[Natdog]

Does anyone have a suggestion for this situation.

My company gets a lot of job and intern requests. As people tend to come and go I have made it a practice to keep a rolling stock of applications (even when I am not hiring at the moment). Some of these develop into hires down the road. Sometimes the right person just comes at the right time.

I'd like to use OF to help me keep track of this. There is a chain of actions that seems like it might be well suited to OF. I'm just not sure the best way to set it up. Here's what happens:

1. When someone emails the addy on the website, they get an automatic response with an attached questionnaire and instructions.
--Some of these we reject immediately (incomplete, etc). I just chuck them.
2. The rest I would like to go into a "review" place.
--From there some get rejected based upon content. (But these get a thank you reply which I'd like to be reminded of).
3. The few that are left get a reply in which I schedule an interview.
--Occasionally, some of these just fizzle out and I don't hear back. Most get scheduled.
4. All the people we meet with get a thank you letter.
--Some of them I keep on file and contact later when things open up.
--Some I just hire (I think I can actually keep track of that one myself).

What makes this a little trickier is that at any given point, there may be several applicants in any one of these stages. I'd like to make sure that everyone is moving through the system, not getting lost, being responded to when appropriate, having their info reviewed in a timely way. It seems like I should be able to actually forward these emails INTO OmniFocus and move them through without it being an enormous time pit.

Are there any GrandOmniMasters that might suggest the best way to go about this? Thanks for any thoughts, Nathan

[sriggs]

Maybe if each applicant was a project and you had a project template containing that outline of events with the appropriate sequential/parallel action setup? If they don't make it thought the whole set of actions, drop the project.

[Natdog]

Ok. I think I sort of get it. Can you explain what you mean by a template? I'm not in front of OF now. Is this a feature I'm unaware of? sounds like a useful trick.

Ideally I'd be able to simply forward the application emails to this place (template, etc) and keepy notes in there too. Thanks! Nathan

[sriggs]

I keep a project that is populated the way that I want, on hold and named Template - whatever. When I'm ready to use it, I right click and choose duplicate and customize the duplicated project.

[whpalmer4]

See Curt Clifton's Populate Template Placeholders script for a more powerful template facility. http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~clifton/software.html The template could prompt you for the name of the applicant, etc. and generate a customized project that inserts that information in appropriate spots.

[Natdog]

I think you may have just answered another question I had. Correct me if I'm wrong but this would probably also be the best way to 'reset' a project; one which happens from time to time and is always basically the same. (for example, a detailed list of instructions how to turn on and prime a complicated machine, or routine things that should always happen before a meeting with a particular client, etc.)

[whpalmer4]

Yes, I use it for that sort of thing often, pretty much whenever I'm going to have a project that happens again, but not on a predictable schedule (or even one that is predictable, but that OmniFocus doesn't currently support with its repeat options).

There are a few problems that pop up which only admit to clunky solutions at the moment. One is making a template for where you want something to be due (or start) a fixed period of time after something else takes place, but you don't know when that will be. For example, you might want to put a time limit on taking some action after one of your applicants contacts you. This isn't limited to templates, but I most often encounter it there. I end up having to stick in actions like "set due date of action XYZ to +90 days" and hope that I don't overlook it for too long. If you think that the ability to specify a date relative to the completion of the previous action would be of use to you, use Help->Send Feedback to let Omni know.

[Kourosh]

The other issue you bring up which I have not adequately figured out are the "if-then" and "if-not" statements.

I tried to do it as an exercise, though I think I'm making it far too complicated, since you have to actively delete branches as part of the process. What do you think? ...

(This uses the template method mentioned by whpalmer)

[Natdog]

forgive me for not getting back to you. This looks pretty good. I'm only now getting to it but I'm going to give it a try. I think it's going to work! Thanks so much for taking the time on it!

[Natdog]

Just a musing... Do you suppose there is a way, instead of using a template, to use a single project in which the applications (literally the email or copied text) could each make their way through the branches/stages of the project. In the end, the promising applications would ultimately all land in a "filed for future" branch?