[ykellman]

Hey all...

Im trying to wrap my head around the workflow in Omnifocus and having quite a few issues in understanding how the software wants me to handle some specific items. Im hoping someone can shed some light. Here are the main issues Im struggling with.

1- is there a way to organize tasks within a project by due date? I would think this would be obvious, but maybe it is intentionally omitted or Im just missing it.

2- is there a way to see items that started 'yesterday' and are due at a future time in my forecast view? I have a lot of projects that are long term or arent due for a while but I want to see them daily so if I get to them I get to them if I dont I dont.

3- can I export or email a task list? because I use the contexts to assign tasks to other people and it would be nice to be able to sent the task lists to them.

Im sure there are more things I would like to know, but for now thats all I can think of.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by ykellman

1- is there a way to organize tasks within a project by due date? I would think this would be obvious, but maybe it is intentionally omitted or Im just missing it.

It's possible to arrange your actions in whatever order you want by tapping the "Edit" button in the toolbar, then dragging the rows around by holding your finger on the three horizontal bars that appear at the right edge of each row. Once you're done rearranging, tap "done".

This wasn't intentionally omitted in the "we don't think folks should do this" sense - it was more of a "the majority of our iPad customers can do this in the Mac app, so we can hold off on adding that for now" thing. (It is easier to do the kind of sort you're after in the Mac edition.)

We do have a feature request open on making this easier in the iPad app - I'll attach your forum post to that request so the rest of the team knows you'd like to see that added.

Originally Posted by ykellman

2- is there a way to see items that started 'yesterday' and are due at a future time in my forecast view? I have a lot of projects that are long term or arent due for a while but I want to see them daily so if I get to them I get to them if I dont I dont.

Not currently possible, but we have a feature request open on this, as well - I'll attach your post to that one too...

Originally Posted by ykellman

3- can I export or email a task list? because I use the contexts to assign tasks to other people and it would be nice to be able to sent the task lists to them.

To send an action as an email, tap it to bring up the editor pane, then tap the Sharing button in the upper left corner. (It's the "Square-with-a-curved-arrow" button you commonly see in iOS apps.)

We've got a feature request open on the ability to email entire lists - let us know if you'd like to be attached to that one, as well. ;-)

Hope this helps!

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by ykellman

2- is there a way to see items that started 'yesterday' and are due at a future time in my forecast view?

I'm assuming you only have the iPad app at the moment, correct? What I do for this is to set up a perspective (a canned set of view settings) that shows me all of my available actions organized by start date. I work the stuff in today's due slot in the Forecast view, then I look at both today's starting slot in Forecast view, and this perspective, which will show me the actions which have already started. It's not perfect, but it would be overwhelming (for me, at least) to have everything that passes its start date remain on the list for "today" because I nibble away at a lot of projects rather than just a few, and most actions with start dates merely reflect the impossibility (or undesirability) of working those actions prior to that date, not necessarily a plan to work them that day.

Now, the fly in the ointment for you (if you don't also have the Mac software) is that Omni hasn't provided a means to create/edit perspectives on the iPad yet; you have to do it on the Mac at present. Use the Contact Omni entry under the gear menu to make a feature request (which does the same thing as Brian has offered to do for you in his response to your post). In the interim, you should be able to get Omni support to help you construct such a perspective. You'll probably want to call them: 800-315-OMNI or +1-206-523-4152.

[ykellman]

Correct, I only have the iPad app at the moment because my office is an anti-Mac outfit, so I'm working around the system by using my iPad.

I get the workaround whpalmer mentioned, but in truth Im stll quite limited without using the Mac app. So that isn't really an option.

I will start by saying that the quick responses to my questions weigh quite heavily in my opinions when considering my next steps here, but I have to also consider my needs, which seem to be a bit beyond the current ability of the iPad version on its own.

All of the features I mentioned are actually pretty important to meeting my needs, and I think that I may have to consider alternatives until some of these features are implemented. There are a lot of things I like about the App, but these sticklers are deal breakers for me at this point.

Auto-sorting by due date seems to me to be a pretty critical function. And while I can manually sort the items, I feel that it's redundant if I have already entered due dates for the items.

I also noticed another issue that I can't figure out, that again may be a user error, but how can I reorder the project list?

Brian, you might as well add me to all 3 request lists, because I would like to help push these features into production even if I don't end up sticking with the app for the long haul. Which I would be disappointed to have to do.

[whpalmer4]

Why don't you enable perspectives by visiting this page (from your iPad!):

http://people.omnigroup.com/kc/Debug...spectives.html

and clicking the Enable Built-in Perspectives link. Then try out the Due perspective and see if that gives you what you need in terms of a display of due items in chronological order.

OmniFocus doesn't blithely reorder items for you, because it assumes that the ordering is significant. If your projects are simply catch-all collections of tasks that can be done in arbitrary order, then it may not matter if they get done out of order, but it certainly isn't the case that all projects fall into that class! However, if you are a due-date driven worker, working from that Due perspective ought to get your independent tasks done in the right order without any need to rearrange them.

I've been using OmniFocus intensively for several years, and the number of times that I've needed to rearrange actions by due date I could probably count on the fingers of one hand, with fingers left over :-) OmniFocus will show the actions in due date order (as suggested above), so if the sequence doesn't matter, only getting the work done by the due dates, I'm going to suggest this is an issue that matters mostly in theory, not in practice.

To reorder the project list, go to the home screen of the application, tap the ">" to the right of the Projects label in the sidebar. Now tap the Edit button. At this point you can drag actions or projects around with the drag handles (three horizontal lines at the right end of a row), or delete them by using the - in a red circle at the left end of the row. Tap the Done button when you are done.

One more thing: if you decide within 30 days of purchase that it isn't going to work out for you, Omni offers refunds!