Reminders?

[Oliver Sturm]

Hey,

I was wondering if I'm missing anything... I'd like to be able to configure
a simple reminder with a note (side note?) I've created in ON. Any way to
do that?


Oliver Sturm

 

[Amos Soma]

Oliver,

This is one area of OneNote that really disappoints me. Reminders in OneNote
are nothing more than Outlook tasks. OneNote relies on the functionality of
Tasks in Outlook to control scheduling and displaying reminders etc. I would
very much like to be able to create a note in OneNote and then schedule it
to appear on a recurring basis, and not have to rely on Outlook to do this.
I've never cared much for the way Outlook handles the scheduling of and
recurring tasks.

Amos.

 

[Erik Sojka]

It's not as automated as it's being (unintentionally)
implied. You have to manually select the text, then go
to Tools | Create Outlook Item | Create Outlook Task.

I'll admit that better integration between the PIM and
OneNote would be great, but honestly, I've gotten used to
using the Task Pane as a To Do list and I'm in Outlook
and OneNote for 99% of my day, so that switching back and
forth between them (and therefore having 2 task lists -
one in ON and one in Outlook) isn't a big deal.

Back to Oliver's original question: You can take
paragraphs of text and assign various Note Flags to
them. The meaning and appearance of the Flags can be
customized by going to the "Customize My note Flags" Task
Pane. Once you have assigned various Note Flags to
various tasks in your notes, the "Note Flags Summary"
task pane acts as an up-to-date To Do list. I'll admit
it isn't as automated like Outlook tasks are, but it
works well and you get used to it quickly.

 

[Oliver Sturm]

Thanks for your replies, Amos and Erik.

Now, I guessed that this was all it could do, just thought I'd ask...
Problem is, I don't really like to keep Outlook running all day because I
don't really need it. I don't do mail with it because the mailer is crap
and for popping up reminders (and occasionally adding one) I'd think I
don't need a >50MB monster running in the background all day. I can't
really do without it, though, because my PocketPC wants it (plus, the
calendaring stuff is really good).

I would like to use OneNote instead (it's only one third the size while
running, plus I regularly use a much larger percentage of its functions),
but reminding me of tasks and calendar entries is an essential function for
me and it can't do that.

About creating Outlook entries from OneNote... that's a nice function which
I'll probably use sometimes, but I'd still like to have separate reminding
for some notes... I tend to put the more consequential stuff into the
Calendar or task lists in Outlook and I really just don't want it cluttered
up by tons of stuff like "16:30 look at ebay 938479327 again" and "19:00
sex and the city".


Oliver Sturm

 

[Erik Sojka]

Just keep in mind that OneNote is not a PIM, so I'd expect that any future
reminder feature will continue to be tied to Outlook.

 

[Oliver Sturm]

Just keep in mind that OneNote is not a PIM, so I'd expect that any future
reminder feature will continue to be tied to Outlook.

Well... as OneNote itself confirms me, PIM means Personal Information
Manager. In which way is OneNote not a PIM, do you think? You mean because
it doesn't try to solve all problems on the planet at the same time, like
Outlook does?

I think it is a PIM and it's very good at the tasks it selects to take up.
I just don't know how I'm supposed to be taking notes in a tool without a
proper function to simply mark a note for follow-up or similar (without the
help of a completely different large application suite, that is... it's not
that large a functionality after all).


Oliver Sturm

 

[Amos Soma]

"> Just keep in mind that OneNote is not a PIM, so I'd expect that any
future reminder feature will continue to be tied to Outlook. "

It's not? What does PIM mean? Doesn't it mean (P)ersonal (I)nformation
(M)anager? What are all these notes I've been keeping track of in OneNote?
Don't they qualify as personal information that I want to manage?

I think it would be incredibly useful to be able to create a note and tell
OneNote to display this note to me every 1/2 hour until I tell it to stop.
I'd love to be able to do this without having to deal with an Outlook Task.

Amos.

 

[Erik Sojka]

A PIM *has* traditionally meant an all-in-one program
like Outlook, Entourage, Lotus Notes, Groupwise, Palm,
etc. It does calendar, contacts, tasks and maybe email.
OneNote does not fit into this traditional category.

I think in all of the repsonses that have been given in
this thread, people are assuming you want something more
than Note Flags, but your last paragraph leads me to
believe that you're not using them.

Are you familiar with the Notes Flags feature of
OneNote? You can flag a note (Format menu | Note Flags |
pick one!) with one of up to 25 (assuming you're running
SP1) followup flags. You can then go to View | Note
Flags Summary to see a list of all of the flags created
and follow up from there.

I acknowledge that Onenote does not do anything *active*
such as slap you in the face when something is due, nor
does it have any organizing feature to further categorize
tasks, insert start dates, end dates, due dates, etc.
but the design decision from Microsoft is clearly to
move "follow up items from my notes" into Outlook and let
Outlook's very good and rich Tasks funcionality take care
of slapping you in the face.

 

[Oliver Sturm]

A PIM *has* traditionally meant an all-in-one program
like Outlook, Entourage, Lotus Notes, Groupwise, Palm,
etc. It does calendar, contacts, tasks and maybe email.
OneNote does not fit into this traditional category.

Well, I beg to differ on that point. To me, PIM is the name for any
application that implements any part of that functionality you are
enumerating AND the definition is changing all the time. We used to call
those little Sharp computers PIMs which couldn't do much more than spit
names of contacts back at you if you spelled them right
Nevertheless, taking notes of any kind, maybe with collaboration features,
has always one of the central parts of any such application, so I still
think that OneNote is certainly a PIM by any definition that's logical to
me.
Webopedia says:

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/personal_information_manager.html

[ cut note flags ]

.... a very nice feature, which I've certainly not explored in depth. Still
not the same, as you say below. BTW, any idea why I find it so bloody
difficult to set the note flags? I find that I have to carefully deselect
the current note and hit some misterious spot on the border of the note
rectangle with the mouse so the submenu for the note flags will at all show
up in the context menu. Anything obvious I'm doing wrong there?

I acknowledge that Onenote does not do anything *active*
such as slap you in the face when something is due, nor
does it have any organizing feature to further categorize
tasks, insert start dates, end dates, due dates, etc.
but the design decision from Microsoft is clearly to
move "follow up items from my notes" into Outlook and let
Outlook's very good and rich Tasks funcionality take care
of slapping you in the face.

You know, if that functionality would at least do what you are just
describing, I might just go use it. But in fact, it doesn't...:

- it doesn't synchronize with the note in OneNote
- it doesn't provide any way to view the original note from Outlook
- I haven't really found out why, but most times I try to call the
function "Create Outlook task" from the context menu (just as difficult
as with the note flags, BTW), it doesn't even instert the note text into
the Outlook task automatically. Sometimes again, it does... I have no
idea why.

So, following up on a note by using Outlook is actually close to impossible
if you don't want to do all the work yourself... it's really a one time,
one direction single purpose function and I really can't believe it's any
kind of "design decision"... rather an acknowledgement of the fact that
such functionality is obviously needed but nobody has had the time to do it
right for this release.


Oliver Sturm

 

[TJanRap]

Even the Post-It software has a very simple alarm system that can repeat. I
woud think this would be a very simple feature to add in the future.

Although I personally keep Outlook open all the time and rely very heavily