Taskline plus Close Contact

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Posted by Tumbleweed
Mar 13, 2023 at 01:58 PM

So I’ve been chasing closing flaws in my email/contact/CRM/meeting notes system. The goal is to have all these linked, such that one can see per contact all old email/meetings fast. And thus know immediately when the last contact was, get an overview, etc.

The best integrated software for this is EPIM. However, I have a lifetime license and in my numerous attempts it is has proven to be 1) unreliable with Exchange email and 2) unstable, ie. my latest database can’t even load without crashing. Obviously these are dealbreakers, so my metholdology has been to use:
Outlook + NEOPro - email and contacts
UltraRecall - Meetings, notes, webpages, research, file organization, scans, entries, code snippets, etc.
Watership Planner - Time mapping calendar for project planning and tasks

However, there are two problems with this system. First, Watership Planner is abandoned, although it still works for me. Second, there is no CRM element to get an overview of all touchpoints with a given contact. It can be built in UltraRecall for contacts/tasks but is not optimal as one needs to then go to NEOPro to cross-reference email.

Enter Taskline and Close Contact, both from ResultsWare. Taskline is an Outlook addin that does time blocking and task management. I’ve tried Taskline in the past, but preferred Watership Planner, due to the automated time mapping. However, the new vesion of Taskline has a lot of interested features, like separate times for categories (ie. Work, home, etc) so you can plan out projects that are professional and personal separately. I think it’s a winner and the yearly price is reasonable (yes, it’s subscription but at that price I’m not complaining).

Close Contact is another Outlook addin that allows items to attach to contacts, and also to view all items from a particular contact. Email is linked automatically. Instant CRM! Meeting and Phone calls can be created from a contact in Outlook using Journal entry, and you can then specify the type of touchpoint. This is a very fast and easy process. Also, when you look at a contact, you get a full screen where you can change columns - I’m using Subject, Received/End, and then Body Text for 70% of the view - and thus you can actually see immediately what the email is about. Even in EPIM you can’t figure out which of the huge number of email is the one you want easily.

I’m still testing these, but wow this gives the missing functionality Outlook needs! For me, Outlook is essential to make sure Exchange email is reliable (see EPIM), and thus my new setup will be:
Outlook (with Taskline and Close Contact) + NEOPro
UltraRecall - notes, webpages, research, file organization, scans, entries, code snippets, etc.

Later I’ll probably start using Obsidian for all the research items that might benefit from linking, while keeping UltraRecall to keep track of all the other items listed above.

Posted by Steve
Mar 14, 2023 at 02:29 PM

I’ve not had the need to work with Exchange Mail on my desktop. Since 2008, I’ve used Chaos Software’s Intellect https://www.chaossoftware.com/intellect.aspx .
It is extremely flexible, and very contact-centric. Tasks, calendar, email all link to contact(s).
For anyone who has contact type activities to manage, I’ve not found anything better.

Steve

Posted by Tumbleweed
Mar 15, 2023 at 03:58 PM

Thanks Steve. I looked at Chaos Intellect several times, but never fully tested it since my employer (a university) shut down IMAP email access, insisting on Exchange only. Hence, I couldn’t integrate it.

Hence I put my own company and personal emails on MS 365, which syncs the schedules with mobile. I’m a bit too far into my workflow to remove this dependency, unfortunately.

With Outlook and Taskline, even time blocking gets migrated into your mobile calendar, so all appts, tasks, time blocks, etc. can be easily viewed and moved from desktop to mobile and back. If your “stuck” in Outlook, these two addins provide very important functionality.

Posted by Franz Grieser
Mar 15, 2023 at 04:51 PM

Hi Tumbleweed.

How does syncing calendar appointments between Outlook/Taskline and an iPhone? I use the iCloud add-in in Outlook, and from time to time it duplicates appointments in Outlook and does not sync some appointments to the iPhone.

Thanks
Frnaz

Tumbleweed wrote:

>Thanks Steve. I looked at Chaos Intellect several times, but never fully
>tested it since my employer (a university) shut down IMAP email access,
>insisting on Exchange only. Hence, I couldn’t integrate it.
> >Hence I put my own company and personal emails on MS 365, which syncs
>the schedules with mobile. I’m a bit too far into my workflow to remove
>this dependency, unfortunately.
> >With Outlook and Taskline, even time blocking gets migrated into your
>mobile calendar, so all appts, tasks, time blocks, etc. can be easily
>viewed and moved from desktop to mobile and back. If your “stuck” in
>Outlook, these two addins provide very important functionality.

Posted by Tumbleweed
Mar 17, 2023 at 02:51 AM

Hi Franz,

Any 365 account (and maybe even Outlook.com email) can be added on Android and gives two-way email and calendar sync. I’m not sure if the same is true for iPhone but I would assume so.

I looked further at Chaos, and it offers sync (through Activesync ironically) for $99/year. Chaos Intellect looks interesting so I installed it again - however, I didn’t like some aspect such as projects that are not very useful.

I’m also going to continue using Watership Planner since I fortunately have an activated version that runs from the cloud. I have no idea what happened to the author, but the license server is likely down. It still works well for me, but when it ceases to function, I will switch to Taskline.

So for me, its:
Outlook + NEOPro (makes Outlook email work sooo much better)
CloseContact as an addin for Outlook which facilitates full history of Contacts’ email/calls/meetings in Journal
Watership planner for tasks/projects, still syncs to Outlook (Taskliner in the future)
UltraRecall for all other items (Notes, entries, scans, resources, webpages, etc) - Also can sync Contacts/Journal, etc. to/from Outlook if needed.

Everything is quite Outlook-centric at the moment. I will probably migrate to Obsidian when I can spare time to learn it properly.

Franz Grieser wrote:
Hi Tumbleweed.
> >How does syncing calendar appointments between Outlook/Taskline and an
>iPhone? I use the iCloud add-in in Outlook, and from time to time it
>duplicates appointments in Outlook and does not sync some appointments
>to the iPhone.
> >Thanks
>Frnaz
>

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