Having just returned from a week long trip away from home, I spent the better part of the weekend getting caught up before returning to work today. And, as usual for me, last night I was thinking about how to best integrate my calendar with my task list on my Android phone. After having worked out a possible scheme involving Google Calendar, Toodledo, Got to Do (Android client) and Google Mail & Voice, I woke this morning to find out that Pocket Informant has released a beta of their program for Android. While still in the early stages, PIA (Pocket Informant Android) offers an integrated view of tasks (synching with Toodledo) and calendar (synching with Google Calendar). I wish I had known this earlier, as I could have had a better night of sleep. Instead, my mind was churning throughout the night as to how these programs could work together to meet my needs. Nonetheless, if you are using an Android device, you might want to check out Pocket Informant if you are looking for an Android PIM alternative.

--Ken

I've been using gTasks http://sites.google.com/site/ssi4and/home which syncs with Google Tasks. There are several things that I miss in the application, such as searching and filtering, but most are missing from Google Tasks itself anyway. See here http://lifehacker.com/5379607/gtasks-syncs-google-tasks-to-your-android-phone a review.

I took a look at other task managers syncing with online services, but most provide flat task lists, which I find completely useless (guess why I frequent this forum). Toodledo seems to offer task hierarchies along with several other goodies missing from Google Tasks. The ability of Pocket Informant to work with Toodledo thus seems very interesting to me. Thanks for the heads up!

I have been using Toodledo for over a year now, and while it is not perfect, it is a pretty good service. They developed their own client for the iPhone/iPod Touch which is not bad, and there is a thrid party application called "Got To Do" for the Android which I believe supports subtasks. There is a lite version of Got To Do that you can try at no charge. I have been using it for the past few months, and it seems fine. The only suggestion that i can make is to turn off any automatic synching. Toodledo's servers have been getting hit pretty hard at the assigned synching times, and this has caused a few problems. I prefer to synch manually, and have had no problems. Plus, its one less program draining my battery thorughout the day.

--Ken

Thanks, I'm checking out Got To Do. However, I noticed that Toodledo (Pro) can only handle three-level hierarchies, Folders, Tasks and Subtasks, i.e. no possibility to handle subtasks of subtasks. A brief look at my task list shows that I have several items with at least four levels.

I do not believe there are many on-line outlining/task programs which can sync with smartphone clients that support more than folder/top level/sub-task.

--Ken

Anything syncing with Google Tasks should be able to do it. (As far as I am aware, Google Tasks does not have limitations in the hierarchy levels).

Unfortunately, Google has not yet provided an official API for Tasks; as a result, it is neither easy or safe to develop for it as a platform. Gtasks for Android is OK for the moment as is GogTasks for Outlook http://www.gogtasks.com/google-tasks-outlook-sync.php (though the hierarchy of levels does not show up in the Outlook UI).

As it says in the GogTasks website "The application relies on the Google Tasks Web Service which is not publically supported (nor documented). This makes the application vulnerable to any change Google might do to this service. Theoretically, the application may stop functioning at any time if Google decides to restrict or shut down this service."

There is an overwhelming demand for a Google Tasks API http://code.google.com/a/google.com/p/apps-api-issues/issues/detail?id=985 and you can now vote for such a feature among others http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/help-us-improve-tasks.html

For the record, I seem to have settled on GQueues http://www.gqueues.com/ as my task manager of choice, for the moment at least. It sits atop the Google Apps framework, is well supported and continuously developed. There are still some important components missing, such as offline access (expected in the not so distant future) but I found it more powerful than any of the other services I tried.

That said, I should note that the main reason to choose it over other tools, especially non-web-based ones, is the convenience in sharing task lists (Queues) with members of my team.

Alexander,

GQueues looks like an appealing application. Can it print reports? Thanks.

Steve

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

For the record, I seem to have settled on GQueues http://www.gqueues.com/ as my task
manager of choice, for the moment at least. It sits atop the Google Apps framework, is
well supported and continuously developed. There are still some important
components missing, such as offline access (expected in the not so distant future)
but I found it more powerful than any of the other services I tried.

That said, I
should note that the main reason to choose it over other tools, especially
non-web-based ones, is the convenience in sharing task lists (Queues) with members
of my team.

Thanks for the recommendation, Alexander. Does anybody have any more information as to how this "sits atop the Google Apps framework"?

--Ken

GQueues can print task lists with various options, but including completed tasks is not (yet) one of them. Indeed there are still several important features missing.

Among other reasons I chose it: apparently unlimited levels of subtasks, assignable tasks and a kind of hoisting ("view item overview") allowing one to focus on a single task and its subtasks. Unfortunately, this very useful mode is as yet read-only.

There is an active forum under Google Groups.

Ken wrote:

Does anybody have any more information as to how this
"sits atop the Google Apps framework"?

Well, for one, if you have a Google Apps account and GQueues is enabled for your domain, all users will find GQueues in their More tab. Thereon, there's some tools like:

- Calendar integration: http://www.gqueues.com/help/calendarIntegration
- Gmail gadget: http://www.gqueues.com/help/gadget#gmail (create tasks straight from inside a message)

You'll find GQueues at the Google Apps marketplace http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace

Apart for integration, GQueues itself is built on the Google App Engine, for better or worse; see, for example https://groups.google.com/d/topic/gqueues/usr8quV9-4w/discussion

"Jorte" free w/o ads syncs google calendar & tasks

For reference, two updates on this discussion. I will also add some relevant info to a more recent thread.

- Gqueues has continued to develop rapidly and now has a very usable offline mobile version, among other improvements. It's not a native Android application, it's HTML5, but it works very well on Android.

- In the meantime, Google Tasks got an API http://code.google.com/apis/tasks/index.html which means that you can expect many programs to sync with it in the future