rename, or select the folder in the Finder and type a new name.
--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>

 

[rossk]

shared calendar
switch from POP to IMAP
switch from IMAP to POP
emails are not in a DB rather each email is its own file

 

[MacGrrl]

As to the sorting issue - I tried that but there is no sorting option
for projects, in the left bar which is where I reference the
projects. Even prefacing it with a number, a Z, etc , does nothing.
Been there, tried that.
As to the switching I agree, it's an annoyance. But not as annoying
as being overwhelmed by a disorganized project center. I do use them
often but not constantly - most of the apps I am running regularly are
graphics apps. So I simply close word down, switch identities, and
start it back up if need be. I'm not switching so constantly that
it's all the time. I'll work in projects for half a day, and
marketing or whatever for the rest.
One thing that is a hassle for that though, is that reminders in my
"personal" identity don't get seen if I am working in other identities
(and vice versa) so that's a hassle - it's easy to miss something.

I guess one could set up all identities to the same email accounts -
but once they dowload the email it's down - and stored in that
identity. I'll check out the imap thing - not sure how all that
works. I tried it yesterday and it freaked out so I'll redo that
account and try it again.

As for calendars, you know I really don't print them. I work with
them in Entourage and they are dynamic - always changing. And it's
hard to compare one to the other when they are in different identities
- rather than simply having separate calendars or custom views in
calendar view.

As far as feedback, I've written several times and would love to
become a feedback tester but have never heard back. ( Although that
email gets so much spam that I may have missed it, so if anyone from
MS is reading this and wants to enlist me, contact me here in the
thread and tell me where I can reach you.) For all I know they don't
even read these. Hopefully they do but who knows - they probably get
so much feedback. I wrote to them anyway. And from what I
understand there's not much of an upgrade for Office 2008 as far as
Entourage is concerned - not a whole lot of new features - so maybe
they aren't that invested in it --? Just guessing, not sure. But I
think Entourage has terrific potential to be further developed.
Maybe they don't think of Mac users as business-oriented but I
disagree. More and more people are getting Macbooks, but they still
rely on MS Office, and they need a decent counterpart to Outlook.
Maybe more creative types go for Macs - as opposed to business/office-
oriented people - but many creative types are entrepreneurs or self
employed and would greatly benefit from a good project manager/CRM
that is intuitive and easy to use.

For the record, I don't care for Outlook - it may have more
functionality than Entourage, but Entourage has such a great design.
But maybe it's not fair to compare the two since they are completely
different programs. I had a very hard time managing my customer
contacts in Outlook. Entourage with its limitations is still much
more streamlined and easy to use.

 

[MacGrrl]

I probably get three lashes for posting twice, but since it's
referenced in both this thread and your other one, here is a pst
import tool.
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/email_chat/pstimporttoolforentourage2004formac.html

 

[MacGrrl]

You know I'd be a really good candidate to be a tester because I'm not
just using Entourage as a glorified address book or very basic
calendar. I'm trying to adapt it as a business CRM, and also using it
to manage a number of complex personal as well as business projects.
In this situation, you run into a lot of real-world use issues that a
lot of people might not come up against that are using it for more
basic things. I'm also someone who is spending a lot of time learing
a lot of complicated software and when it comes to Entourage, just
don't have any energy left - so what I really want is the simplest
possible approach. When I started trying to use Business COntact
Manager it seemed like so much of real-world use was not there - i was
wondering if it was designed by people who really weren't using it for
the same things I was using it for. It became so painful to use I
finally gave up.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

As to the sorting issue - I tried that but there is no sorting option
for projects, in the left bar which is where I reference the
projects. Even prefacing it with a number, a Z, etc , does nothing.
Been there, tried that.

No, it does work. However, you have to quit and relaunch to get it to
take, as I did when I prefaced a name with a z. Also, I thought
punctuation didn't affect the sorting, but it does, if I quit and
relaunch, and punctuation is probably a preferable method.

As for calendars, you know I really don't print them.

Of course not, who does? I was just suggesting that printing custom
calendars might be a way of working around Entourage's limitations that
lets you keep all your email in the same identity, always get reminders,
and compare calendars. You are being forced to adapt your workflow one
way or another--here are potential alternative adaptations. It depends
on which inconveniences bother you less--your call. Although I'm not
entirely sure you can get a calendar to print showing 5 projects at
once--might be overcomeable with a script, might not be worth the
trouble, especially at this point.

As far as feedback, I've written several times and would love to
become a feedback tester but have never heard back.

I'm not sure what you mean by "feedback tester." Beta testers always
get the program too late to impact the features in it, so this sort of
extensive description of how you use Entourage and the workarounds you
are forced to is really what's most useful when people are planning the
program.

You can sign up for usability testing, although it may be place-limited.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/macbu/default.aspx?pid=usabilitystudies

And from what I
understand there's not much of an upgrade for Office 2008 as far as
Entourage is concerned - not a whole lot of new features -

Ah, basically they haven't released any information at all about
specific features, so that's rumor you can discard, because no one
knows. In fact, the only specific feature we do know about is the My
Day thing Diane mentioned, which is an Entourage supporting player.

<http://www.tuaw.com/photos/office-2008-for-the-mac-screenshots/136002/>

so maybe
they aren't that invested in it --? Just guessing, not sure.

I think your guess is offbase. Entourage has been seeing a lot of
changes since its first version with Office 2001 and will probably
continue, as with My Day.

Daiya

 

[MacGrrl]

Wow! Relaunching really does work. I never caught that before.

Oh, re: the other ideas - always open to creative options.

And I hope they are invested in Entourage because it's a cool enough
program to merit further development.

 

[MacGrrl]

Another thing on the wish list:
In the project center overview window, the ability to drag your tasks
into place, or the ability to have multiple sorting options. To be
able to sort tasks by category, then priority. You could do this by
setting the due date but it would be nice to have the other options.