[policarpo]

Yeah it's a one way street.

I've since given up on using OF as a robust Sharing and Delegation app. We've managed to get a usable workflow setup at the office using a combination of BusyCal, iCal and Anxiety to share Tasks...but even then it's still a bit unstable since it requires me to manually sync to iCal any time I want to push or receive stuff.

Today we setup a server with TaskFreak and reskinned it. It's a PHP based Task Management tool that allows me to set up users and permissions. We can then set permissions on a Project or Task level. It also offers us the ability to post attachments and send out email blasts to specific users when new Tasks are assigned. But most of all what is nice is that we can store and manage the data locally on our own equipment.

I'm on this quest to get GTD working in our collaborative environment and keep the data all in-house. I don't want a Project Management tool to keep this all working, I just want my team to know what's on our plate at all times so they can focus, work, live and enjoy life ya know.

I'll keep using OF for my own stuff and rattling OG's fences until we can have a robust Sharing and Collaboration GTD app of our own.

- policarpo | CYA2GTD

[PadInTheBox]

I'm with you on this, this is a an app for personal use but even so I don't see how someone can manage every personal project without sometimes stumbling into a group task. For collaboration this is a no go. Very weird GTD app, even ToDo can do better at this, but Nozbe is probably the way to go now. Besides, no notification? How can I manage more than 100 projects without any sort of notification, should I keep opening and checking this app the whole day?

I am still hoping for a relevant update...

[hypotyposis]

Originally Posted by PadInTheBox

I'm with you on this, this is a an app for personal use but even so I don't see how someone can manage every personal project without sometimes stumbling into a group task. For collaboration this is a no go. Very weird GTD app, even ToDo can do better at this, but Nozbe is probably the way to go now. Besides, no notification? How can I manage more than 100 projects without any sort of notification, should I keep opening and checking this app the whole day?

I am still hoping for a relevant update...

At the risk of sounding like broken record, IMHO, what you guys seem to be looking for is not "strictly" GTD... E.g., DA's system works fine on just paper and pen with >100 projects...
Just to be clear: I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with your workflow or that GTD is the best thing since sliced bread (well, actually, for me it is, especially since I'm not a fan of sliced bread), simply that insofar as OF is designed to be GTD-specific, the delegation features you're talking about seem to be outside of the picture. [again, just my own understanding of the books etc.]

[PadInTheBox]

You wrong about the GTD, it is related to delegation of task and group management. Most web services if not all are mainly concerned about this. It doesn't even make any sense to talk about GTD on a business without a group collaboration service.

But at least I got the alarms working now with OF. But they could have made it simpler using a simple push notification, that is exactly what iPad's Calendar will do.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by PadInTheBox

But at least I got the alarms working now with OF. But they could have made it simpler using a simple push notification, that is exactly what iPad's Calendar will do.

If you aren't running iOS4, and don't have ubiquitous connectivity, you can't rely on push notifications. Probably 1/4 of all the devices in the field that could run OmniFocus fall into that category...that's one of the reasons why they did it with the calendar.

[hypotyposis]

Originally Posted by PadInTheBox

You wrong about the GTD, it is related to delegation of task and group management. Most web services if not all are mainly concerned about this. It doesn't even make any sense to talk about GTD on a business without a group collaboration service.

But at least I got the alarms working now with OF. But they could have made it simpler using a simple push notification, that is exactly what iPad's Calendar will do.

I didn't mean to say that GTD is not about task delegation and group management-sorry for any misunderstanding-I was trying to say that GTD is (a) tool agnostic and (b) limits/possibly does away with alerts, deadlines, etc., on stuff that are not actually "hard landscape". The review system instead gives (both individuals and teams) a different way of dealing with such stuff.
At the level of actions required of individuals that are not "hard scheduled", though, I think it makes sense that the individual enters them in his/her own system and doesn't have to deal with alerts/reminders/etc. sent by someone else–but that's just my own feeling. For my particular workflow, this would be particularly ineffective/adverse, since I juggle multiple responsibilities in very different horizons that are often mutually incompatible (I realise this is probably the case of most of us, but I want to emphasise that I'm only speaking for myself here). I wouldn't be fond of receiving alerts/reminders/etc. from another part of my "world" when I'm engaged in something else: GTD gives me the freedom to know (to paraphrase) that I'm doing what I want/need to be doing in that moment, with the peace of mind of a trusted system to keep me on track with all the rest of my commitments.

[PadInTheBox]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

If you aren't running iOS4, and don't have ubiquitous connectivity, you can't rely on push notifications. Probably 1/4 of all the devices in the field that could run OmniFocus fall into that category...that's one of the reasons why they did it with the calendar.

But again, the Calendar will solely rely on push notifications. You are taking pushing notifications for a 3G/WiFi synching feature only. But every single window popup you see being displayed in your iPad is called push notification. So these notifications (calendar ones included) are unrelated to your Internet connection, you could be lost in the middle of Sahara, they would still work.

[PadInTheBox]

Originally Posted by hypotyposis

I didn't mean to say that GTD is not about task delegation and group management-sorry for any misunderstanding-I was trying to say that GTD is (a) tool agnostic and (b) limits/possibly does away with alerts, deadlines, etc., on stuff that are not actually "hard landscape". The review system instead gives (both individuals and teams) a different way of dealing with such stuff.
At the level of actions required of individuals that are not "hard scheduled", though, I think it makes sense that the individual enters them in his/her own system and doesn't have to deal with alerts/reminders/etc. sent by someone else–but that's just my own feeling. For my particular workflow, this would be particularly ineffective/adverse, since I juggle multiple responsibilities in very different horizons that are often mutually incompatible (I realise this is probably the case of most of us, but I want to emphasise that I'm only speaking for myself here). I wouldn't be fond of receiving alerts/reminders/etc. from another part of my "world" when I'm engaged in something else: GTD gives me the freedom to know (to paraphrase) that I'm doing what I want/need to be doing in that moment, with the peace of mind of a trusted system to keep me on track with all the rest of my commitments.

If you feel like that, perhaps giving the choice of deciding which task or project should have an alarm would be better. This simple feature would please a wider range of consumers, professionals and business.

[hypotyposis]

Originally Posted by PadInTheBox

If you feel like that, perhaps giving the choice of deciding which task or project should have an alarm would be better. This simple feature would please a wider range of consumers, professionals and business.

Hmmm... well for my workflow in particular, I'm very satisfied with strictly using my calendar app for anything that has a particular schedule (including using all-day events to denote tasks that have to be done on a certain day). I'm pretty much not using due dates in OF.

[policarpo]

Well it would be ideally suited for my workflow needs.

Look, OG could just make the Sharing & Delegation feature a module they could charge us collaboratively based GTDers for. If you don't need it then you wouldn't have to be bothered by it.

Someone will create this feature for those of us who need to manage this stuff via a local server. Hell, I have emails off to the developers of Things, FireTask, Nozbe, RTM, and OG. There is a tremendous opportunity for them to offer this feature to potential enterprise corps as well as smaller teams who don't want their IP living somewhere in the cloud.

It's going to happen one way or the other and I would prefer it to be OmniFocus offering this feature to their userbase.