The Omni Group
These forums are now read-only. Please visit our new forums to participate in discussion. A new account will be required to post in the new forums. For more info on the switch, see this post. Thank you!

Go Back   The Omni Group Forums > OmniFocus > OmniFocus 1 for Mac
FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

 
Linking tasks to contacts, events and/or other tasks? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Can I link Mac tasks to my Mac Address Book contacts, Mac iCal events and/or other tasks? Also will I be able to do the same on iPhone (ie, link tasks to contacts for easy phoning)? Thank you.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RoyofSF View Post
Can I link Mac tasks to my Mac Address Book contacts, Mac iCal events and/or other tasks? Also will I be able to do the same on iPhone (ie, link tasks to contacts for easy phoning)? Thank you.
Not that I know of, could be good ideas though and maybe you should email The Omni Group about adding those.
 
You can drag contacts from AddressBook, calendar appointments from iCal, web pages from a browser, files from Finder, or (with Option held down) tasks from OmniFocus onto a task to add a link back to the dragged item.

However, those links won't be supported on the phone in version 1.0. What will be supported in this first release is automatic recognition of phone numbers and URLs, so "206-555-1234" and "http://www.omnigroup.com/" will both turn into clickable links.

P.S. — Going the other way on the desktop, you can also drag tasks from OmniFocus into other applications which accept URL drags (such as OmniOutliner).

Last edited by Ken Case; 2008-06-30 at 04:52 AM..
 
Ken: Thank you. What do you mean when you state "What will be supported in this first release is automatic recognition of phone numbers and URLs, so "206-555-1234" and "http://www.omnigroup.com/" will both turn into clickable links." In other words, how could that be used for a phone number, for example?

Do you envision adding linkage at some future date for the iPhone 2.0 from tasks to contacts for easy phone dialing since a good number of my tasks involve calling a person or business?
 
If you put the actual phone number or URL in the notes of a task (on the desktop or iPhone) and then tap that number or URL on the iPhone, it will call that phone number or open that URL in Safari.
 
I'm an OF n00b and a long-time Daylite user. I have many contacts with whom I need to keep the ball moving. Daylite is great at some things, but keeping Next Actions bubbling up to the top layer is not one of them. I want to use OF for this. For now I am willing to forget about the holy grail of Total System Integration.

I'd like input on setting this up.

If each person is an action item (e.g. "remind Joe Smith about our project") it doesn't offer the continuity I want -- a string of small actions fostering the project with Joe Smith.

If each person is a project (makes more sense) then the "project" pull-down menu for each action item becomes unwieldy. But it seems closer to the reality of what I'm doing. The project is really fostering the relationship w/ Joe Smith -- for business development, future collaboration, networking etc.

This is one of the most important categories of little bits of next-actions that fall through the cracks for me. I'm happy w/ Daylite's email archiving and powerful tracking of organizations and people with relationships with one another. I need OF as my dedicated tracker of next-actions = mostly calls and emails.

Thanks in advance for any ideas. I like OF becuase it's sleek and simple -- I don't want it to turn into Daylite, which is so powerful it's hard to use.
 
For what it's worth... I keep a project called "Keeping in Touch" with contexts of usually Phone or Email. Under that are tasks for individuals I want to keep in contact with (both personal and professional).

Example:
Keep in touch with Bob Smith. (Repeats every 5 weeks from completion date, start and due dates one week apart) @Email.

This just reminds me that I should shoot Bob and email about every 5 weeks to touch base and keep current. If an action comes out of that (like getting together for dinner/drinks), then it goes right back in to OF.

It's not perfect, but it works for me.
 
I'd recommend that you set people up as contexts - projects should have some defined outcome that the project is working towards.

I'm in a meeting with someone, I tap their context, and there in one spot are the five different things from various projects that I need to discuss with them.

"Remind Joe about <topic>" would go in whatever project it was applicable to, assigned to the Joe context.
 
Hi...

I use contexts for this and highly recommend it due to the flexibility.

You could set up a project for "general business development" (Or you could set up a folder for "General Business Development" and create individual projects for business development per company) All general business development would go into that project, but you would a different context for each contact. So a context for Joe, one for Jane, etc. When the fostering turns into actual business, you create a new project, and you still relate it to the context of Joe. Then, since you have organized things through contexts, you can easily see in one view everything related to "Joe Smith" from your fostering efforts, to new project you are trying to develop with Joe, to future projects you have scheduled with Joe, to current projects you are working on with Joe.

As a little side note, I too was looking for the Holy Grail of project management. There is a huge hole in the marketplace for this! I am really looking forward to when OF and OP work well together. I've tried every project management system for Mac, and find OF excels for organizing projects and tasks in a usable form.
 
I'd add that you probably want to wean yourself from using the mouse to set the project or context of an action. Instead, type a few of the characters in the project or context name. OF will filter the list down to just the "matches". The matching doesn't have to be exact. I find this is the only way to deal with the many dozens of projects and contexts that I have in OF.
__________________
Cheers,

Curt
 
 


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
OF tasks as Reminders instead of Calendar Events? oschultz OmniFocus 1 for Mac 1 2013-04-27 01:38 AM
Publishing Due Reminders as a calendar and Completed tasks events alexp OmniFocus 1 for Mac 1 2012-04-18 02:58 PM
Export tasks as all-day events? pooksat OmniPlan General 0 2010-11-17 01:48 PM
Convert iCal Events to OF Tasks? acollins OmniFocus 1 for Mac 0 2010-05-06 08:37 AM
Is there a way to get OF tasks that have Due Dates to appear in iCal as Events? martlume OmniFocus for iPhone 2 2009-01-13 03:30 PM


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 06:13 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.