[endoftheQ]

I would be interested to learn how other Members 'delegate' actions to other individuals. I enter, on average, 200+ actions a day, of which probably 80%+ can be delegated to someone else. I normally wait until I have access to OmniFocus on my desktop and use drag-and-drop before dealing with these items. OK, I obviously would like some kind of 'share' facility within the App or the desktop program but any suggestions or experience by other Members on how best I could manage this would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

[CatOne]

Yeah, I think OF is the wrong tool for the job here. It is not a multi-user collaboration tool at present and if you're delegating 160 tasks a day it's probably best if you can directly assign tasks.

[endoftheQ]

Originally Posted by CatOne

Yeah, I think OF is the wrong tool for the job here. It is not a multi-user collaboration tool at present and if you're delegating 160 tasks a day it's probably best if you can directly assign tasks.

I appreciate what you're saying CatOne. However, OmniFocus adds immense value to our workflow and I can't think of any other product that would do a better job.

OK, it isn't the end of the world that we have to wait until we're at our desktops to assign actions to each other manually via OmniOutliner, I was just wondering if anyone else had come up with any kind of workaround.

I did trawl the board before posting, noting that some users have succeeded in setting up shared databases, but other Members seem to think this isn't without significant risk. I'd be interested in the pros-and-cons.

In the past, we've tried emailing tasks into each others desktop OmniFocus program using the Mail rule, but found it unreliable, even ensuring that the email doesn't have any form of attachment still doesn't seem to guarantee that it will be successfully processed.

[whpalmer4]

The presence of an attachment isn't the only way the process can get tripped up. If the message is attachment-free, but not plain text, it also won't work. Some mail programs are all too happy to apply styling to the text you send.

[endoftheQ]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

The presence of an attachment isn't the only way the process can get tripped up. If the message is attachment-free, but not plain text, it also won't work. Some mail programs are all too happy to apply styling to the text you send.

Thanks whpalmer4. I spent hours scratching my head trying to figure out why forwarded emails didn't get added, even though they appeared to be just plain text! Apple's email App on the iPhone must be applying some form of styling to the original text in a forwarded message.

I'm now wondering if it would be possible to modify the bookmarklet script to work with emails, as a way to delegate tasks to other OmniFocus iPhone users.

[curt.clifton]

Originally Posted by endoftheQ

Thanks whpalmer4. I spent hours scratching my head trying to figure out why forwarded emails didn't get added, even though they appeared to be just plain text! Apple's email App on the iPhone must be applying some form of styling to the original text in a forwarded message.

The other way that the forwarded emails can fail to get added is if the desktop mail client isn't the first mail client to touch them. For example, suppose you send an email from an iPhone to an account that is read on both the iPhone and the desktop. Suppose you have that desktop machine set up to suck emails into OmniFocus. My experience is that the email won't make it to OF, because the iPhone touches the incoming message first and that prevents the script from running for the incoming message on the desktop.

It seems like the reliable solution is to ensure only plain-text messages, sent to an account that is only read on the desktop.

[JohnJ80]

Originally Posted by CatOne

Yeah, I think OF is the wrong tool for the job here. It is not a multi-user collaboration tool at present and if you're delegating 160 tasks a day it's probably best if you can directly assign tasks.

Delegating doesn't necessarily imply multi-user collaboration. The whole idea of delegating implies assigning a task and then following up to see it is completed with a subordinate.

I'd be happy if I could email an action to a subordinate. Be nice too if one could assign a contact from the addressbook to a context or an email to the context that would be used to populate the email that OF for iPhone could create.

Right now i do this on OF for Mac where I've written a script that emails a task to a person (creates a new email in Mail). When the email is sent, a notation is placed in the notes field. When they reply, I have it go into a smart mailbox so I can see what the reply is.

I've been dying to have the ability to email an action right out of OF for iPhone. Presently you can do this with Things, Appigo's ToDo and, I would presume, others. With in app email capability since iOS 3, and since many applications do this, I'd really like to see Omni jump on this one.

J.

[endoftheQ]

Originally Posted by JohnJ80

Delegating doesn't necessarily imply multi-user collaboration. The whole idea of delegating implies assigning a task and then following up to see it is completed with a subordinate.

I'd be happy if I could email an action to a subordinate. Be nice too if one could assign a contact from the addressbook to a context or an email to the context that would be used to populate the email that OF for iPhone could create.

Right now i do this on OF for Mac where I've written a script that emails a task to a person (creates a new email in Mail). When the email is sent, a notation is placed in the notes field. When they reply, I have it go into a smart mailbox so I can see what the reply is.

I've been dying to have the ability to email an action right out of OF for iPhone. Presently you can do this with Things, Appigo's ToDo and, I would presume, others. With in app email capability since iOS 3, and since many applications do this, I'd really like to see Omni jump on this one.

J.

JohnJ80,

Thank you for taking the time-and-trouble to respond.

I have examined other To Do/GTD products but none offer the industrial strength that OmniFocus has as its core feature. That doesn't stop me getting a touch of the green-eyed monsters at some of the import/export options that other Apps and their desktop equivalents currently offer.

I'd like to ask if you'd be willing to share your script with other users? Just for myself, although I'm guessing it would be true for most of my colleagues, it would be genuinely appreciated.

Thanks.

[JohnJ80]

Originally Posted by endoftheQ

JohnJ80,

Thank you for taking the time-and-trouble to respond.

I have examined other To Do/GTD products but none offer the industrial strength that OmniFocus has as its core feature. That doesn't stop me getting a touch of the green-eyed monsters at some of the import/export options that other Apps and their desktop equivalents currently offer.

I'd like to ask if you'd be willing to share your script with other users? Just for myself, although I'm guessing it would be true for most of my colleagues, it would be genuinely appreciated.

Thanks.

Sure. Here it is:

tell front document of application "OmniFocus"
-- get the window the user is using
set |w| to first document window whose index is 1
-- find out where we are and if there's anything we can do

set theItems to selected trees of content of |w|

-- Detect common failure modes and explain

if ((count of theItems) is 0) then
display alert ¬
"Select an action to " & toolName message "You have not selected an action"
return
end if

if ((count of theItems) is greater than 1) then
display alert ¬
"Select just one action to " & toolName message "You have selected more than one item, please select just one"
return
end if

set selectedItem to value of item 1 of theItems

if ((class of selectedItem) is inbox task) then
display alert ¬
"Sorry, action not supported" message "Actions in inbox do not reveal their projects in version " & toolVersion & " of " & toolName
return
end if


if ((class of selectedItem) is not task) then
display alert ¬
"Select an action to email." & "You have selected something that isn't a single action"
return
end if

try
set _dueDate to (get due date of selectedItem as date)
on error
set _dueDate to "None"
end try


try
set _note to (get note of selectedItem)
on error
set _note to ""
end try


try
set _project to the name of (get containing project of selectedItem)
on error
set _project to "None"
end try

try
set _context to the name of (get context of selectedItem)
on error
set _contexct to "None"
end try


try
set _subject to the name of selectedItem
on error
set _subject to "No Subject"
end try



set _body to "Action Item: " & _subject & return
set _body to _body & "Date Due: " & _dueDate & return
set _body to _body & "Project: " & _project & return
set _body to _body & "Context: " & _context & return

set note of selectedItem to ((current date) as string) & " " & "sent followup up email " & return & _note


end tell


tell application "Mail"
set _signature to content of signature 1
set _body to _body & return & _signature
set _id to (get id of (make new outgoing message with properties {subject:"Followup on Action Request:" & _subject, content:_body}))
activate
set win_index to (get index of front window)
set visible of outgoing message 1 to true
end tell

Some of this has been shamelessly copied from other scripts. I apologize for not keeping the author's information available. I also accept no responsiblity that this will work properly, as described or not do heinous damage to your system (in other words, you are on your own with this).

I set this up so it is in the Applecripts menu for Omnifocus. It creates an email with the subject "Followup on Action Request:" I use this to capture the response from a subordinate in a smart mailbox in mail.

I then also have another script that gets the last sent email from my sent items, creates a link which I can then paste into the note field. Clicking this link takes me to the email that was sent.

J.