[miked378]

Hi--

I tried OF a while back, then switched to iGTD for a while, and I'm back, mainly because OF for iPhone looks so unbelievably cool!

I'm having a problem with using recurring actions within a project. I have a project (call it "Meeting") with the following sequential actions:

-- prepare agenda
-- distribute agenda
-- write minutes
-- distribute minutes

The meeting happens every 2nd Wednesday, so I want to prepare and mail the agenda out every second Tuesday (recurring due date). So I just wrote the agenda, and was happy to click off my first official OF action. But when I did, OF changed the due date to 2 weeks from now (as expected), but it didn't make "distribute agenda" the next action. In fact, there is no identified next action in the project. So in my perspective that shows only next actions, there's no indication that there's anything to be doing on this project right now.

In planning mode, it looks like this (today is 7/8/08):

Action Context Start Due
Prepare agenda Computer 7/21/08 7/22/08
Distribute agenda email 7/8/08
Write up minutes email 7/10/08 7/8/08
Distribute minutes email 7/8/08

So, how do I get OF to recognize that due action is in fact the next action in the project? Why doesn't it cycle the latest-starting action to the bottom of the list?

[Toadling]

Does the "Distribute agenda email" have a context defined? Or does it maybe have a start date defined that's deferring its availability?

-Dennis

[miked378]

Hi--

"Distribute agenda" is the action, "email" is the context (sorry, bad formatting!). There's no start date on the task, just the due date.

The email context is included in the perspective I'm using, so I don't think that's the issue.

Any other ideas?

[Lizard]

Sounds like maybe you want the whole project to repeat instead of the individual actions?

[curt.clifton]

This is a common complaint about repeating items. Repeating items are duplicated immediately after their progenitor. Your sample shows the Prepare agenda item with a start date of 7/21. It's the next action in the project and is not yet available since 7/21 hasn't arrived yet. Thus, the project is blocked by OF's reckoning.

OF doesn't calculate whether all the actions in the project are repeating. There are several threads on the forums related to this, most recently here. That thread describes how to use the current implementation to get essentially what you want. If that solution doesn't meet your needs, but sure to use Help -> Send Feedback to file a feature request.

[miked378]

That worked just like I was expecting it to originally, thanks, Lizard!

So, I have the project recurring every 2 weeks now. When I finish the project, I'll have marked all the tasks completed, and then I *also* have to mark the project completed before it will regenerate a new one, right?

What would happen if I didn't finish the project -- say, I never mailed out the meeting minutes. Would a new project be generated, or does the previous one have to be completed first? The repeat is set for repeating from "assignment date," not "completion date," so it seems like it should regenerate a new project.

Does that make any sense?

[Lizard]

You need to complete the project to generate the new one. The option for "assignment date" vs. "completion date" just determines what dates the new one will have.

If you feel this behavior is incorrect (and a number of our users do), please send feedback to omnifocus@omnigroup.com.

[miked378]

Thanks, Curt -- I was typing my reply as you posted, and the thread you linked answered my question. You have to mark the project complete before you get a new one. Makes sense, I guess.

The whole thing is a little counter-intuitive, as implied by the fact that others have identified the same issue. In my case, I think Lizard is right, the project is recurring, and that makes sense to me. I would second the request by one of the commenters on the thread Curt linked, though -- it would be nice if the project could be marked complete when the last action was completed -- and this should be an option for each project, not universally true.

Thanks for your help!

--Mike

[miked378]

Thanks, Lizard. I'll try to think of a way to explain why I think it's counter intuitive, and send it along as feedback. The ramification of this whole issue is that, in my case, if I forget to mail out the minutes of the meeting (and therefore, never mark the action or project as complete), I'll never be notified that it's time for me to send out the agenda for the next meeting! For a program that's supposed to remind me of what I'm supposed to be doing, this seems like a potentially big problem.

[Brian]

Mike, wouldn't the 'mail out the minutes' for the last meeting action still be showing up in context view? Admittedly, that doesn't resolve the case where you complete the action but don't mark the project as complete.

Un-completed actions, though, would seem to be their own reminder; you can't do the next iteration until you finish the last one...