[kadso]

Ok, so I have been a long time viewer of the Omni ecosystem development. To me, it looks like the OmniFocus for Mac > OmniFocus for iPhone system is getting to an very interesting and usable place. The reason is because it appears I don't have to walk away from Apple's iCloud system and all its benefits (Siri, sharing with others (personal and biz) who may not be so twisted when it comes to task management as me.

But I am at a loss as how to get my iCloud based tasks into OmniFocus for the Mac. I use BusyCal for my iCloud based events. I too, like others on this forum, endorse BusyCal's event management, but I need the high powered octane that comes with OmniFocus.

So the recent Siri developments got me interested, but before I go to the iPhone app, I want to establish Omnifocus for the Mac before I go with it on the iPhone, but for the life of me, I don't know:

1) Does tasks on OmniFocus for the Mac sync with iCloud reminders. BusyCall does this very well on the events side. OmniFocus on the iPhone looks to have worked out a very nice back and forth between it and iCloud...

2) How do I get my iCloud based tasks into OmniFocus for the Mac?

3) Do the iCloud based tasks map to Context(s) or Projects? If I read the material right, it appears to be Contexts. If so, someone please explain to me why? In may view I can understand a iCloud calendar used for a project's events (and tasks) as being pretty straight-forward, as I would understand if OmniFocus also mapped projects to iCloud calendars.

But I'm missing the mapping to context mapping. How would that work? Say I have 5 project calendars on iCloud already, do they all map to a single context? If so, how to connect to similar named projects in OmniFocus for the Mac?

[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by kadso

1) Does tasks on OmniFocus for the Mac sync with iCloud reminders. BusyCall does this very well on the events side. OmniFocus on the iPhone looks to have worked out a very nice back and forth between it and iCloud...

It's not a two-way sync: OmniFocus for iPhone can capture reminders from iCloud, moving them into your OmniFocus database (where they get synced with the Mac) and removing them from the iCloud. This makes iCloud another route to adding stuff to your Inbox (specifically designed for capturing reminders from Siri), but the only reason it works well is because it's limited to capturing tasks, not publishing or syncing them.

(The problem with publishing or syncing OmniFocus tasks with other systems is that OmniFocus has a lot of task attributes which those other systems don't understand. Other systems therefore end up corrupting those tasks, ruining the ability to treat OmniFocus as a trusted system. It also causes problems like receiving redundant reminders from those other systems.)

2) How do I get my iCloud based tasks into OmniFocus for the Mac?

You can't. If you ask Siri on your iPhone to remind you to do something at a particular time or place, we want to make sure you get reminded by your iPhone. We don't want to capture the task on another device, because if you forget to launch your iPhone copy of OmniFocus it won't have synced and thus won't know to give you the reminder at the appropriate time.

The model right now is that adding a reminder with Siri will leave the reminder in iCloud until you launch OmniFocus for iPhone; once you launch, it will capture the task, schedule its own reminder in OmniFocus, and remove the now-redundant iCloud copy.

3) Do the iCloud based tasks map to Context(s) or Projects? If I read the material right, it appears to be Contexts. If so, someone please explain to me why? In may view I can understand a iCloud calendar used for a project's events (and tasks) as being pretty straight-forward, as I would understand if OmniFocus also mapped projects to iCloud calendars.

As noted above, iCloud capture is designed as an alternate mechanism to add a new item to your OmniFocus Inbox. OmniFocus will only try to capture from a single iCloud calendar (the default "Reminders", or its own exclusive "OmniFocus" calendar), so you can still create and use other iCloud calendars for other things.

Speech recognition isn't 100% (even when dictating to a human): capturing a reminder to your OmniFocus Inbox gives you the opportunity to review your task to make sure it says what you want (e.g., if you're following the GTD model, that it's small enough and has enough detail to be actionable).

Siri can only assign a few attributes to a reminder: a title, and either a time or place to remind you about it. If a reminder has a time-based reminder, we map that to a due date so you'll get a due notification from OmniFocus at that time. If a reminder has a location-based reminder, we'll look for an OmniFocus context with a matching reminder and assign it to that—again, making sure you'll get a notification from OmniFocus at the same time and place as you would have received it from the Reminders app. If we can't find a matching notification in OmniFocus, we'll leave the reminder in iCloud and won't capture it at all: our overriding goal is to make sure you always get the reminder you asked for at the appropriate time and place, even if that means it doesn't move into OmniFocus.

Hope this helps!

[kadso]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

You can't. If you ask Siri on your iPhone to remind you to do something at a particular time or place, we want to make sure you get reminded by your iPhone. We don't want to capture the task on another device, because if you forget to launch your iPhone copy of OmniFocus it won't have synced and thus won't know to give you the reminder at the appropriate time.


Hope this helps!

Ken, an excellent coherent explanation of a complicated situation. Thank you for the effort.

I understand the logic behind Omni's limited Siri interaction and the avoidance continuous sync with other systems. I have developed a 'hyper-jump' strategy as my project/task management needs have evolved. This is where I use whatever state of Apple's task management capabilities as 'home base' and hyper jump into different CRM/project management/task & event management systems, both completely closed gardens, like Daylite and collaborating gardens like the MailTags > OmniFocus > BusyCal, of whom I am lobbing heavily to improve their OmniFocus interaction capabilities a.k.a. Mailtags.

Having developed a certain level of import/export, data in data out management capabilities via my hyper-jumping, I am now pressuring testing a task management hyper-jump from BusyCal to OmniFocus, where I retain BusyCal's excellent calendaring capabilities. I'm near the final iteration of this process now. below is the following steps I am contemplating to make this hyper-jump.

[For the record, I do not recommend this for anyone else. My business is growing where I need more linking and project management that BusyCal can offer at the moment, and I don't like walled gardens.]

So here is an outline of making the hyper-jump from iCloud's Reminders to OmniFocus on the Mac.

Steps to exchange task data between OmniFocus and the iCloud ecosystem:


1) Manually input projects & contexts to match iCloud Reminder calendars “H-KWS”, etc

2) Manually export Reminder calendars out of iCloud

3) Manually import Reminder calendars into iCal on my Mac.

4) Manually drag to match identically named OmniFocus context to OnMyMac calendars in Omnifocus iCal Preferences found in OmniFocus > Preferences.

5) Sync (Option + Command + S) OnMyMac Calendars to OmniFocus contexts.

6) Context by context, manually bulk edit Context to Project named identical to iCal calendar. Thus making the transfer from project oriented iCloud calendars to OmniFocus projects.

7) Complete GTD transfer by assigning GTD contexts to items, rather than keeping them assigned to the old iCloud calendar contexts that are no longer relevant.

8) If a some point in the future use needs to move all reminders back to include, they can reverse the above process.

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